Mar 24
WindLight, Finally!
Yes! I’ve finally shot my first pics in WindLight! I’ve had this enormous mental block against it for the longest time. I started using WindLight only recently (when it was included in the Release Candidate viewer) but I still continued to shoot my pics in the standard viewer as the Snapshot function is different borked in WindLight and because the idea of starting to fiddle with all those extra atmospheric settings was rather daunting. Then, thanks to Gillian’s comments in my last post, I decided to finally give it a go.
*continues after the cut*
I still have a lot of tweaking of the settings to do — for example, I think all my prim parts look too obvious, see hair and pant cuffs — but I figured I have to start somewhere. I’ve looked briefly at the excellent posts by Iris Ophelia for New World Notes and Caliah Lyon on SoignĂ© and I still need to incorporate their advice, but I was wondering if the info is still valid for these newer versions? I would also love to hear from you if you have figured out good settings for photography.
By the way, if like me, you can’t stand the new Snapshot window (in the WindLight/Release Candidate), please go and vote for the Jira issue (you have to log in with your SL credentials and then Vote on the left hand side of the page) so that things can go back to the way they are. I have to wonder why on earth they decided to change it in the first place?
Ok, enough “tech talk”; over to the clothes. I have a sexy chic look for today, that started with this gorgeous swimsuit from Casa del Shai — just love the ruffles at the front and the sexy back! I simply paired it with a pair of sleek slacks, olive coloured pumps to pick up on the bottom part of the swimsuit and then just some soft coloured bangles.
The side is even sexier…. 
Please see In-World Locations for SLurls and map coordinates.
Hair: Armidi Hair - The Pasadena Girl III in Orchid (Platinum Collection)
Skin: Redgrave - Chloe in Smoky 3
Eyes: Miriel - Blue Ice (Barely Unnatural Collection)
Eye Lashes: Cake - Bedroom Lashes
Nails: Celestial Studios - Lulu in Salmon
Top: Casa del Shai - Zambia Safari Swimsuit
Pants: Elephant Outfitters (Armidi) - Journey Tweed Slacks in Creme Tea
Shoes: Maitreya - Verve Pumps in Olive
Bangles: Earthtones - bMc! Goldust Bangles and Cedar Spheres
18 Comments so far
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The first picture is my fav, the shadow looks great very “real”. Whilst still be glossy and fashiony
Hi, beautiful one, you look stunning - as usual.
I voted for the jira issue. I am having pixel problems with my pics.
[...] pictures look a lot more pixelized. I am seeing pixels in pictures where I have never seen before. Milla Michinaga also addressed this issue in her latest post and pointed me to a jira issue about it that needs our [...]
Hi Milla,
I love Windlight…:-)
And I never even use my snapshot window. I just marked “high-res snapshot” and “quiet snapshots to disk” in the advanced menu. From there I only use the shortcut: “Ctrl`”
Shooting pics was never easier! No sound, no animation, just click-click-click! (voting in jira is more work than activate these settings;-))
Hiya Milla! I’ve been watching your blog for a while (and I frequently go shopping at your behest), so I was pleased to see you take the plunge! It really is scary, but the glow feature for building -alone- is worth it!
Quick tip: color any attachments that mesh with clothing (like leg prims for pants) to RGB 218/218/218.. it barely changes the color, but it turns it from white (which WindLight loves to run with in a crazy way) to a very pale gray that helps to calm the sun reflection down.
If you would like, I’d be happy to send you my photog preset, and you can tweak it accordingly. I highly recommend checking out Caliah’s posts on Soigne about tweaking WindLight if you haven’t already.. it’s really quite easy, I promise!
Whatever you decide to do, you look fabulous as ever! Please keep up with your fantastic fashion finds.
Thanks for the feedback Marni — and I agree, in the right-side pic the back is far too dark.
Ana, I saw that you are spreading the word on the Jira issue - excellent!
