Photo checklist

Torley's settings (as of 2012-08-20) for awesome photo shoots used in official Linden Lab materials — and for fun, as shown on Torley's Flickr photostream!

One goal is to maximize raw, as-is, in-Viewer visual quality sans bullshot.

A number of these are overridden debug settings which presume you have advanced Second Life experience, so go to Advanced menu > Debug Settings to enter them.

Rendering quality

1. Select Me menu > Preferences.
2. In the PREFERENCES window, click the Graphics tab.
3. Click Ultra on the presets slider to set most options to an exceeding-high level of quality.
4. Click Advanced button to expose finer controls.
5. Depending on the scene, you may want to increase Draw distance to 512. This is really useful for shooting epic city/landscapes.
6. Uncheck Avatar impostors. This slows performance but makes distant avatars render more accurately.
7. Click Hardware button.
8. In HARDWARE SETTINGS window, make sure Anisotropic Filtering (textures viewed diagonally, especially at distances, appear sharper) is checked.

Also, these debug settings:

• WLSkyDetail = 256
  • This actually exceeds the PREFERENCES' max. slider value of 128. Don't set it much higher than this though, as it becomes crashy.
• RenderVolumeLODFactor = 8
  • Smooths out jaggies on spheres and other curvy objects.
• RenderShadowBlurSize = 3
  • Softens shadows which can look unnaturally jaggy under some conditions. But this, like many other settings on this page, is very scene-specific, so tweak to taste. Exodus Viewer's LIGHTING tab (found via World menu > Visual Settings) is great for spontaneously moving sliders, instead of being limited to the tiny up/down "spinner" arrows.

Depth of field

Optimized for "creamier" bokeh and softer DOF appearance — which has the side benefit of somewhat higher performance. Optional: tap Ctrl-0 a few times to zoom in and narrow the field of view, creating a more intimate relationship with the tightly-focused subject matter.

All of these are conveniently found in Exodus Viewer's World menu > Visual Settings, under the CAMERA tab.

• CameraDoFResScale (Blur Quality) = 0.2
  • Lowered from the default of 0.7 so that there's more of a gradual ramping when you zoom into a subject. Can provide some analogue-feeling "diffuse blur", like smearing Vaseline on the lens.
• CameraFNumber (F-Number) = 2
  • Adjust per scene: lower it to something like 0.05 if zoomed out and shooting tilt-shift-style cities
• CameraFieldOfView (Field of View) = 2.5
• CameraFocalLength (Focal Length) = 250
• CameraMaxCoF (Circle of Confusion) = 20

HDR (color grading)

Available in Exodus Viewer:

1. Select World menu > Visual Settings
2. Click the HDR tab.
3. Check all these boxes, from left-to-right: Deferred Rendering, High Precision, Gamma Correction, and Tone Mapping.

The following "recipe" is tentatively called "[TOR] Adv. Filmic Day Warm", which takes advantage of tone-mapping for a wider dynamic range. In other words, scenes don't look so flat.

• Gamma
  • Red = 0.8
  • Green = 1
  • Blue = 1.2
• Exposure
  • Red/Green/Blue = 0
• Offset
  • Red/Green/Blue = 0
• Vignette
  • Amount = 0
  • Power = 1
  • Multiplier = 1
• Tone Mapping
  • Tone Mapping Technique = Advanced Filmic
    • Make sure you've selected Advanced so that the below sliders are shown:
  • Exposure = 1.5 (bright day) to 8-ish (dark night)
    • Change this depending on how "dark" the overall scene is — nighttime scenes' highlights may benefit from Exposure = 4 or even 8. Very scene-specific, since setting it too high (past 2 or so) may wash out daylight store signs.
  • Shoulder Strength = 0.25
  • Linear Strength = 0.1
  • Linear Angle = 0.15
  • Toe Strength = 0.15
  • Toe Numerator = 0
  • Toe Denominator = 0.3
  • Linear White Point = 11.2
  • Exposure Bias = 1

After setting all of the above, click the + button to save this as a new preset. Name it as Torley has, or choose another name that works for you.

Capture

• Fraps is very useful for both movies and still pictures. There's actually a hidden "burst mode" in FRAPS which you can use to take rapid-fire photos until the screen capture hotkey is pressed again. This is essential for
  • Alternatively, you can record a video clip and pluck frames out of it, but you should have Force lossless RGB capture on for this to prevent reduced quality.
• When doing machinima, a specific pixel-perfect window size may be essential. Use an app like Brian Apps' Sizer to assist with this. Keep in mind that on Windows 7, window chrome is part of the total size. Therefore not only do you need to hide the user interface (Ctrl+Alt+F1), you also need to set the actual dimensions somewhat larger to compensate like this:
  • 1920x1080 - Width = 1936 and Height = 1118
  • 1280x720 - Width = 1296 and Height = 758
• For still pictures, capture as large as you can. Buy the biggest monitor you can — 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 (the max. desktop resolution as of this writing). While fixing <jira>MAINT-628</jira> will reduce the need to have a large as-is resolution somewhat, keep in mind it only applies to using SL's built-in snapshot tool. FRAPS will not take high-res snapshots. Wish we had some kind of offline rendering mode.

Useful references

Tip: Add yours here!

• Strawberry Singh's "Debug Me"