How to create art in SL; or, Clueless Newbie Question

Hi everyone! I hope this is the right place to ask this question.

In First Life I play around with digital art, ranging from digital photography to creating digital art and animated .gifs in Paint Shop Pro.

I'm interested in creating wall art in SL for sale (also for free to say "thanks" for all the freebies I've gotten in my first week in SL).

- How exactly are the wall-art pieces (posters, paintings) in SL created? Do I just create a prim of the right size and shape (say, a large, thin square) and upload my art as a texture and then put the texture on the art?
- If so, is there an ideal size or resolution I should create the original art in on my computer for best effect?
- I assume I can then, if I wish, create a prim frame around it?
- Do I just then (after setting up a store or renting space in a gallery) offer the whole object for sale or for free?
- Do I need to add some kind of a script to make the thing "wall-hangable"? (I would assume if I created 3D sculptures I would not need to do anything special as owners would place the object where they wanted it - but can you place something on a wall?).

Sorry for so many questions but I am so excited by the possibilities. Thanks in advance for any advice.

Ronnie

Hi Ronnie. Welcome to SL.


You got it.


Height and width must be measurable in powers of two for OpenGL. Second Life accepts measurements (in pixels) of 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048.

For everyone's sake, always go as small as possible. The biggest reason SL is as slow as it is is that most people don't bother to optimize their texture sizes, and as a result there's typically gigabytes worth of texture data in view, while most video cards can only handle up to a few hundred megabytes. I usually recommend to people to keep about 80% of your textures at 256x256 or smaller, about 15% at 512x512, and about 5% at 1024x1024 or larger. (Note that when I say something like "512x512", I'm talking about the total number of pixels, not necessarily a perfect 512 square. Memory-wise, 256x1024 or 128x2048 is the same thing as 512x512.)


Sure, or you can paint the frame as part of the same texture, and do the whole thing with one prim.


Your choice. If you want to give it away free, then do so. If you think it's worth money, and you think people will buy it, charge for it.


Nope. Objects will stay wherever they're put (unless physics are applied, which the user would have to do on purpose). SL has no idea what "wall-hangable" means. It doesn't even know what a wall is. All it knows is objects and coordinates. Once you tell it "put MyCube at location <23, 46, 12>," that's where it stays until you tell it something else. (By "tell", I'm speaking metaphorically. Literally, I simply mean place the object where you want it.)


No need to be sorry. Ask away. That's the way to learn. You'll find that SL people are generally very friendly, and most are usually happy to help.

They were made just as you describe.


It is best to use 512x512 tga files or smaller (256x256, 128x12. Do the reduction in your graphics program and sharpen them a bit before uploading to get the best results. Oh, and for a reason upon which I'm not clear, 300 dpi seems to be the best setting. If someone knows why, I'd love to be taught the reason.


Oh, complex! Be sure you understand permissions. For art have bought, I have seen mod/no copy/transfer. This keeps your art under reasonable copy control, while allowing the new owner to resize it or resell it. Of course, if you like your sizing, you could make it no-mod/no-copy/transfer which is the reality of most art in real life, for the typical owner.

One thing you should be aware of for the art you display is that people can freely photograph it. A solution to this, but a very unsatisfactory one, is to do this: your for sale art object/painting should be an object within your display object. Then the displayed texture on the object that is selling its contents should be of a lesser resolution. Then set the object that is displaying your art to sell its contents, which should be a no-mod/no-copy/transfererable art object. As you can tell, this means that the art you display for sale is an inferior copy of the original. More annoying is that people can photograph your art in someone's home. However, the creator identity is lost in all these hypothetical photographic thefts of your art. It is your signature, in effect, the creator identity that SL assigns to an object, texture, or clothing. It can be forged, I assume, but not easily for most people.

There is an art community in world which will have some strong opinions on what I've said, which are the views of an art buyer who likes to see the creators of the art she owns be properly compensated for their work.


No script is needed. Set your object that is for sale to sell a copy. This is done in the General tab of the object edit window. The new owner can rezz your object on a wall, then rotate it as needed and position it with any permission set you give the object.



Your questions are good ones!

I simply can't thank you both enough for your **fast**, **detailed** answers to ALL my questions! I couldn't have asked for better or clearer explanations. Thanks again!! I can't wait to get started.

Ronnie