Yesterday was the class about Lighting in SLphotography i hosted at Orange Island. Was a great experience (actually the first class i hosted ever).

Below you will find a movie of the slideshow i used in the class and a transcription (thanks to Fab Outlander).

Thanks to all the people who came, to the friends that tried to came but was impossible and to the Orange Island team

[12:31] Raul Crimson: hello, I’m Raul Crimson
[12:32] Raul Crimson: i was born in Oct 2006
[12:32] Raul Crimson: since some more of a year ago
[12:32] Raul Crimson: i enjoy taking pics in SL
[12:32] Raul Crimson: specially interested in the possibilities of expression
[12:32] Raul Crimson: to show your dreams and fears
[12:33] Raul Crimson: maybe that’s what SL is about
[12:34] Raul Crimson: This is supposed to be a relaxed class, so if you have a question just ask, pls
[12:34] Raul Crimson: what is lighting for? well, what is photography for?
[12:34] Raul Crimson: light and shadows can help you to express
[12:35] Raul Crimson: to remark a part of an image
[12:35] Raul Crimson: to tell a story
[12:35] Raul Crimson: also it can add some realism
[12:35] Raul Crimson: or dreamness to an image
[12:36] Raul Crimson: There are some tools in SLlighting
[12:36] Raul Crimson: i will talk more about the SLtools
[12:36] Raul Crimson: than the Image Edition software

Prim Light
[12:37] Raul Crimson: the first tool in what we can call “Prim light”
[12:37] Raul Crimson: or light generated by objects
[12:37] Raul Crimson: is easy to make, and cheap
[12:37] Raul Crimson: you can make it yourself
[12:38] Raul Crimson: is as easy as to create an object, go to “features” tab
[12:38] Raul Crimson: and edit Colour, intensity, radius and falloff
[12:38] Raul Crimson: until it matches your needs
[12:39] Raul Crimson: it can be better if you use an alpha txture in the object
[12:39] Raul Crimson: this way it will be invisible
[12:39] Raul Crimson: and you can place it anywhere in the space
[12:39] Raul Crimson: without disturbing your view
[12:40] Raul Crimson: at the end of the class i will rezz an object where you will find an alpha texture in case you don’t have one
[12:40] Raul Crimson: after rezzing it just place it where you want
[12:40] Khamudy Mannonen: There’s a default transparency texture in the Library folder now, just fyi.
[12:41] Raul Crimson: oh, thanks, Kham
[12:41] Raul Crimson: is very useful to light up a face in a portrait
[12:41] Raul Crimson: even to create some “chiaroscuro” contrast
[12:41] Raul Crimson: or to light a part in the background
[12:42] Raul Crimson: i recommend to use it in night or sunset conditions
[12:42] Raul Crimson: even is good in any condition to “hide” shadows if you want a clear pic
[12:43] Raul Crimson: remember some limitation
[12:43] Raul Crimson: you just can see 6 lights coming from objects at the same time
[12:43] Raul Crimson: that’s important
[12:44] Raul Crimson: some people uses facelights (attached light prims)
[12:44] Raul Crimson: with 4, 5 or more light objects
[12:44] Raul Crimson: that’s just not good
[12:44] Raul Crimson: first, they are losing some light effects around
[12:45] Raul Crimson: and they are making the rest losing some light effects too
[12:45] Raul Crimson: also prim attachments use to react in a different way than the avatar body
[12:45] Raul Crimson: they use to look more “lighted”
[12:46] Raul Crimson: that’s specially important in nude shots (and prim genitalia), prim skirts, some shoes….
[12:46] Raul Crimson: here you are some examples of the use of prim lights
[12:47] Raul Crimson: in the upper image each model is lighted with a different object
[12:47] Raul Crimson: giving contrast of light and shadows and focusing the attention over the faces and expressions

