Thing One, Two and Three, A Review Of PhotoLife 3.0 by Cherie Parker

In the beginning there were photographers. And the photographers had nothing to photograph save that of a barren sim, and the plain avatar called Ruth.

 

It wasn’t long before intelligent men and women soon arrived on the scene and came to the rescue of the photographers, building mighty prims and sims filled with vegetation and all kinds of wild life. And the intelligent men and women saw it was good.

 

Ruth, our beloved plain avatar was given an extreme makeover, (soon to be aired on a yet unnamed Fox reality show), which turned her flat lifeless features into those of queens and kings.  And the photographers were happy.

 

As happens historically, it wasn’t long before the photographers wanted more. More control, more light, more special effects, more, more, more of what the intelligent men and women had brought into Second Life. 

 

So with a grand entrance and a roar from the crowd came… The Photo Studio.  In awe the photographers slowly gathered around this new invention and quick as a vulture on it’s prey, seized on all of its capacity and convenience.

 

Photography in Second Life blossomed and grew. Beautiful Avatars of all shapes and sizes soon came in droves to the newly equipped photographers. Photographers embraced the mighty Photo Studio with control, and all things elemental were at their fingertips like those of a magician.  One could change backgrounds, make light appear where none was, use scripted technologies to produce a foggy night or a snowy day. It was simply…a miracle.  

 

Photography in this manner went on for quite some time. More and more intelligent men and women produced new and inventive photo studios, each one having the latest and greatest of features.  

 

That is… until one day…. OomPoppaMowMow Snookums rezzed into Second Life. And photography as we knew it was changed forever.

 

With him he brought his version of the “big red box” and sat it before us saying almost the same thing a wise author once wrote;

 

In this box are two things

I will show to you now.

You will like these two things,”

Said the cat with a bow.

“I will pick up the hook.

You will see something new.

Two things. And I call them

Thing One and Thing Two.”‘

 

 

Yes… thing one… and thing two. Here respectfully referred to as The PhotoLife OM-10 and PhotoLife 2.0.

 

While in Dr. Suesse’s wonderful story The Cat in the Hat, both things looked the same… they were most certainly not.  That was true for Oom’s newest creations as well.

 

They looked alike but there were definitely some behavioral differences so let’s say they were fraternal twins shall we.

 

Well as all fairy tales go, a happy ending was had by all. Now in the possession of the photographers was a photo studio so grand in design, with the best possible scripting available, the most up to date advanced technologies and all the bells and whistles a photographer could ask for, what more could they want?  What more indeed.   

 

Soon the cries of photographers echoed thru the grid once more, wanting more, more, more. More features, more technologies, more scripting and more control. And yet again, OomPoppaMowMow Snookums heard the cries and answered them.

 

This now brings us up to date and to the meat of what this article is really all about.  The leap in technological advances of a photography studio, from scripting, lighting, special effects, to more advanced features as yet to be released.  The studio I’m referring to is the one and only PhotoLife 3.0.  Let me pause here until the roar of the crowd calms down.

 

The PhotoLife 3.0 created by OomPowPowMowMow Snookums owner and creator of  PhotoLife has done it again with his most recent incarnation of the photo studio recently introduced at his sim on Opium.

 

I have to say, I’ve been fortunate enough to own a PhotoLife studio since its inception and I can honestly tell you dear reader, I’ve never had any reason to go looking elsewhere. Every need has always been met by a PhotoLife product and even when there were whines of “I wish it could to this, or that” the call was always heard, addressed and delivered practically with a bow on top via a free upgrade thru the studio itself.

 

 

Both of Oom’s first versions of the PhotoLife studio were very similar in nature. They looked alike… they acted the same… with of course some additional features crammed into the updates.

 

But that’s just not the case with the PhotoLife 3.0.  What?!! You may say. Well don’t get your panties in a terror yet, give me a chance to explain.

 

The PhotoLife 3.0 is really a whole new species of photo studio. Immediately you see the difference once you’ve rezzed the studio into life.  The appearance has changed the lighting, etc. and almost all of its capabilities.

 

Typically the one thing I always said about the PhotoLife equipment is that it was user friendly. Meaning even a technically challenged person such as myself, could easily figure out all of its functions in very little time with almost no instruction.

 

I can’t say that about the PhotoLife 3.0. Now, don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean I don’t love it, because I do. I could include a photo here of me hugging my studio but that might give some of you guys the wrong idea. I don’t relish the idea of my photo being splashed across the front page of some rag named “The National AvaIntruder”.

 

Having said that, let me just say, for those of you that are college archeology professors with hieroglyphic reading skills this studio would probably be your dream come true.

I say that because with this version comes a control panel where almost every symbol on it results in some action or combination of actions. Click on a symbol and up pops a menu with a variety of choices from lighting to texturing. From alpha channels to special effects. You get it all with the new PhotoLife 3.0. There is nothing I have yet to find with this latest release that has not awed me. You say you want to be wowed? Well if this doesn’t wow you, then friend, I’m going to have to ask for your wrist cuz I need to take your pulse and verify you’re alive.

 

In this studio are all the bells and whistles you’ve come to know and love in the previous versions of the PhotoLife studios. In addition to all of that, you have soooooo much more. You now have a pose stand that holds a variety of different pose disk stands all in one that you can call from with the touch of a button. You can load all your male poses on one, your female poses on another and ahem… those little private poses you keep just for yourself on another.  Included in the stands are some poses to get you started AND of course the ever popular couples pose stand with instructions on how to load your own.

