IcaBlogsters

:::::::: Short Bios ::::::::
[12:11] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: 1) Biography- Needs to be concise and not too long. It also needs to be uniquely YOU and show your personality. Keep it professional and in good taste. Write about the good things in your SL like endearing experiences, the love of your friends and family, charities you help or volunteer work you do. Leave out your BDSM private life, so to speak. Be congenial!
[12:12] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: 2) Remember to write about:
a) write a little about your personal life
b) write down how you got started in modeling
c) write down your accomplishments
d) what are your goals in SL etc.
e) Information about your avatar
[12:13] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: 3) Keep it to only three paragraphs, and you must write it in the third person, as if Anrol was reading the bio ABOUT you!
EXAMPLE:
VeronicaLynn Parx rezzed into Second life on 11/15/08. She started out in SL working her way from a dancer, to a club and events manager at but her love of fashion, shoes and jewelry drew her to the world of modeling. In June 2009 she enter the Ms Hollywood Walk of Fame contest and that night she participated in the Styling contest winning 2nd place on her very first try! Ever since that day she has been working toward being the best model she can be at CWS!
Some of her accomplishments at CWS have been, winning the Creative Styling Award for August 2009 as well as Most Prestigious Model for October 2009. She won 2nd runner up for Ms USA 2009, 1st runner up for Ms Mardi Gras 2009, 2nd place for Ms Classic with Style 2009, Ms Photogenic for Ms Beautiful 2009 and 1st runner up for Ms Best Model in SL 2009 and also Ms Photogenic for Ms Best Model in SL 2009.
She achieved her long term goal of winning the title of Ms Hollywood Walk of Fame 2009 in December along with becoming Ms December 2009 and going on to win Ms CWS 2009 Ms Calendar, which was an amazing accomplishment and she was truly honored to have such an amazing few months! She was the logo model for the Best model in SL 2009 competition, and has done many runway shows for top designers in SL here at CWS. VeronicaLynn is also an Executive Model Trainer for UCWS and is our Director of Marketing for our magazine Classic Glamour with Style.
PAGENT BIO example:
Good evening ladies and gentleman! My name is VeronicaLynn Parx and I rezzed into SL on 11/15/08. This has been one amazing year for me, and I have come a long way but not without tons of hard work, patience and support from my incredible friends and family.
Since my first days in SL of trying to make hair out of a brown helmet because I didn't know about buying flexi hair, lol, I have learned a lot about SL. I have learned a lot about people, about unconditional kindness, about the ugliness of jealousy, the fun of being a team and with perseverance and love from those who matter...there is Happiness!
My happiness in this career began with my love of fashion and shopping which drew me to modeling. As fate would have it, I stumbled onto Classic with Style in June and entered tonight's HWOF contest. I participated in the
[12:20] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: weekly styling event that night using manual poses and was driven by sheer panic, but I won 2nd place! I have been devoted to my modeling career at CWS ever since.
Some of my accomplishments so far are being chosen to model for CWS with my first audition. I came in 2nd runner up in my very first pageant for Ms USA. I was 1st runner up for Ms Mardi Gras and 2nd runner up for Ms Classic with Style. I was chosen Ms Photogenic for the Ms Beautiful pageant, Ms Photogenic and 1st runner up for Best Model in SL pageant.
I have won the Creative Styling award for the month of August and was selected Most Prestigious Model for October. I was the logo model for Best Model in SL and I most recently became Ms December! However, one of my most rewarding accomplishments has proven to be my promotion to executive model trainer at CWS University which I will begin full time in January and I can't wait!
It is bittersweet that I close my career tonight as a competitor as I walk the runway for my last pageant and coincidently the first contest I ever joined here. As I take my path of instructor and focus on teaching and mentoring in
[12:20] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: ly the first contest I ever joined here. As I take my path of instructor and focus on teaching and mentoring instead of competing, I can't help but thank Anrol, Steve, Arica, tabytha1, Peach, Arialee and my dearest Tommi for all of their help, encouragement and friendship! I look forward to the future and growing with all of you!