What do you about anti-aliasing? (from Kippie Friedkin)
[12:53] Raul Crimson: ok, first one then the other, hehe
[12:54] Raul Crimson: about anti aliasing, well, it can be useful, but not everybody has a good videocard
[12:54] Raul Crimson: and personally i have prblems with antialiasing lately
[12:54] Raul Crimson: specially in RC10
[12:54] Kippie Friedkin: me too…it chokes the RC
[12:54] Raul Crimson: right
[12:54] Tara Yeats: camhide
[12:55] Tara Yeats: camprev
[12:55] Raul Crimson: is a “test software”
[12:55] Kippie Friedkin: So do you just clean things up in Photoshop, or is there another trick?
[12:55] Tenebrous Pau: also, you can use Advanced / Hires snapshots to disk, to save the snapshot twice as big… then use your editing tool to shrink – most can do bicubic or other resizing which ends up looking like antialiasing anyway
[12:55] Khamudy Mannonen: Sometimes it’s better to use the forced override on your hardware, I find. Although it really depends on the video card and whether SL is behaving.
[12:56] Raul Crimson: well, what i do is to use Photoshop, Gausian Blur to “emulate” anti aliasing
[12:56] Tenebrous Pau: same here sometimes
[12:56] Kippie Friedkin: Cool….that helps. Thanks!

When you mentioned that prims reflect light differently, do they tend to react in one specific way?
(from Dakota Blackmountain)
[12:56] Raul Crimson: well, an attachment is not “part of your body”
[12:57] Raul Crimson: is an object attached, then the light reacts on it
[12:57] Raul Crimson: just as it was rezzed there, in that position, not attached
[12:57] Raul Crimson: if you have a light object near your face, for example
[12:57] Raul Crimson: your face will be clear and lighted
[12:58] Raul Crimson: and the light will fade softly to the bottom of your body
[12:58] Raul Crimson: i mean the down part
[12:58] Raul Crimson: a skirt will be highly enlighted
[12:59] Raul Crimson: becase is near the light emitter
[12:59] Raul Crimson: and it won’t match the light fading on your avatar body
[12:59] Raul Crimson: a trick can be to set the intensity if the light lower
[13:00] Raul Crimson: this way it will look more natural
[13:00] Raul Crimson: shall we go to Windlight?

Windlight and environment editor
[13:01] Raul Crimson: well, Windlight… I’m a fan of it
[13:01] Raul Crimson: as i was saying, to arrive to the Environmental Editor
[13:01] Raul Crimson: follow the instructions in the image
[13:02] Raul Crimson: go to the menu World > Environmental Settings > Environment Editor
[13:02] Raul Crimson: we are talking about light
[13:03] Raul Crimson: so the best of Windlight is the use of sunlight
[13:03] Raul Crimson: to control it go to Sky Settings there
[13:03] Raul Crimson: Lighting Tab
[13:03] Raul Crimson: There you will find all the controls
[13:03] Raul Crimson: Sun/Moon Color and Ambient
[13:04] Raul Crimson: controls the colour of the light
[13:04] Raul Crimson: the sun or the general light
[13:04] Raul Crimson: scene gamma gives some misty clearness to the image
[13:04] Raul Crimson: and reduces contrast
[13:05] Raul Crimson: if you set it high
[13:05] Raul Crimson: Sun/moon position moves the sun “up and down”
[13:05] Raul Crimson: from sunrise to sunset
[13:05] Raul Crimson: East angle moves the sun horizontally
[13:06] Raul Crimson: so, controling this you can place the sun where you want
[13:06] Raul Crimson: changing the colour, intensity and position of light
[13:07] Raul Crimson: Windlight is great for general lighting and for backgrounds
[13:07] Raul Crimson: you can control all the environment, from a misty day, to an alien world
[13:07] Raul Crimson: the “bad part” about it is

