Using camera controls and changing your viewpoint
Contents
Using the Camera
In second life, you have a virtual "camera". This is really very useful. Not only can you take pictures of yourself to post up onto the Schome wiki or blog, but you can also use it to look closely at the things around you.
Displaying the camera controls
- On the menu bar at the top of the SL screen, click View
- From the drop-down list, click Camera controls
The little camera control window is overlayed on your screen as shown here.
Using the Camera to look at your own Avatar
- In the left circle, click and hold the up arrow until your viewpoint is directly above your avatar's head.
- In the left circle, click and hold either the left or right arrow until you have rotated your viewpoint 180 degrees.
- In the left circle, click and hold the down arrow until you have rotated your viewpoint back to the horizontal plane.
You will now be looking back towards your own avatar as if you were standing in front of it.
To zoom into your avatar:
- In the middle rectangle, click and hold the plus sign.
To move the viewpoint slightly to the left or right:
- In the right circle, click and hold the left or right arrow.
To move the viewpoint up or down:
- In the right circle, click and hold the up or down arrow.
Taking a picture of your avatar
You are now in a good position to take a photo of your avatar. You will notice that as you move the mouse around the screen, your avatar turns its head to look towards the pointer. To get the avatar looking roughly frontwards (and so make a nice full fact photo), position the arrow at about left or right shoulder level and leave it for a second. Eventually the avatar should look front. You'll have to experiment with exactly where to position the pointer for the best view.
When you are happy with how your avatar looks, press CTRL, SHIFT and S at the same time.
On the left of your screen, a dropdown snapshot preview displays:
In the top of the dialog are three radio buttons. They allow you to send the snapshot as a postcard. This fires up your email client and emails the snap to the email you specify. They allow you to upload the snapshop (not sure about this option - Gill). You can also select to save the snapshot to your hard drive as shown in this illustration. If you select Save snapshot to hard drive and click Save, you will be prompted to browse to a directory and enter a filename.
Note: By default, all snapshots are saved as .BMP files in SL. However this file format is not suitable for the wiki. To upload a snapshot to the wiki you first need to convert it to a compatible format such as jpg or bmp. This is fairly straightforward to do.
- Open your snapshot using an image editor such as Paint.
- Select File>Save As and choose .JPG as the format.
You will then be able to upload your snapshot to the wiki or bliki.
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