RUTH, IS THAT YOU?

You might remember that two weeks ago I was complaining about some weird glitches that I were experiencing whilst trying to use the new "Advanced Lighting Model" in the updated Linden viewer. Overall I like what the new viewer does with shadows and the ambient light feels softer and kinder to me, but there are issues like with anything newish that is still in development.

... So to get to my point, I took this picture yesterday while I was trying on outfits. I popped off my wig. (What is that?!? Am I wearing an invisible prim on my head?) I quickly checked my "Current Outfit" Folder. No, I'm not wearing anything on my head, but you know, that looks just like Ruth's System Hair!

So here is what I found out: I went to look at my Bald Base. For you new folks, the Bald Base

1) controls the shape of your eyebrows, and
2) makes you bald so you can wear a wig, or if you set the hairstyle longer, you get System Hair (a.k.a. the ugliest hair of all time). System Hair was what they used in the dark ages before anyone made wigs.

You can shrink the System Hair very short so it all sits inside your cranium. But the maker of my eyebrows just applied a transparent texture to the System Hair instead of shrinking it. This transparency was conflicting with the transparent textures in my wigs. *sigh* I fixed that, and now my wigs look right again. Hopefully that helps some of you too!

Love,
Serene

MISS LAVENDER part two: "T.T. D. B. C."

That's "Things That Drive Bloggers Crazy". So here I am to vent about the things that were making me rip out bits of hair during my last photo shoot: (Feel free to click through to larger versions of the photos if you want to see more clearly what I am talking about.)



The top half of each photo shows what I look like before turning on the new version of the "Advanced Lighting Model", for comparison. Now you know I love shadows and ambient occlusion et cetera, I love the overall softness of the new lighting. But I'm having some trouble with the newest version. First, you can see that the Alpha Mask that hides the system eyelashes is clashing with my prim eyelashes.  And hunks of my hair vanish, particularly around my bangs.



Take a look at my ponytail ... I wonder if there is a transparent prim built into this wig? Well, its a pretty new rigged mesh wig, so I doubt it. *scratches head*



I was having fun with the jewelry too. Now in the bottom half of this photo, I prefer the overall shading, shadows, and the clarity and reflectivity on the larger oval gems. But the texture vanishes on the smaller gems completely. I'm not completely certain, but I think these gems are textured on the inside surface, and transparent on the outside surface. *facepalm*

So what did I do? I didn't notice the glitches until I was shooting the close-up photos, and I didn't want to start over so late at night. So I pasted the gemstones from the top shot over the blackened gems in the second shot, and fudged the hair a bit. Ack. Saved by Photoshop.

Love,
Serene