Hardware Requirements
[13:08] Raul Crimson: Windlight doesn’t work fully with Intel integrated video cards
[13:09] Raul Crimson: and has some problems with some ATI Radeon cards
[13:09] Kali Meads: can i ask whats the best on to use
[13:09] Kali Meads: is it ividea?
[13:09] Kali Meads: nividea even
[13:09] Raul Crimson: well, the best is Nvidea 8000 series
[13:10] Dakota Blackmountain cheers
[13:10] Raul Crimson: now some people is working on dinamic shadows
[13:10] Raul Crimson: dynamic
[13:10] Raul Crimson: however
[13:10] Raul Crimson: but you will need Nvidea 8000 for that
[13:10] Raul Crimson: btw, that’s not my video card
[13:11] Raul Crimson: also there is some small problems with hi-res pics
[13:12] Raul Crimson: the way SLclient takes a hi-res pic is dividing the screen in 4 or 6 areas
[13:12] Raul Crimson: taking 4 or 6 snapshots and joining them
[13:12] Raul Crimson: well, is something like that
[13:12] Raul Crimson: if the clouds are moving
[13:12] Raul Crimson: as the reflexion in water
[13:13] Raul Crimson: the small delay between that minisnapshots
[13:13] Tenebrous Pau has the shadow viewer
[13:13] Raul Crimson: will cause to appear some “lines”
[13:13] Raul Crimson: as i sais, specially on water reflexions and moving clouds
[13:14] Raul Crimson: well, i tried different setting, but always have the problems just on hi-res snapshots
[13:14] Raul Crimson: not on normal ones
[13:14] Raul Crimson: so… am i the only one?
[13:14] Raul Crimson: that has this issue
[13:14] Raul Crimson runs to the JIRA then
[13:14] Dakota Blackmountain: I didn’t even know you could take high-res snapshots
[13:15] Dakota Blackmountain blushes
[13:15] Tenebrous Pau: i believe hi-res snapshots might disappear when the shadow viewer comes along, but thats a LONG way off yet
[13:15] Dingo Utorid: I have that problem too
[13:15] Callipygian Christensen: I know a number of people who experience that Raul..you are not alone
[13:15] Raul Crimson: nuuu, i want my hi-res!!
[13:15] Tenebrous Pau: hopefully they’ll put something better in its place raul
[13:15] Raul Crimson: i hope so, Tene
[13:16] Raul Crimson: well, here you are some examples (when they rezz for all)
[13:16] Raul Crimson: i choose this two images as examples of a dreamy and a realistic pic
[13:17] Raul Crimson: in the upper one i moved the sun to have the higher contrast possible
[13:17] Raul Crimson: and yes, i had the lines, but are behind the avatar
[13:18] Raul Crimson: in the bottom one (omg, i have a fixation with bottoms)
[13:18] Dakota Blackmountain: lol
[13:18] Eves Rodenberger: LOL
[13:18] Kali Meads smiles
[13:18] Raul Crimson: i used a “natural” sun
[13:18] Raul Crimson: as natural as possible
[13:19] Raul Crimson: remember that it depends on your preferences to see prim light or windlight
[13:20] Raul Crimson: and have activated all the “Shaders” options
[13:20] Raul Crimson: to have full Windlight
[13:20] Tenebrous Pau gets pushed to the side as Dakota’s inventory starts bulging with 25mb hi-res screenshots

Photo editing
[13:21] Raul Crimson: Outside Second Life you can use also some Image editors like Photoshop or others
[13:22] Tenebrous Pau: The GIMP is quite popular as well, it’s free
[13:22] Raul Crimson: i won’t talk too much about them, because first, not everybody has them
[13:22] Raul Crimson: second, they all work in different ways
[13:22] Raul Crimson: and, well, Photoshop (or whatever) is just a tool
[13:23] Dakota Blackmountain: Flickr has a basic in-built one now that’s quite simple and Torley Linden has a video about it on his blog
[13:23] Raul Crimson: right, Dakota
[13:23] Raul Crimson: i just would like to comment some considerations about them
[13:24] Raul Crimson: the work with Layers is important for lighting
[13:24] Raul Crimson: you can use them to create sensation of “deep”
[13:24] Raul Crimson: lighting them in different ways
[13:25] Raul Crimson: Some filters, like “lighting effects” can help
[13:25] Raul Crimson: as Fusion effects between layers to create shadows
[13:26] Raul Crimson: here are some examples, the upper one is a work on layers, giving a stonger light to the background
[13:26] Raul Crimson: this way the attention goes to the main subject
[13:26] Raul Crimson: or who i want to be the main subject
[13:27] Raul Crimson: the image in the bottom (again) is also a work of layers
[13:27] Raul Crimson: a layes of just the hand was used to “generate” a shadow in the face
[13:27] Raul Crimson: any question about Windlight?
[13:28] Raul Crimson: or PS?

