Who wears shiny hair in Second Life?
Posted on: July 16, 2007I've realized something, and that is: I hardly see any avatars in Second Life with shiny hair! How can this be? For a number of reasons, including:
- Permissions - Hair that's not modifiable, so either the maker didn't expressly set their creation to be shiny, nor can you customize it.
- Transparency - Textures with alpha channels can't be shiny and transparent at the same time. (It was a pre-release feature for a brief time and there was a glitch with a similar effect, but those are other stories.)
- Shine already baked in - Many hair textures already have some light sourcing done to give a sleek, but static effect.
- Not enough curiosity - Simply put, "Hmm… I wonder what happens if I make my hair shiny today?" is an atypical and not-frequently-explored thought.
And of course, the usual usability reasons apply, like it being confusing and even scary for newcomers to mod their hair and other attachments — I'm among those who'd love a more forgiving undo, especially since I've been prone to scrooing up my edits too.
Awhile ago, I took pictures of some of my hair made shiny:
and that turned out pretty lovely. The idea to do it again came to me today as I was admiring how much more defined and pronounced the new shiny in WindLight looks. Yes, it's stronger than the current — soon to be "old kind" — and colored more by the sun, sky, and clouds, but it's a real treat to play with.
Here, have a look:
The kewlest thing is, it has to be seen in motion: remember that shine already baked in won't move around when you pan the camera, but part of shiny's allure is that you'll see the visible cube map in the faces of shiny prims change as you camscan.
Check it out (click-through to see details), respectively: no shiny, then low, medium, and high settings.
Especially coupled with the new WindLight viewer's glow effects, you can imbue an angelic aura to your next coiffure. Here's shiny low, medium, and high, all with a glow of 25%.
I think you get the idea. Shiny hair generally isn't appropriate for when you want a "natural" look, but when you want to tease things up a few levels and acquire an eye-catching, stylized look, I believe shiny hair can be a powerful addition to your wardrobe. I haven't tried it yet, but shiny + glowy + flexi long hair has gotta rock the cat's whiskers. Plus, if you get started early, you'll be a pioneer!
Know any quality artisans who have a knack for shiny hair? Let me know.
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box o' RANDOM FUN
July 16th, 2007 at 7:08 PM PDT
Whoo! Can't wait for it to be released into First Look already!
July 16th, 2007 at 11:50 PM PDT
Shiny hair is sooo 1990s Torley… still slick yours back with a big pot of pink gel?
July 17th, 2007 at 7:45 AM PDT
I tried this for a laugh a while back, metallic looking hair is daft and great.
It'd be nice if a few designers tried making hair with shiny in mind.
July 17th, 2007 at 9:20 PM PDT
90% of the time hair is mod because there are so many diverse shapes in SL, selling something like hair no-mod is almost like commercial suicide. Shiny is also great for wet-looking hair, ie an underwater sort of thing, and is rarely used outside of that because it makes the hair look wet and clumped, something the textures tend to work against deliberately (clumpiness, that is). But a-ha-hactually I recently grabbed some adorable shiny hair in a japanese mall in Ginza (one of the Metabirds J-Biz oriented areas, ping me if you'd like the LM), made by KissKiss Zemlja. It's not A+ but it's unique and quite cute, a bit robo-babe-ish. ^^
July 19th, 2007 at 9:33 PM PDT
I never even knew HOW to modify something to shiny until I read this and started tinkering around. I'm pretty new in this world (just turned six months!) and of all the information I've managed to find about Second Life, what I've read from you has been some of the most comprehensive, exciting, and inspiring of it all.
Thanks Torley.
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:31 PM PDT
@Smiley: "WindLight… with GLOW TOPPING AS BONUS!" Environmental magic!
@Laetizia: 1990s? That like Criss Cross? Hey, I want fluid simulations. That'd rock.
@shockedfrog: "daft and great"!? Haha, I like the sound of that.
@Iris: Thanks for pointin' out my oversight re: "commercial suicide". Leave it to the likes of the Japanese to innovate… I've been to MetaBirds a few times and am always surprised what new goods are available. I'll look that name up, thx!
@Candy: Welcome to Second Life and you're super-welcome! I love to share and there's a lot of great info out there, hope you've followed links from my sites onto other things I enjoy… it's so exciting. Let me know how your shiny adventures go.