Gogo Teaches You How To Mirror Your Poses In DAZ Studio (And Iris Tells You Why It's Important That You Do)

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Current and aspiring Second Life posemakers, listen up! Here is a true fact about how I buy Second Life poses for my avatar: If you offer mirrored versions of your poses, I am way more likely to open my wallet and straight up empty its contents into your lap.

Earlier today, Gogo (the blogger behind one of my favorite SL style blogs, Juicybomb) shared an incredibly simple and incredibly useful tutorial on her blog about how to mirror a pose you're creating in DAZ Studio. If you're not exactly sure what that means, mirroring a pose basically means reversing it as though the figure was standing beside a mirror. It's easy as hell, and adding mirrored versions of your poses can absolutely net you more sales. Here's why:

Having options is incredibly important in just about every area of Second Life design, but this is especially true of poses. Finding the perfect pose for a fashion snapshot is all about finding something that showcases the items you're wearing in the best way possible. If you have a big ornate bun on the left side of your head and your otherwise perfect pose has the head turned so that bun is obscured, well, that pose is a bad choice.

There's even more to it than that. Maybe you're dealing with issues of setting or framing, maybe you're taking a group shot, maybe you're working with props and trying to get the composition of the scene juuuuuuust right-- in all of these situations, the more versatile your poses are, the more valuable they are to me as a model/photographer. Mirroring your poses allows for a lot more flexibility, and a lot less fuss, and it ensures I'll be back at your shop to buy more.

If you're interested in making your own poses but you don't quite know where to begin, you should absolutely check out Gogo's previous tutorial about posemaking in DAZ. DAZ has the benefit of being free, unlike Poser which is another popular (but very expensive) program for the job. You could also try Avimator, a tool made specifically for Second Life posing/animation, but I personally find a lot of Avimator-made poses are rigid and unnatural looking, and certainly wouldn't be my top choice.

(Picture courtesy of Juicybomb)

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Iris Ophelia (@bleatingheart, Janine Hawkins IRL) has been featured in the New York Times and has spoken about SL-based design at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan and with pop culture/fashion maven Johanna Blakley.

Comments

[Tracy RedAngel]

Yes, that was a great tutorial (Thank you Gogo!) and DAV is really pretty easy to use..not mention ...FUN! :D
I even uploaded my first (albeit super dorky!) pose to SL. I'm definitely going to be making more of my own poses.

[A.J.]

Great tutorials and a gold star for Iris for this excellent post. ☆

[Ajax Manatiso]

Or you could use poser and just pick symmetry, switch right and left

[Gogo]

Thanks for the mention, Iris!!!!!!! SQUEEEEEEEE!

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Avimator has been superseded by Qavimator, which has enhanced features over the original. Qavimator has a built in mirror feature in the menu but it doesn't always work right.

but Yes, Mirrored poses are a Good Thing.