Have you found any change in how windlight affects things like face lights? I find windlight seems very bright at times. (from Elle Connaught)
[13:28] Raul Crimson: right, Elle
[13:29] Raul Crimson: Windlight can make an image look “Burned”
[13:29] Raul Crimson: in this case is better you go to Lighting in Advanced Sky
[13:29] Raul Crimson: and set a bit lower the intensity of Sun light or ambient light
[13:30] Raul Crimson: also changing a bit the position of the sun can help

Do you have any tips for those who cannot use windlight fully ? (from Eves Rodenberger)
[13:31] Raul Crimson: well, in this case the use of prim light and photoshop
[13:31] Raul Crimson: or any image editor
[13:31] Raul Crimson: but, anyway, the tool is not the important in a pic
[13:31] Kali Meads: if you want skies like windlight
[13:32] Kali Meads: you can download vue infinite
[13:32] Kali Meads: public learning additon
[13:32] Raul Crimson listens to Kali
[13:32] Kali Meads: for free
[13:32] Kali Meads: and its a cgi programme
[13:32] Eves Rodenberger: ohhh … were is that ?
[13:32] Kali Meads: the full prog costs loads
[13:32] Kali Meads: but the ple is free
[13:32] Kali Meads: search ou vue infinite
[13:32] Kali Meads: is makes more skies than sl
[13:32] Kali Meads: maybe a little laggy
[13:33] Raul Crimson: good! thanks for sharing, Kali
[13:33] Kali Meads: and any oimages over a certain ratio are
[13:33] Raul Crimson: well, Windlight is a bit laggy too
[13:33] Kali Meads: watermarked
[13:33] Kali Meads: but it rocks
[13:33] Kali Meads: if you need help with im me
[13:34] Raul Crimson: some last comments
[13:34] Raul Crimson: mix techniques
[13:34] Raul Crimson: the results will be better
[13:34] Raul Crimson: try, try and try
[13:34] Raul Crimson: try different settings
[13:34] Raul Crimson: different angles
[13:35] Raul Crimson: play with the slides
[13:35] Raul Crimson: save your fav settings
[13:35] Raul Crimson: you can always take a new pic
[13:35] Raul Crimson: or even

Windlight fav settings
[13:35] Raul Crimson: undo is the best way to learn
[13:35] Raul Crimson: and over all, share your knowledge
[13:36] Raul Crimson: share with friends your windlight settings
[13:36] Kali Meads: erm i heard rumour hat
[13:36] Raul Crimson: they are saved in a XML file in your computer
[13:36] Kali Meads: you may be able to buy windlight settings soon
[13:36] Kali Meads: is that true?
[13:37] Raul Crimson: yes, Torley said that some time ago
[13:37] Raul Crimson: to have Windlight settings as an inventry object
[13:37] Raul Crimson: inventory
[13:37] Raul Crimson: like clothing
[13:37] Raul Crimson: or shapes
[13:37] Raul Crimson: this way will be able to be sold or given
[13:38] Raul Crimson: but now you can copy the XML file on your computer
[13:38] Tenebrous Pau: they discussed it at their discussion on monday, about also having windlight settings per region
[13:38] Dakota Blackmountain: Where is this XML file?
[13:38] Raul Crimson: and sharing by email or by a hosting
[13:38] Raul Crimson: well, i have a Mac and is diffetent than Windows
[13:38] Kali Meads: how do you download em into sl through the secondlife software?
[13:38] Raul Crimson: but let me give you a URL
[13:39] Raul Crimson: where i share some settings
[13:39] Raul Crimson: this way you will know where they are
[13:39] Raul Crimson: windlight-settings-so-fun-to-play-with-them
[13:39] Kali Meads cant believe that people will soon sell skies faints
[13:40] Raul Crimson: also Torley is sharing some GREAT setting here

[13:40] Raul Crimson: Thanks for coming, friends
[13:41] Raul Crimson: now Nick Rhodes will come here to give you some more info
[13:41] Kali Meads: ty so much raul it was very informative
[13:41] Dakota Blackmountain: Thanks Raul
[13:41] Dakota Blackmountain claps
[13:41] Eves Rodenberger: will you rezz the prim light object ?
[13:41] Raul Crimson bows
[13:41] Kali Meads claps
[13:41] Tara Yeats: very helpful session Raul! Thank you!!
[13:41] Nick Rhodes: thank you Raul
[13:41] Tara Yeats: Clap clap clap clap clap! Woot!
[13:41] Eves Rodenberger: Very good …
[13:42] Jaid Marsi: YESH
[13:42] vallys Baxter: Thanks Raul

So this was the class. You can download a version of the slideshow in Powerpoint in this link, or in the BOX.net widget on the widgets column (this is the best option, much faster), anyway, it may look a bit different due to the slideshow was made with Keynote for Mac, not with Powerpoint.