Bella in Second Life

Koinup Orange Contest

2008-06-29T00:05:00.007+02:00

To be honest, I'm still speechless after the announcement of the winners of the Orange Contest held on the Koinup-site. I initially didn't even consider participating because I thought I had to post something orange in order to comply with the rules. It was only after reading Vint Falken's article about emotion, technicity and colour that I got interested. But because I can't produce results on command, it took me a while to get the first ideas.

After having finished some profile pictures for Yashi and Sash, and while dealing with the aftermath of some unpleasant surprises in my social life, the idea of mirror images sparked to life. What started like an experiment suddenly evolved into a real project. Projecting the image of Yashi onto circular surface, swapping it to produce a mirror image, adding the reflection from a distant window ...

The texture was brought in-world to allow Yashi to pose in front of the mirror using the same pose as used during the initial shoot. Some additional light added some realism and some additional light processing steps did bring the finishing touch to the picture. A more detailed description can be seen here and a visual how-to can be seen here.

Big was my suprise when exactly this picture was picked by the jury and awarded the 'Grand Jury Prize' ... it's true I spent a lot of time refining my technique and I went to great lenghts to disclose my technique. When looking at other work submitted for this contest, I must admit I'm always raising the bar and only focusing on my weakness. But I feel so humble when I stand next to Tur, who won the Community Prize. I mean, the moment I saw his work on Koinup, I wanted to fave it at least 5x. When I judged the pictures from the Ananke contest, I said that I wanted to see more crisp, nicely detailed and beautifully rendered male avatars. Tur's winning picture is exactly what I was looking for. Here below a snapshot of me and Tur, together with the organisers of the contest. In the background the 2 winning pictures.

And to be honest ... did you have a look at Tur's avie in-world ? Yummy ...

Portrait Contest Winners Announced !

2008-06-16T21:50:00.005+02:00

I'm very proud to have been part of the jury judging the submissions for the 'Portrait Contest' at Koinup. What seemed like an easy job, turned out to be a massive challenge. Who would have thought there would be around 400 pictures to review ...

First of all I would like to thank Anna Tretiak from Ananke Media Systems, Theresa Carfagno from the SL News Network and Pier from Koinup making all this possible.

But a contest wouldn't be be a contest without the participation of all the SL photographers that contributed to this contest. Although it took a lot of time to review each and every picture, great care was taken not to miss a single masterpiece. Personally, I would have choosen more winners because chosing from all the marvelous compositions was really hard work.

Here are the 3 winners

Congratulations Jaxi, Lano and DahniElla !

For more information have a look at Koinup, Ananke Media Systems ...

Exhibition @ Not Too Hot

2008-04-12T21:55:00.004+02:00

I finally decided to show my works in an exhibition in-world. I got different proposals from people interested in hosting my works, but time and effort was a big issue and it never got realised. I kept piling up pictures on my Flickr account and when Nottoo Wise called me to ask me if I was ready for an exhibition starting from April 11th I knew it was time to kick into action.

I'm proud to announce my very first exhibition at the NTP Skate Park & Exhibition Center.

Limited in time from 12/4 till 23/4 ... so be quick.

A whole bunch of pictures grouped per theme and marvelous sculptures of Gio77 Romano.

See you there ...

Bella

Friends

2008-02-25T23:08:00.004+01:00

It's almost 2 months since my last contribution to this blog. I wasn't away, I was just busy in other places doing other things. I concentrated on the things that really matter. It was a journey of rediscovery. Discovery of myself, but also discovery of my dearest friends. The path was not easy and I had to take a lot of decisions, learned to say 'no' to some people, learned to open my heart and mind for others.

It is now time to come back with a positive note after all this silence. And the first thing that pops into my mind is how happy I am to connect to all these lovely friends I have here in-world. I've been adding a lot of Flickrites lately and it only adds more fun to my daily life. I'm so grateful for all the joy I'm experiencing from all of you, that I want to dedicate a very special song to all my friends. I'm not so good in expressing my feeling in words, so I will cut it short and let one of my favourite performers speak on behalf of me : Laura Pausini - Un Amico è Così ...