[12:20] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: ☆'*·~-✫...✪°‘¨♈∴★ Swimwear outfit ★∴♈¨‘°✪...✫-~*'☆
Good evening ladies and gentlemen! For my swimwear outfit tonight I have put together an Indian inspired look in memory of our friend Celina Langer whom we tragically lost this year. I wanted to show the "Bollywood" beauty and intricate detail of the Indian Royal jewelry which was Celina's heritage. This styling is larger than life and Hollywood bound, just like she would have been!
I choose this stunning gold swimsuit by Zibwear called Monique and I paired it together with a bejeweled designed by Mashooka in amber and pearls, which is one of my favorite precious gems. The suit has beautiful pearl accents on the bust line as well as the hips which give a perfect complement to the pearls that flow throughout the Royal Raiput collection of jewels and I love the decadence that is true "Bollywood".
My skin is Redgrave Leticia in gold, hair by Truth called Marianne in night and my shoes are by Maitreya Gold called Shanti in c
[12:20] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: hocolate to compliment the amber. In honor of "Bollywood" making a huge impact in Hollywood and in memory of our friend Celina, I thank you! I wanted her to be present here tonight in more than just our thoughts.
: :::::::: Photography 101::::::::
[12:21] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: Today we will learn the basics on how to take a picture in SL. To take pictures that are competition worthy, you may want to hire a professional photographer in SL. These are generally professional graphic artist in RL and bring their gifts into SL to make us look even more beautiful!
[12:22] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: For today, we will learn some basics and have fun with photography and take some pictures that we can use for contest photos, or model ads, or profile pics! Advanced photography is best left to the masters that do this craft everyday and are trained professionals with years of experience. As you will soon learn, this is a very difficult skill with complicated programs to learn to make truly outstanding photography! We salute our professionals, but for a moment, we will enter their world and have some FUN creating! Let's begin...
[12:22] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: There are two ways to take pictures in SL. One is to save into your inventory and the other is to save to your computer.
[12:23] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: **Snapshots to Inventory:
1) Click on the Snapshot button on your bottom toolbar or go to... File> Take Snapshot OR, (Ctrl-Shift-S) to open the Snapshot Preview window. The Snapshot window appears with a preview of your snapshot. When first using your Snapshot Preview tool, it will appear on your screen in a condensed version. Click on More>> to expand the tool options. Size= "Current Window", is the maximum viewable area. There is also width and height that you can customize. Make sure size is set to 1600 x 1200 minimum. Best for models is 3200x2400. (You will have to crop this later.) If you find you are having attachments like hair/shoes disappear at this higher resolution, bring it back down to the 1600x1200.
All boxes from "Show interface in snapshot" to "Temporary Image (Free)" should be unchecked, unless there is a specific need.
2) Select Save to your inventory (L$10) to upload the snapshot. Your inworld balance will be deducted L$10 and the snapshot will be saved to your My Inventory > Photo Alb
That is how most of you take quick simple pictures in SL. But now we will get a bit more advanced and learn a few tricks to getting a more artistic picture.
[12:24] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: **Snapshots to your Hard Drive:
The Snapshot Preview provides the option of saving Snapshots to your hard drive so that you may do some editing later on your computer.
1) Select Save to your hard drive and click the Save button. This option includes custom features:
Save: Choose a location and filename for your snapshot. Click Save for your next Snapshot to save to the same file as the previous snapshot during your login session. Snapshots saved with this method will appear on your hard drive with a _001 appended to the end of the filename you chose.
New snapshots will be given the same name as the previous file, with the number incremented by 1.The arrow next to the Save button provides a Save As... option which lets you select a new location and/or filename for each snapshot.
Size: Click this drop down menu to select the image size. The Custom size option enables the Constrain Proportions option for Width and Height.
Format: Snapshots can be saved to your hard drive in PNG, JPEG or BMP file types.
[12:24] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn:
Now you can take your picture and it will save ONLY to your computer. You will not see the picture in your inventory, so you must know what folder you have saved your picture to on your computer. I will later teach you how to edit your pictures and upload them back into SL.
[12:27] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: **Now how to focus on your subject to get a great picture:
1) Camera controls:
These are must-knows for obvious reasons! How can you take pictures without knowing how to control your camera? To bring up camera controls click: View menu > Camera Controls
Here's how you use them:
The left blue circle controls when you need to turn around your camera view (like to face yourself).
