Calas Galadhon & The Discarded Textures

Calas Galadhon
Calas Galadhon

Yeah, I saw all of the warnings in probably every group that I’m in that Second Life was experiencing rezzing issues today. But I logged in and I rezzed fine, so I thought I must be one of the lucky ones. I was really looking forward to visiting Calas Galadhon so I hopped straight over, not even bothering to change clothes!

Since they only opened today, I was expecting it to be very busy. While there were other people there, with 13 sims to wander around it wasn’t difficult to avoid other visitors. And my plan was to brush up on my landscape photography, so I wasn’t worried about errant avatars popping into my shot.

I fired off a few snaps and then I noticed, for the very first time, the dreaded “# textures discarded due to insufficient memory 1” message at the bottom of my screen. I have read about this problem in blogs, on the Firestorm webpage and I’m aware there is even a JIRA for it, but I hadn’t experienced it myself before. I could click on a foggy texture get it to clear up, so I continued to roam, stopping frequently to take more photos.

After about an hour, I decided to take a look at my photos. And I was appalled to see that they ALL had the “textures discarded” message in 8-16 places all over the pictures! I was so disappointed. I pulled two images and spent AGES cloning and correcting the areas where the text was printed. And that’s as far as I got.

I’ll go back again soon. The Calas Galadhon Park is too lovely to have to distort a single pixel of a photo removing unwanted text. It is a place to just enjoy and capture the beauty of the landscape.

You can keep up to date on happenings at Calas Galadhon by joining their in-world group of following their blog.

Rainy Days & Cupcakes

1 Cupcakes_001JS

Ah, the rain. If we’re carefree with the spontaneity of a child, we’ll dance in it. Barefoot. But if we’re wearing suede, an umbrella is a necessity!

I found the most amazing umbrella pose set by CAASH! at Soho Market today. It has seven poses and three separate sets of umbrellas (left and right each of plain, plaid and retro designs). So I hopped over to Berry’s The Explore Second Life Flickr group page and started perusing. Now, there are very few things this girl loves more than cupcakes so it was kismet when I saw the photos by Moon Falconer, a reminder that part of the Cupcakes sim is in rain!

1 Cupcakes_065JS

I’m not going to say much more, but in the final photo I am walking away from the brasserie.

Um…and no, that’s not frosting on the corner of my mouth…why do you ask? 😉

Pretty stuff I’m wearing:

Outfit: Ricielli Mesh – (S) Papi II jumpsuit /pink+nude by Fhara Acacia (available at The Dressing Room Fusion)
Boots: ::HH:: Hucci Akita Suede Boots – Collection by Eboni Khan
Jewelry: Amacci – Stripes – Necklace + Earrings – Bronze by Carina Larsen (Gacha prize at The 24)
Ring: Maxi Gossamer – Maxi Gossamer – Rings – 9mm Joli Petite Fatal – 1 finger – GOLD by Maxi Gossamer
Hair: *ARGRACE* Mia – Red by rika Oyen
Eyes: Amacci Gaze Eyes – Ocean Blue by Carina Larsen
Skin: [PXL] Creations [PXL] JADE SK WineLight Lips MEB C2 by Hart
Larsson
Hands: Slink Mesh Hands (av) Casual by Siddean Munro
Feet: Slink Mesh Feet (Av Enhance) Medium by Siddean Munro
Hand & Feet Appliers: [ PXL ] Creations [ PXL ] Slink Hand & Feet Appliers SK

Poses: CAASH! Umbrella Female Couple Pose Prop for Soho by Carolina Ashmoot (available at Soho Market)

More Torture

Original
Original

This is going to be a very quick post today. I just thought I would share a bit of the torture I have been subjecting myself to.

Yep, I’ve been doing tutorials in Photoshop. Again.

I did the above photo and liked it ok, but I thought it would be fun to try out the tutorials I have been messing around with on selection techniques. I did the original capture, planted it on a background and the shadow which I had preserved from my original shot just didn’t work. So I fooled around with the image and came up with this:

Post torture
Post torture

I may actually like the original better. I’m still deciding. But I wanted to have you share my pain.

I’m just nice like that 😉

Pretty stuff I’m wearing:

Jacket: GizzA – Cotton Jacket [Pastel Peach] by Giz Seorn
Top: GizzA – Cotton Tank [White] by Giz Seorn (included with jackets)
Shorts: GizzA – Cotton Shorts [Pastel Ocean] by Giz Seorn
Boots: ::HH:: Hucci Akita Suede Boots – Collection by Eboni Khan
Phone:
Le Primitif – :::LP::: Gametoy_LPhone – Yellow by Chiharu Mercado Dubrovna (Gatcha prize at The 24)
Necklace: Maxi Gossamer – MG – Necklace – 9mm Joli Petite Fatal – GOLD by Maxi Gossamer
Ring: Maxi Gossamer – MG – Rings – 9mm Joli Petite Fatal – 1 finger – GOLD by Maxi Gossamer
Earrings: [MANDALA]Otsumami earrings/GOLD by Kikunosuke Eel
Hair: Analog Dog – .b – cosine sangria by Queue Marlowe
Skin: [PXL] Creations [PXL] JADE SK WineLight Lips MEB C2 by Hart
Larsson
Hands: Slink Mesh Hands (av) Casual by Siddean Munro
Feet: Slink Mesh Feet (Av Enhance) Medium by Siddean Munro
Hand & Feet Appliers: [ PXL ] Creations [ PXL ] Slink Hand & Feet Appliers SK
Eyes: Mayfly – Liquid Light Mesh Eyes (Glacial River, w3) by Arkesh Baral
Lip Gloss: ::Modish:: Yndra lips 2(glossy) by Ele Brandi (Gatcha prize at The 24)

Pose: flowey. ‘razzle’ -HAPPY BIRTHDAYC88! Series by Flutter Memel (available at Collabor88 September 2013)