 

But as they say in the Informercials… that’s not all! In this new stand your clients, your friends, your family and your odd cousin It can purchase their own pose stand sold at PhotoLife and you can pop that baby down and control their poses as well. Thus gone are the days where multiple photographers using one studio were limited with pose selections.

 

Next up we now have the ability to copy whatever texture you’ve loaded onto the backdrop and apply it to a specific layer. That’s right, you know what that means… straight textures, no curve with the backdrop. So whenever you need that shot of a texture that requires a straight alignment… you’ve got it. In addition to that, you now have the ability to make that layer transparent. Uh huh… it’s true, you say you want it to be 50% transparent, click… and it’s done.

 

But why stop there… when you can have TTP. What’s TTP you ask? Texture Touch Position, it’s a feature that allows you the user to center a texture on the layer you’ve selected so you can place whatever you’ve created on that texture wherever you want. You want your logo up in the right hand corner… viola… you got it. You want to put a set of horns over your bosses head? Sure, no problem. I’m kind of hoping to get one of Oom like that. It’s almost impossible to tell you all the things that can be done with this feature because it’s really only limited to your imagination. How cool is that?

 

 

 

As always the PhotoLife 3.0 comes with built in security, but now I feel as if instead of having Rob Schneider protect my studio, I’ve been upgraded to Vin Diesel. On the studio itself you have a Security Menu Icon where you the user can choose your security settings. Allowing anyone, group only, group or a specific list of people access to your studio.  Now we’ve always had that feature and I enjoyed that a great deal, but here’s the thing. The one thing I complained about before was people coming into my studio and using my equipment even if they were not on the access list as long as they had access to a PhotoLife HUD. Well… my friends, my pathetic cry has been heard and answered. Now available in the PhotoLife 3.0 is the ever popular, strong as a bull, you can’t use my studio unless I say so protection of the LOCK.  That’s right, it now has a locking mechanism that will only respond to the owner of the studio. Now this will override all security settings you’ve put into place using the ordinary security features, but they are quickly returned to that setting as soon as you unlock your studio. For me, that’s a huge bonus as I can’t tell you how many times I’ve left my studio in a certain position, with lights set, background set, etc. etc… and come back to find it entirely changed because someone came into my studio while I was not there, and used it for their own nefarious purposes. Ok… nefarious might be a bit strong but you get my point.

 

Now that I’m armed with the LOCK, I’m a happy woman. I now know when I leave my studio, I will come back and find it the same and be able to get back to work a lot faster than having to reset all my components.

 

 

The PhotoLife 3.0 still comes with all the previous attributes like Prop Rezzing with some additional features as well but having not used that feature much I won’t really go into detail on that except to say that Oom has surely done it again, by making this component feature rich with capacity and exceptional with detail. There really isn’t much he hasn’t thought of when it comes to utilizing props and the storage of said items.

 

Now as I inferred in the beginning about the 3.0, this studio may not be for everyone. Why do I say that you ask? Well, not everyone has the patience to read a user manual. And not everyone wants to. And with this design, it’s crucial that you do. Unless as I said before you’re an expert in hieroglyphics and your life’s desire is to spend hours upon hours trying to decode them.  Frankly, that’s not for me, nor is reading a user manual to be exact, but… the studio is so progressive, so advanced, so freaking amazing, that I actually broke my own sloth rule and read the manual. I know… I know what you’re thinking… you want me to turn in my sloth card right? Well forget it, I’m still a card carrying sloth and will remain one until you pry it out of my cold sloth feet. However, as I said, this studio can do it all and more. It has more abilities and features than I may ever use. More capacity and potential than my little sloth head can get wrapped around. All I know is, every day Oom thinks up something new he can add to this baby… and sends updates to his beloved group of photography fanatics myself included.  And now, he’s making updates so much easier and actionable only to the item needing to be updated instead of the entire studio… does it get any better than that? I don’t think so… unless of course the next update comes with a complete eight course meal and a German beer… but hey… that might be next… who knows.

 

 

Oh hey, by the way, the new 3.0 comes with some built in help. Yep, your system is shipped with “Help Tags” turned on. They’re little tags of information that appear around the studio explaining what the icon it sits next to is for. Cool eh?  And when you get the hang of it, and don’t need the tags anymore, well… simply touch the little red button, select Help Tags and toggle that baby off.

 

Now clearly I have not been able to cover every bit of newness of the PhotoLife 3.0 in this article. But that’s not my job. My job here was to review this new advancement in photo studios and bring that information to you.  And I’m here to tell you, in so many non technical words, in my humble opinion that the PhotoLife 3.0… is all that, it’s the bomb, the beast, the bullet, it’s bumped, amped and filled with hipatitis (terminal coolness).

 

Alright folks, I’ve committed enough verbicide here, it’s time for you to go out and try this studio on for yourself.   You can drop by the Opium sim where PhotoLife is located and test drive this baby on your own, or ask for some help from one of the omnipresent PhotoLife staffers always eager to help.  

 

Oh and before I forget, don’t worry, Oom hasn’t forsaken all you 2.0 lovers. He’s still going to sell it, maintain it and update it.  You’re covered. So chillax, and enjoy the freedom that comes with having a choice.