That's how a friend is - Laura Pausini

E facile allontanarsi sai
Se come te anche lui ha i suoi guai
Ma quando avrai bisogno sarà qui
Un amico è così
chiederà nè il come nè il
perché ti ascolterà
e si batterà per te
E poi tranquillo ti sorriderà
Un amico è così
E ricordati che finché tu vivrai
Se un amico è con te
non ti perderai In strade sbagliate percorse
da chi non ha nella vita un amico così
Non ha bisogno di parole
ma con uno sguardo solo capira´
Che dopo un no lui ti dirà di sì
Un amico è così
E ricordati che finché tu vorrai
Per sempre al tuo fianco lo troverai Vicino
a te mai stanco perché
Un amico è la cosa più bella che c´è
è come un grande amore,
solo mascherato un po´
Ma che si sente che c´è
Nascosto tra le pieghe di un cuore che si dà
E non si chiede perché
Ma ricordati che finché tu vivrai
Se un amico è con te non tradirlo mai
Solo così scoprirai che un amico
è la cosa più bella che c´è
E ricordati che finché tu vivrai
Un amico è la cosa più vera che hai
è il compagno del viaggio più grande che fai
Un amico è qualcosa che non muore mai

--English/Dutch Translation on request--

To Speak or Not To Speak

2008-01-02T20:44:00.000+01:00

There's a rumour going around. Normally I'm not very interested in rumours, because they usually have little significance. But in this case, it matters because it's about me. I could keep silent and wait till the storm would pass, or I could decide to speak openly about what really happened. I decided this evening to get this off my chest because I'm carrying this for too long. It would also shed a different light on the recent events and motivate my next moves in-world.

It all started a while ago when I received a short mail from Avatrait explaining that their quality standards had risen and that I didn't qualify anymore for inclusion on their website. Finally, after some mails I heard that additional factors for my removal was the fact that I hadn't submitted any new work for publication and that I didn't order the free Avatrait frame that they offer to artists. I decided to remove my works from the RL Gallery and agreed with Avatrait that such a newbie artist like me couldn't possibly play with the big guys. I communicated with one of the curators and told him how dissapointed I was into Avatrait. I expected more support for the new artists and some helping hand. I personally would never submit any work for sale in a gallery, I'm not qualified to decide what's good or bad - at least not for the general public. I wasn't even warned once. It felt like if they needed to drop an artist and they just found some excuses to justify it. It did hurt me a lot, especially the curator who never returned my e-mail.

At that time, I wasn't very focused in RL and SL. I was wasting a lot of valuable time and energy and neglecting my most valuable skills, photography and photoshopping. I had to take some decisions, refocusing on my artistic work and so I dropped my blog. I'm now spending less time in-world to the benefit of my creative work. I'm getting better and better, although there's still enough headroom.

Like most Flickerites I spend a lot of time, watching the works of fellow artists/photographers in the different groups. My rules for posting comments are very simple : When it's good, fave it. When it's very good, post a comment. When it's absolutely fantastic, post an elaborate comment. Sometimes I pickup a 'almost perfect' picture and do my adaptation on it. Just to see if my theory holds or not.

Last week - yeah, the rumour is true - I posted a comment on a friends Flicker picture stating that the picture was technically perfect, but that it was missing a soul. It didn't tell a story, at least not without reading a complete blogpost in order to understand that. Things wouldn't have escalated if somebody from Avatrait wouldn't have insisted by telling the artist his work was going in the right direction and that he should continue like that.

So yes, I flipped and bashed the guy from Avatrait. I made some funny remarks on the mirror and the window, and the fact that I didn't understand the meaning of the picture to the artist. It was peculiar to see an gallery owner protect one of his artist in the comments section, so I told him something like '... keep on pampering your pet artists ...' and ' ... real artists follow their own path ...'. I posted also some reference to the Avatrait incident mentioned earlier - this, I regret, was a mistake. To another person, commenting the snapshot, I made reference to my version of the Pisco Bandito aka Josh Sommers variant. I told her it was bad photoshop technique but good storytelling - Arabella helping Bella out of the computer, reaching out to eachother. I certainly didn't say or imply somebody stole my idea. I just said that it gave me a déjà-vu, same pose, same cut of the hand and leg. Btw, 9 month ago I gave the reference to the original of Josh on the 3rd comment of Break-Out Bella, right after Lookers comments.

If I did hurt the artist, then I apologize for my actions. On the other hand, how can we improve our skills if nobody tells us what can be improved. Do we keep tapping ourselves on our back and live happily in our mediocrity or do we try to raise the standards ? Those who can't stand a 'Vint Falken'-like comment should remove me instantly from their friends list, I would only dissapoint them.

Disclaimer: I don't fully remember my original post mentioned above, so don't bash me if I forgot something. It wasn't intentionally.

