New World Notes

Tutorial: How to Make SL Screenshots Look Like Hand-Drawn Art

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

“Are We There Yet?” by Xaleria Starlight made me laugh out loud with the sempiternal question of childhood travelers. I can picture Moses hearing that question for forty years. Laura and Mary Ingalls probably asked that question hundreds of times from the Big Woods to the shores of silver Lake. Intergalactic travelers will ask that in the distant future. And of course, we have the contemporary car in a very strange place, sheltered under a giant skeleton. 

The picture looks like handmade art and I was curious how Xaleria made it. She graciously uploaded her source photos and explained her method. But first, she had advice on software to use. She uses GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP for photo editing. “I highly recommend the G'MIC plugin for GIMP which provides tons of really fantastic predefined filters and effects. Like GIMP, it is open-source and free.”

“Another program I love to recommend is FastStone Image Viewer. It is excellent for organizing and accessing your saved images with large thumbnails. GIMP's file preview is not the greatest, but FastStone's is wonderful and you can drag and drop from it straight into GIMP. FastStone is also free.

Great tips from Xaleria to follow.

Tutorial: How Lizz Palen Transforms SL Screenshots Into Amazing Images

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When I saw “Extraterrestrial” by Lizz Palen (above), I immediately emailed to ask her if she would share some tips for readers. I love the frenetic energy of her projects. Her entire stream is an exciting exploration of how to enhance Second Life photos with smoke and fire and imagination, but this one seemed particularly powerful. Luckily for us, she was happy to share her process. 

After the cut, Lizz explains how she created Extraterrestrial and shares two videos of her editing other pictures.

How SLer Nova Frankenstein Created This Cool "Matrix Glitch" Look in GIMP

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When I saw Nova Frankenstein’s “A Glitch in the Matrix”, I just had to ask how she did. It’s such a compelling self-portrait. In the description, she wrote, “Because I'm frustrated with all of my current photo ideas, I'm uploading this photo I did as a test edit for something else.”

As she explained it, It was one of those serendipitous moments where it all comes together. “When I did that photo, I was actually dealing with some mental health stuff while also experimenting with my editing style since I felt all of my photos looked so similar. I like switching things up, you know?” 

She was working in GIMP, trying different filters and she cannot remember exactly how she did it. She used a few adjustment layers, but the primary effect was the result of GIMP’s filter. This made me laugh because it reminded me of the best pumpkin stew I ever made. I was pulling a jar out of the spice rack and it tipped over, spilling out herbs from several of the jars. Rather than throw the herbs and spices away, I tossed them in the stew and it was amazing. I will never have it again. I wrote back sharing my best stew story, She laughed at the similarity. 

“I've had it happen a few times during editing. I love creating and it's my favorite way to pass time since it's so relaxing. And satisfying when I get a photo to look exactly how I imagined it. That one photo, in particular, was just a happy accident though.”

Click through for more GIMP details:

How This Incredible SL Image Was Created With Black Dragon & Photoshop

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

LilyKitty Sixpence creates magnificent photos that range from pure fun to dreamily romantic, but I was struck by “Ultraviolet” which is such a joyous expression of rebellion that I had to ask how she did it. Luckily for you, she explained it all. 

She gave some general background on how she does most of her photos before getting into the specifics: 

She uses the Black Dragon Viewer and recommends it highly. “It's got a lot of graphical options that help get the best base shot you can get. It also has a built-in model poser that is very useful, even if you are simply adjusting a store-bought pose. Unfortunately, you can only pose yourself with it for now.”

She edits in Photoshop. “Even for beginners I suggest looking at Lightroom (or the Camera Raw Filter). Just upping the clarity a bit can bring out tons of details.

If you're looking to dive into it more than that, I'd say just go for it.: LilyKitty recommends watching tutorials on YouTube and following along or applying them to your own shots. Or even just learn by doing, experimenting with the tools. “Learn about layers, masking, blending modes, and the adjustment layers. Learn to work non-destructively - so you can always go back and fix something. It's daunting to take on all at once, but by doing it and learning something each time you will begin to understand how each of these parts works and how they can help you with your ideas.”