The right blue circle controls is when you need to move your views side to side and up and down.
The middle bar is for zooming.
+ zooms in
- zooms out
[12:30] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn:
To get extremely close:
clrt and zero will zoom in closer
crlt and 9 will reset your camera
crlt and 8 will zoom out
12:33] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: You can also use this method of holding:
Alt and clicking something focuses it to the center of the screen.
Alt and dragging the mouse zooms the camera.
Alt-Ctrl and dragging orbits the camera.
Alt-Ctrl-Shift and dragging pans the camera.
If you're on a Mac, Alt = Opt (also marked Alt on newer Macs).
:::::::: Photography 101 Settings ::::::::
[12:36] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: Enable the Advanced menu:
Press Ctrl-Alt-D on PC or Opt-Ctrl-D on Mac. You'll see a new menu at the top of your screen next to the Help menu: Advanced.
1) Turn on the High-res snapshots option:
Advanced menu > High-res snapshots. Once that's enabled with an X next to it, all snapshots you save to disk will be 4x the viewable size: 2x the height, 2x the width. For instance, if your actual screen resolution is 1024x768, then the resulting high-res snapshot will be 2048x1536.
[12:37] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: The "High-res snapshots" option only works if you use File menu > Snapshot to Disk. Taking hi-rez pics will momentarily freeze your computer, and in some extreme instances, may crash Second Life. Having both lots of RAM and a fast hard drive help here. If you're serious about snapshots in the long run, you'll want proper equipment!
2) Trouble rezzing prims:
Advanced tab> Debug settings> and then type in rendervolumelodfactor. Set it to 4.0.
You might have to change that rendering every time you have a shoot, for me it always reverts back to 1.125.
Set your Preferences:
1) Graphics:
Set to the max... basically, all you do is move the slider to Ultra, and there, you're pretty much set for high-quality snapshots. If you want more control, click the Custom check box to show all the options underneath. Also remember this general principle: moving sliders all the way to the right, checking check box buttons, and selecting the lowest of radio buttons (those round ones you can only select one from a series of) will result in the highest quality, at the price of lower performance.
2) Anisotropic filtering:
Preferences > Graphics tab> Hardware Options> Anisotropic filtering> Click box
A layman description: anisotropic filtering makes stuff at angles in the distance look sharper.
3) Antialiasing filtering:
Preferences > Graphics tab> Hardware Options> Choose Setting
Boost antialiasing as you please, but be aware higher settings will be slower because it renders the scene at multiples of itself before downscaling. More powerful graphics cards will be able to do higher-quality modes. Antialiasing smooths out jaggy lines.
It affects just about everything you see inworld, and increases your overall immersive experience. Antialiasing is especially important when you want to capture fine details like avatars with intricate attachments.
On lower-end graphics cards, antialiasing will have a noticeable performance impact, especially at higher-quality modes. But on mid-range and particularly high-range cards like NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS you can crank it all the way up.
4) Advanced lighting:
If your computer meets SL system recommendations, you should be able to turn on local lighting.
Preferences > Graphics tab> Nearby local lights. If you don't see this option, click the "Custom" checkbox.
In addition to back lighting from the sun & moon, the 6 nearest lights will cast light on avatars, objects, and terrain within their proximity. Like RL photography, well-placed lights can add contrast, tone, and depth to a scene.
[12:38] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: What if doing the above makes Second Life too slow?
Well, if that's the case, have comfort that you can change the aforementioned options back to more moderate settings. I sometimes crank up settings extremely high for the purpose of taking snapshots, then move them back down after a photo session is done.
Changing time of day:
1) You can locally (meaning only you will see the changes) change the time of day anytime you wish.
World menu > Environment Settings.
Select either Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, or Midnight.
World menu > Environment Settings > Revert to Region Default will get you back to how things used to be, or you can relog.
2) For Phoenix, (will have to select this every time you log in and want to use it.)
Go to World, Environment Settings, Environment Editor. When the editor comes up, click Advanced Sky. Under Sky Presets, click the drop down arrow and choose one of the windlight settings. There is one below you can create yourself, or, I would suggest Canimod, Starley Settings 2, AnaLu *Studio5*, or Studio Light.