Tip Of The Week - Orton Effect

2007-12-28T13:40:00.000+01:00

I've been playing with PS for a while and it's amazing what you can do with layers, combination of layers and the blending techniques. This is a technique I mastered recently and I wanted to share with you, for your RL and surely also your SL snapshots ...

It's nicely explained here, so why should I explain it again ...
Enjoy it ...

And here another example ...

And here are the originals in case you would like to compare ...

The Goth Image is originally from Lacie Babenco.

Loki's 2nd Rezzday Party

2007-12-26T23:26:00.000+01:00

I must admit I completely messed up during Loki's Bday party. I tried to take some pictures but all these people kept on dancing and moving, leaving me no other choice than to shoot a movie. I did this before, so no problem. Well, I was wrong ...

I shot half an hour of footage with my parameters at 1 fps. Hmm, a waste of effort and time, but worst of all : no footage! The few pics I took weren't suitable for the blog, so I decided to ask Adhemar's permission to embed his machinima.

Loki, and all the participants, I hope you all had fun at the party and ... till the next year for the 3rd rezzday party ...

The Making Of Ressurection

2007-12-23T13:37:00.000+01:00

I was too busy adjusting the pose, positioning the camera, tweaking the sky and water in order to notice what was happening around me. I was delighted when Adhemar sent me his machinima he shot while he was waiting for the 'artist' to finish ..

It all started with a simple 'Carry/Carried' pose, followed by a change of clothing and finally some hilarious moments when we got almost eaten by some carnivorous dragons. Lucky I had my little Giotto to scare them away.

Please enjoy the machinima and watch the tremendous difference in graphical quality between a Intel graphics card and a GeForce 8800. Here is a reference screenshot taken from my machine.

PS: Please watch also the other works of Adhemar on Youtube. It's well worth your time.

Fly Away - Hallucinogen

2007-12-22T23:32:00.000+01:00

The Mystery Of Growth

2007-12-20T11:06:00.000+01:00

"Growth is a greater mystery than death.
All of us can understand failure,
we all contain failure and death within us,
but not even the successful man
can begin to describe
the impalpable elations and
apprehensions of growth."

Norman Mailer

Locked Out

2007-12-19T23:28:00.000+01:00

Yes, it happened again. First I struggled with the new FirstLook viewer crashing my machine randomly and now the service was shutdown twice in order to fix a cluster problem. I'm not complaining ... I never had that much comments, faves and views on my Flickr stream.

Dont' know if it's the people being locked out of SL and visiting my pictures out of boredom, or is it because of the increased quality of my work ? It's probably the combination ...

First Time In First Life

2007-12-15T16:01:00.000+01:00

I sneaked into the PDA of Arabella this morning when she went to do some Christmas shopping. Big was my surprise to discover FL is so dull !!! Where is the wonderful sky, the rich and saturated colors ? Can't humans adjust the colors and contrast ? Hmmm, here is what I did ...

Or this one, I love the Windlight Sky ;-)

And a last one here ... horses for Guaka ... :-)

The other experiments you can see on the Flickr stream ...

Seasons Greetings

2007-12-15T15:54:00.000+01:00

Did you think I would simply disappear ? Nah, that's simply not me. I convinced Arabella she can't live without me and believe it or not, it worked ! The compromise we found is about the time we spend together in-world. It leaves me time to explore stuff on my own, and on the other hand she can work quietly in RL to prepare her artwork.

Resurrection - The Video

2007-12-08T23:35:00.001+01:00

Resurrection

2007-12-08T21:42:00.001+01:00

I'm at a loss for words, there's nothing to say
I sit in silence wondering what led me to this place
How did my heart become so lifeless and cold
Where did the passion go?

When all my efforts seem like chasing wind
I've used up all my strength and there's nothing left to give
I've lost the feeling and I'm down to the core
Can't fake it anymore

Here I am at the end I'm in need of resurrection
Only you can take this empty shell and raise it from the dead
What I've lost to the world what seems far beyond redemption
You can take the pieces in your hand and make me whole again

I'm at a loss for words, there's nothing to say
I'’ve used up all my strength and there's nothing left to give
How did my heart become so lifeless and cold
Can't fake it anymore

Here I am once again I'm in need of resurrection
Only you can take this empty shell and raise it from the dead
What I've lost to the world what seems far beyond redemption
You can take the pieces in your hand and make me whole again

You can take the pieces in your hand and make me whole again

Post With No Title

2007-11-25T14:16:00.000+01:00

I remember my first steps like if they happened yesterday. I rezzed in a strange and empty infohub and was left completely on my own. My husband who brought me in, helped me during the first weeks to get me going, but soon after I was able to stand on my own two feet. I had the same unfortunate adventures most teenagers have, by meeting the wrong men in the wrong places. I grew up fast, and I very quickly discovered the artistic side of SL. There was a whole new energy flowing in me. I could feel it.