Zoe, you seem to have found something that works great for you — I love your picks!
Unfortunately I still have to find my way with all the atmospheric settings, but I have to say, now that I’ve started it’s becoming almost fun. 
How nice to hear from you Lyra
and your colouring tip seems great — I can’t wait to try it out tomorrow! And Yes Please! I would LOVE your presets! Thank you! 
I use a few variants of Caliah’s settings and they really look great. I dont even use a facelight anymore since the lighting is very diffused and soft.
The one thing that I hate is that it seems like the only way to get that nice, soft lighting is to turn Haze up all the way which washes out the sky, but its a tradeoff I’m willing to live with.
Sent, Milla! Hope it works out for you. You might find it a bit blue of a hue by the way.. I just prefer that since it tends to rein my skin tone back from WindLight Ubertan to the Starley Amber I know I and love. Since we’re of a similar complexion, it may very well be to your taste regardless!
Good luck.
YW! I was discussing that issue a few days ago.
I am planning on sending you my presets, as well. They need a little (maybe a lot) of tweaking still.
Hi Milla,
I’ve been using Windlight only for months now and taking lots of pictures, here’s a few tips that I’ve discovered…
First of all, I usually use the default sky preset but change the time of day. I usually use anywhere from 7-10am or 2-5pm depending on what color of light I want to use.
Then…here’s a biggie….put the Sun At Your Back more or less (a bit of an angle is also nice to give a nice “light rim”, then light from the front with white local lights…not so much that it blows things out but lights things evenly (helps with the prim shadow problem too). I may give it a bit of levels/curves tweak in photoshop if it’s a bit dark. (but I tend to err on the darker side myself)
I admit this comes from a personal lighting style influenced by a friend who’s a RL gaffer (Lighting person works on tv, commercials, films)…he’s all about “lighting the background” and I found in windlight it works much better to let the sun light the background/give a nice rim and use local lights to control front Avie lighting.
Anyway, see my flickr pics to see how it all turns out. Incidently, I’m often too lazy to do any post work so these are almost all straight from windlight.
I’m with you Milla, I can’t get used to the Windlight snapshots. And I do believe they emphasize every prim with the shadows. Scenery looks great in it, but avatars not so great.
Cute outfit and welcome back.
Thank you so much for the presets, Lyra and Ana! Big kiss to you both!
Annyka, I hear you on the haze issue — I felt exactly the same. For now I’ve got my haze maximized for my photo settings and then I use the Default settings together with a face-light for all other activities — I figured most people will probably be using the Default with maybe only minor tweaks. Its difficult when everybody can tweak their settings individually, leaving us little control of how we appear to others (oh how our vain little hearts suffer)
QueenKellee, I also found that altering the time of day helped a lot! I use 9-9.30 am for a lot of my stuff, especially to look at new skins or other detail-rich items. I’ve yet to find a good time for photos, but I’ll be testing out your suggestions.
Galilla, indeed a royal pain in the butt!
I hope you voted on the Jira issue 
ooh Milla, the side pic is very sexy indeed!
I’m still stuck with good old standard viewer (I guess for the same reason that prevents me from manipulating scripts and stuff of the kind)… humans are animals of habit
but I guess I’ll eventually make the leap to Windlight, so a big thanks to Milla and everyone else for sharing your tricks, those may end up convincing me!
Amazing. I must try someday Widnlight. I adore the outfit Milla (as always).
So complicated…
*clings on tightly to the regular viewer*
-Portia <3
P.S. The outfit’s still nice, Milla!
Girls, I really recommend you take the leap; it’s so worth the initial pains. Crank it up to High (just on Default settings) and then go to your favourite sim — you will be blown away!
Yeah I see the prim bits but love the outfit
[...] new ReleaseCandidate (RC4), along with other major issues. This has been reported in other blogs: MichaMi Style Blog :: WindLight, Finally! A Crimson world :: Hi-Res Snapshots doesn’t work for me in [...]