     :::::::: Photography Editing Program ::::::::
[13:08] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: Most photographers use a software program called Photoshop to edit their photos. Biggest problem is that the program cost about $1,600 USD. There are many ways to go about getting a less expensive version like eBay and such for about $300 USD.
[13:09] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: But today I will give you a hand and tell you about a free program that you can download to your computer that can edit your pictures. This is a much more basic program and not as "fancy" as PS, but hey, it's FREE! :) Its called GIMP.
http://www.gimp.org/
[13:10] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: This program is still much more simple, but you may need more help with using the program so here is the link for the user manual.
http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/
[13:10] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: Remember to work with your Second Life window maximized. I run Second Life in a window because full screen mode makes it hard to switch between open applications on my computer.
To enable this, go to Edit menu > Preferences > Graphics tab and check "Run Second Life in a window".
Make sure to maximize your window so it covers as much of the screen as possible. When you take a snapshot, it captures everything you can see in your SL window, so obviously, bigger is better — you can always crop/trim later, but you can't add missing details so easily; it's generally best to have extra material to work with, just like traditional photography.
:::::::: Photo Shoots ::::::::
[13:13] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: As a model you will be required to go on photo shoots either for your own needs or for a clients needs. When you are working for a client, they usually provide you with the needed items to be modeled and you will style them with appropriate accessories. Make sure you choose items that are in line with the designers vision. This should all be discussed before the shoot.
[13:14] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: If you are hiring a photographer for yourself, again a consultation for fees, outfits and number of pictures should be discussed ahead of time so when the time comes for the session your ready to go. Remember time is money in modeling! We will now discuss the requirements needed for a successful photo shoot.
Rule #1....Make the photographer's life easy and you will get amazing results! Get your items ready and packed up in your folder BEFORE you arrive to the appointment. This should all be discussed and worked out before the shoot with the photographer. If you have talked about bringing certain items please be sure they are packed and ready to go in your folder so you can make quick changes. This avoids last minute running around and searching your inventory for missing items. This is probably the biggest photographer complaint!
[13:14] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: Reliability again is part of being a professional. Arrive on time!! Studio time is often based on an hourly fee, or per picture fee. If time is being wasted waiting for a model to arrive or prepare...it either costs the photographer in time that can't be billed or it costs the client in time they are paying for nothing. In either case, you just made the photographer's life less easy and therefore may have lost a good photographer or additional booking with the client.
As a new model, its important to begin with a portfolio to show case your look. So your first photo shoot experience may be to begin creating your portfolio. For your portfolio you will need to prepare for 5 looks that are key to most client requirements.
They are as follows:
1) Head shot
2) Full body shot
3) Casual wear
4) Formal wear
5) Swim wear
[13:14] VeronicaLynn Parx-Bayn: These are crucial outfits to prepare for because it showcases your originality and creativity. It sets the tone for your body of work and also what you want to be know for. Choose your outfits, makeup, jewelry and shoes carefully and update your pictures often if you make a change to your appearance. You may use very high prim items for photo shoots since lag isn't a huge problem, so take advantage and make the photos stunning!
In summary...
1) Be Prepared!
2) Be on time!
3) Be stunning!
:::::::: HOMEWORK :::::::
1) Write your Biography. Remember:
        a) write a little about your personal life
        b) write down how you got started in modeling
        c) write down your accomplishments
        d) what are your goals in SL etc.
        e) Information about your avatar
            Incorporate what I have taught you about writing a bio! Please write it in the 3rd person as if Anrol was reading it "about" you.
            Here is an example.....
            VeronicaLynn Parx rezzed into Second life on 11/15/08. She started out in SL working her way from a dancer, to a club and events manager at but her love of fashion, shoes and jewelry drew her to the  world of modeling. In June 2009 she enter the Ms Hollywood Walk of Fame contest and that night she participated in the Styling contest winning 2nd place on her very first try! Ever since that day she               has been working toward being the best model she can be at CWS!
2) Take your OWN Head shot picture and place it at the bottom of your bio.
    a) I want you to try to use GIMP to write your name some where on your photo!
*****Due to turn in to me on:
        Thursday 3/23/10 @ 12pm/slt!