People like Melodious Source or Vint Falken, inspired me to express myself and in the same time, give something back to the community. I volunteered back then in february to be part of this fantastic experience, but I guess Pathfinder Linden was too busy, didn't believe in me or I maybe was too unexperienced to make a real chance. So I dedicated my on-line time to help newbies as I bumped into them. I helped numerous people by providing them LM's to newbie stores, by showing them around, by improving their everyday life skills. Some of these people became good friends afterwards, others just disappeared or moved on with their second life.

I learned a lot here on SL. Technically, artistically but most of all, I learned a lot about myself and the way I am, the way I interact with others. I had more friends in SL then I ever had in all my RL and I'm currently in contact with more people in-world than in real life. That pretty resumes my situation. I'm not good in networking and I'm not a shameless self-promoter. The hard lesson I learned is that although nothing is impossible in Second Life, it all depends on your real life skills. I've learned to open up to people I trust. It was a great experience to hear them tell me how nice I look in RL, although I personally think there are numerous things to improve. It gave the emotional strength to regain confidence in myself and to stop hiding in this world.
I leave a lot of unfinished projects :

migrate my blog from my husbands account to my own
finish my lulu-book (started in september, but still not finished)
have a professional portrait taken and printed at Avatrait
upgrade to a Flickr Pro account in order to recover my invisible snapshots
make a machinima videoclip for a Snowpatrol or
clean-up of my 10.000 + inventory
SL5B preparation
find out why I'm being reported as from 'Gent, Oost-Vlaanderen' in Statcounter
... and much more

I will go back to real life and use the energy, the skills, the confidence to repair what is broken or is in need of more attention. I spoke to the most of you last evening and although I shed quite some tears, I'm now releaved that I can continue with my life. I can't promise you if and when I'll be back, but I'll keep you all in my memory.

Lens Blur Using Depth Maps

2007-11-24T22:31:00.000+01:00

I recently discovered an alternative way to blur snapshots in a fast and easy way without having to mess with masking and other PS tricks. There will plenty of other alternatives, but I would like to share what I discovered on my own. I don't know if it's useful or if it brings anything new to the community. Actually it doesn't matter, because this will be my last technical contribution in this series.

First of all, shoot a scene with some depth.

Use the 'freeze-frame' and 'keep open after saving' option to capture at the same time the depth-map of the same scene. You will get something similar.

Edit both snapshots in Photoshop and select one of the channels of the Depth-map. I chose the blue-channel and dragged it to the first snapshot. It will become an Alpha-layer. If you want you can retouch the silhouettes or change the contrast/brightness of the depth-map. This will influence the blurring of your picture. Now go to Filter->Blur->Lens Blur and select the alpha-layer as depth map. It's called Alpha2 in my example. The lighter the depthmap, the more blurring will occur, unless you invert the depthmap with the flag. You can change the focal point with the slider to shift the 'focus' zone. Please experiment with the parameters and don't hesitate to change the contrast/brightness of the depthmap.

After some fiddling of the parameters, you'll get something similar.

And it's easier than masking and handblurring the snapshot in order to bring depth to the scene.
I hope you all enjoyed my tips & tricks. It will be my last one.

Here's a quick overview of my previous contributions :

Grendel's Children

2007-11-19T01:04:00.000+01:00

I went back to the Avarian sim, where my little Giotto was born.

While I was contemplating the little pond where Giotto's life started, some strangers joined me and tried to figure out where to hatch their drakelet egg.

But then all of a sudden, there she stood ... in all her innocence, in all her beauty.

I overheard ~~Christel~~ Arabella mumble something about seeing herself 25 years ago. Are humans affected by the aging process ? Seeing this girl must have affected her profoundly because she left a weird comment on the same picture on the flickr stream ...