Click for all the deets on how she created this amazing picture:

How This Amazing Second Life Image Was Made Without Post-Processing

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

When I featured this incredible image “Strange Visage” by Razor Cure last week, I wondered how he created it. My imagination was more vivid than reality, though. I thought he shot two photos showing two avatars at different scales and putting one on the other. Or perhaps he had a gigantic avatar. But no! 

Razor Cure's repy: “There are giant avatars in SL, but the face behind me is a piece of scenery. It's my avie standing on his giant hand!”

He gave me this SLURL to What’s Lost Spirits and sure enough, there are some giant sculptures there:

Watch: How to Convert Second Life Content for Use & Sale in Sinespace

Longtime SL content creator Kub created this handy video tutorial for converting your Second Life creations (a bed from his SL store, in this case) into Sinespace -- both in the world itself and the in-game shop. (His own Sinespace shop page is here.)

 

Kub's overall advice for other Second Life creators interested in experimenting with Sinespace:

 

"Try. I think that Second Life is a very specific kind of workflow that we have all gotten used to and it's made things feel more difficult than they are. I can't speak to clothing or rigging at all for bringing that into Sinespace, as I don't make those kinds of things, but for buildings and furniture and objects -- just a little bit of faith in yourself and you can learn Unity and start transferring over everything you've ever made with ease."

 

Kub is a veteran explorer of many virtual worlds, and sees potential in the Unity-based platform:

Cajsa's Techniques: How The Friendly Otter Creates Her Amazing, Painting-Like, SL-Based Images

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Hamlet was particularly curious about the process for The Friendly Otter’s “The Crows Watch” that I featured recently. I thought it was likely mostly achieved in Second Life and he thought it was likely more post-processing. Experimenting in WindLight myself, it was fairly easy to get a black and white silhouette, but to get the kind of etched detail was another story. But there was more to it after all. 

The Friendly Otter shared her process with me. Her pictures were shot in Firestorm. First, she used Xanthe’s Hazy Daze WindLight, commenting that it does a good job of clearing the background with bright white light. Then she began editing in PhotoShop. She guessed that took about an hour or two. These are the steps:

1. Film Grain filter - max Highlight Area and max Intensity. This softens the background a little more and shows some more detail of the foreground
2. Black & White adjustment
3. Tilt-Shift Blur - just a low blur of 5px; angled it so it kept the bird bodies clear but blurred the house and some of the legs
4. Texture Overlay - set to Color Burn
5. Photocopy Texture Overlay - set to Lighter Color

Here’s a couple more by Otter, with her technique notes:

Watch: How to Use the Black Dragon for taking Great SL Screenshots

Here's a fun and informative Black Dragon tutorial video from SL YouTube star (and occasional New World Notes videographer) Cassie Middles. Undaunted by an occasional barking dog down the hall, Cassie shows you how to use the third party viewer with a cult following among SL artists to take screenshots.

Black Dragon is significantly different from Firestorm, the most popular SL viewer, but Cassie tells me she likes both for different reasons:

Watch: How to Reduce Prim Count on Second Life Land (Kinda Sorta)

Here's a fun quick tutorials from SL YouTuber Luca on how to (kinda sorta) reduce the prim count on your SL land.

"Just make sure you don't link scripted and no-copy objects unless you know what you're doing," Luca explains. "The frames-per second doesn't get increased but the prim count of things that got linked does get reduced by 25-50%." 

In other words, you're not really removing prims, you're just tricking the system into thinking that you have. Right?

Watch: How to Use Black Dragon, the SL Viewer With Great Graphics Options But a Challenging User Interface

Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer, has a cult following among hardcore graphics fans, but many SLers complain that its user interface for everything besides graphics is, well, challenging.

"It’s worth noting that while I think Black Dragon is unbeatable for visuals in Second Life, it’s not as easy for just about anything else," as blogger Mericat Ireland notes. "Communicating, getting changed etc. is all a bit more difficult than with other viewers (although entirely possible)." That in mind, Mericat shot this tutorial/walkthrough above, and opened up her blog to questions from other Black Dragon users.

It should be noted that none of the SL viewers, including (especially?) the official Linden Lab-created viewer, are user friendly, which is a key reason why roughly 99.9% of new users quickly leave. So really, we're just talking about which set of complex commands you prefer to learn/tolerate.

As for whether it's worth learning how to use Black Dragon, here's a sample of what it looks like in action, in a machinima created by Black Dragon creator NiranV: