This entry from Chris Flesuris (Kyoto)
Shortly after reading through Westley's blog entry about Mike Denneny and his work on Skoolaborate, I decided to take a look at his other work posted on Flickr.
What I learned from looking at these photos was a new and simplified way to create more "depth" to buildings and clothing in Second Life through the use of some very creative textures.
I have dabbled in Photoshop all my life, and recently started to learn the open-source application GIMP to teach my students how to use a freely available program that they can download at home.
When I first began building in Second Life, I didn't fully comprehend how much these programs can improve the overall appearance of user-created structures and clothing. Perusing through Mike's page I realized a couple of important things that I had overlooked before. First, I was immediately struck by the lighting effects that he had accomplished in some of the interior shots of his buildings, specifically the Prefab Office building.
At first glance, it appears that the light on the ceiling fan is what creates this effect. However, after spending hours building and creating in SL, I know that it is not currently possible to make a light source that can realistically illuminate a room. Thinking about it for a minute I realized that the walls themselves are textured to give the appearance of light hitting them, and this is what makes great architecture stand out from the mediocre creations of "n00bs". In addition he adds a pretty cool halo around the light. I have figured out how he did it, but maybe it would be best to let you figure it out on your own by looking at the picture below.
Another great idea I picked up by looking at Mike's work was the use of movable shadows for simple objects such as tables or picture frames. Of the many rooms he designed, I noticed that the pictures always had shadows behind them. You can do this one of two ways. First, you can create a shadow as a part of a wall texture using a simple fading tool in Photoshop, and then place a picture top of that shadow area once the texture has been applied to your building. However, this means that you need to create a different texture each time you make a new building, and this can be very costly in uploading fees. Instead, you can create moveable shadows by applying a semi-transparent, black texture to a 0.010m thick prim and placing it behind or underneath your pictures and furniture. It will look like a shadow because it is so thin and you still see the wall or floor texture behind it. Take a look at the picture below, and see if you can spot what I'm talking about.
There are many more important techniques to discover by looking at the Flickr pages of Mike and other great builders like him, but half the fun is finding them for yourself. After spending a couple of months on SL and going through the process of self-teaching, it becomes easier to spot some of these professional touches. The truth is, it's no big secret that you need to be good with textures to have any chance of becoming a great builder or designer. Learn to master the techniques of image editing, and the virtual world is yours.
Chris