Ghost

2007-11-18T09:16:00.000+01:00

I was a ghost before you came
And I was a slave, but then, I changed
And I will take, the good, and bad
For many I am a slave, to this, again

So leave me alone, before, the strain
Of listening to you becomes more than you can bear
But maybe this time, we will be fine
Or else tomorrow, will be lost

I feel you calling me when when I'm alone
I feel you calling me, its keeping me up
I wanna be with you now

There was a force, I swear, I thought it'd take me out
And There was a chance, that we, could go
so far as I can look in your eyes)
And know, you say, no war, no war, no more
And that is the fight in this life

I feel you calling me when when I'm alone
I feel you calling me, it's keeping me up
I wanna be with you now

I feel you calling me when when I'm alone
Hot nights and moonlight, it's keeping me up
I gotta be with you now

Tell me a way, till then, to find, my braces and grades
Before we explode

And maybe this time we will be fine
And our tomorrow, it won't be lost

I feel you calling me when when I'm alone
I feel you calling me its keeping me up
I wanna be with you now

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Straylight Revisited

2007-11-18T08:15:00.000+01:00

I went back to Straylight to see how Windlight would affect my sensory experience over there.
You can't tell the difference here apart from the jitter when trying to capture ultra hi-res pictures, but that's not visible on the snapshot.

But then I had a good look at the water and decided to give it a try. The water was relatively warm and I managed to change the parameters to make the water enough translucid to catch a glimpse of my body under water and reflective enough to act as a mirror for the surrounding trees.

In one part of the pond, the water is really crystal clear allowing some stunning effects. Windlight is fantastic, although it puts alot of stress on my computer, especially when I oversample 3x my snapshots. 45Meg per snapshot makes my dualcore suffer a bit.

Waiting For Godot

2007-11-17T21:10:00.000+01:00

There she stood ... waiting

Framed Encounters

2007-11-16T23:30:00.000+01:00

I'm still recovering from the recent events. I try to focus on something new in order to keep me from doing stupid things. While listening to the soundtrack at the wheatfield, the company of Andro and AM Radio distracts me enough to pick up my life again. No, I'm not wrong. Andro changed quite a bit lately and he looks absolutely cool. I discovered that renderglow is active by default in the FirstLook viewer. Can you see the sun reflection ?

Another remarkable person, is AM Radio. My camera already spotted him during the performance of Colemarie, but it was only when I finally made it to the wheatfield that I discovered he was the genious behind the special effects, the nice poetry, the nice music and the absolutely enchanting visual setup. This is what I call creativity ...

PS: Oh yes, I'm doing my best to learn how to frame pictures and to process them to make them real-life-home ready. Ikea has nice trendy and cheap frames and the Phaser at the office is delivering top notch quality at ridiculous prices. And I decide myself on how to crop my pictures.

Satellite Bella

2007-11-15T23:48:00.000+01:00

I'm a very modest person. I do my duties quiet and efficient in my corner. I have my small selection of good friends, who appreciate my presence, my listening ear and the result of my work in this metaverse. I don't need instant gratification. I know you're watching my pictures, reading my blog and calling me from time to time to catch up with me. In general I tend not to spam my friends with party requests or other stupid stuff : 'Don't do to others what you don't like yourself'.
The summer period was indeed very calm, and things were running quietly as usual. Activity was slowly picking up, indicating the fact that people tend to spend more time in-world now the days are shortening. More friends were returning and contacts intensified. I was really happy to see my social network extend bit by bit. Little did I know my life would be drastically affected by upcoming events.
I got in contact with new friends and this little satellite called Bella started to orbit around new people. She was enchanted by the music she was hearing and became a fan of her new found 'Sun'. But she would soon discover that the source of warmth, light and life would soon turn out to be the demon that would burn her, chew on her and spit her out. It's a painful lesson.
This satellite decided to set herself free and to decide on her own what and how to do things. She decided that no Houston could control her activities or decide on what would be good or bad. If necessary she would take the risk to be catapulted into deep space.

Deep Space or Deep Water ?

Ready to go

The Far Away - Heaven

2007-11-14T22:12:00.000+01:00

That's how I think we all go to heaven ...

Colemarie, Silke And Chriz

2007-11-13T23:24:00.000+01:00

Andro teleported me to Paramita where Colemarie Soleil was performing live. Suddenly I noticed a familiar name in the list of present avatars. Silke ! Last time I saw her was in Barcelona and the Red Velvet Jazz club. February 2007 ? Yeah and don't bother, ~~both~~ the last sim doesn't exist anymore in the meantime. Things go fast in SL ...

I had a really good time listening to Colemarie and I enjoyed particularly her Tory Amos covers. So, I decided to teleport Chriz and to share this nice music with him.

Unfortunately he spent most of his time recovering from crashes and he missed almost the entire performance. The poor guy. Soon after the performance the simulater restarted and we left to have a look at his furniture at home.

I was really amazed by this sculpted sofa nicely textured and equipped with poseballs.

He's such handyman. Wonder if he's also in FL ...