Brandi Lane

And just for grins

2007-10-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

OK, you'd think an eye would be simple right. There are millions of them out there afterall. Just go to the internet, get a nice shot of an eye, then upload it. How hard can that be? Of course, if I'm going to do eyes, I'll want something better than the normal run-of-the-mill eyes. So, I setup full photographic lighting at the house, got out my best macro lens, and talked my husband into letting me photo his eye in a carefully setup shot (I knew those hours I spent learning how to do glamour photography would come in handy one day *laughs*). Then, I took several other photos looking for the most interesting details that I might want to add into my pristine eye. Here's some things to note about the new series of eyes I will be introducing...

Right for starters, the crystal clear detail on the iris. This is where I'm going to encourage you to click on the image to the left and really look at the detailing. This is what comes of a $2000 canon L series lens, one of the sharpest they have ever made.
Now, note the beautifully soft highlights, courtesy of a careful setup on the portrait.
And, because it wouldn't be me if I didn't find every little detail, note how I have shaded under the upper eyelid, just as eyes appear in real life and also, look closely and observe the reflections of eyelashes in the highlight.
Finally, of course, the rich brown color. In the end, I've always loved colors so I lavish attention on getting the right color mix.

Yes, I can take even a simple eye, about the easiest thing I can think of to make, and turn it into a project. But I think the results speak for themselves

Finally!

2007-10-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

Eve Dark Tan is finally completed! Just like Eve Light, the dark version comes in 4 makeups and the set can be had for 3000L while each individual is 1250L.

Teaser Shot for Eve in Dark Tan

2007-10-10T07:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm back at it again working on the Eve Dark Tan version. Here's a teaser shot. This time in super hi-rez. Go ahead and click on the image, then make sure your browser is not compressing the picture you see to fit the screen. This is a 4096x4096 image presented to show the incredible detail.

As always, this is an unretouched photo from within Second Life (except for the obvious addition of the text and I did alter the color of the background from a white to the greenish tint.

Enjoy

IT IS DONE-- WOOHOO

2007-10-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

Finally.. the production version of Eve (numbered down to 1.0) is complete. After a flurry of last minute fixes, I've finally got eyebrows that I really like and they are tintable!. I've finally got eyelids that I mostly like. This is the most likely area for an updated 1.1 version (updates free for customer). I've cleaned up tiny little texture glitches at the seams and the thumbnail is finally a compromise I can live with.

I've uploaded 4 makeup options in the pale skin tone. I'll be working on the dark tan skin tone next which should go up shortly. The medium-tan will take slightly longer. At this point, I just need to put a vendor in my store and I'm good to go.

Progress!

2007-10-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Well, progress is happening. Thanks to Namssur on the second life forums (Second Skin Labs in SL -- top quality skins), I now know how to test my skin without the need to upload it. So we are moving forward on this again.

Here's a picture of the skin in an action shot. One of the frustrating things about the skin market is that EVERY skin out there talks about how "photorealistic" it is. Sadly, most of this is just a word. So I included this action shot so you could see for yourself what eve looks like in action.

Go ahead and click on the picture to get the 2048x2048 version and make your own decisions about whether this is "photorealistic" or not.

Eve Delayed

2007-09-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well, the beta grid has been down for what seems like FOREVER and so I haven't been able to do any serious testing. I have worked on a number of things including:

The Neck: The textures just seem to stretch awkwardly across the neck no matter what I do so I've smoothed out the skin texturing in the neck entirely. I've also lightened the shading under the neck as it is getting too dark on the darkest skins.
The Eyeliner: I have updated the eyeliner to put a heavier line around the outer corners and lighter line on the innter side.
Eye Shadow: I increased the fill on the eyeshadow. I've also added in about 8 or so new eyeshadow color combinations.
Palms of Hands / Soles of Feet: Both have been updated to increase the contract. I still need to blend in the newly updated areas with the sides of hands/feet.
Skin - Macrotexture: The basic skin actually has two levels of texturing on it, a macro-texture that just applies some more or less random highlights and shadows and then the microtexture that is used for bumps, freckles, and other tiny details. I've udpated the macrotexture to make it smoother because it was coming out too blotchy in the L108 tests.
Lips - Cleaned up both the sparkly and shiny lipsticks to avoid going outside the lines near the very top of the upper lip.
Ass - Still working on cleaning up the inner groin and bottom of the cheek shading to avoid ugliness in certain (bent over) positions.

Things I would still like to look at:

Increasing definition on the collarbones
Adding definition to the throat under chin (see neck texture issues above)
Adding definition to tops of hands/feet

And then, in preparation for sale:

Finalizing makeup options
Finalizing packaging strategy
Finalizing price
Build the store.

Eve Female Skin

2007-09-19T06:56:00.001-07:00

Eve is the very first product we are bringing to market. Like all of our products, eve is intended to be top quality and here's a little picture to prove the point. This is an exteme closeup of Eve's tummy. Take a close look at the texturing that's been done here. It's almost amazing that this did not start as a photograph. Read more to learn about the advanced workflow that allows this level of realism in a hand painted skin. Overall Eve will be a fit but not super-buff skin. She will come in a shades from pale to a medium tan. There's also a goth version that I'm enjoying wearing around from time to time and may bring to market.

From a workflow standpoint, Eve is a hand painted skin. Photoshop was used to create the basic skin layer itself, veins, and macro texturing. From there, layers were added in to provide the major highlighting and shadows associated with muscle groups and facial structure. Then more layers for the detailed parts such as eyes, belly buttons, noses, eyebrows, etc. The final photoshop file has about 100 layers in it and tops in at a whopping 160 megabytes.
But that was just the beginning. Then, AVPainter was used to go over the seams and ensure perfect matching at the seam boundaries. Being able to work directly on the avatar has huge advantages for the seam matching. The results from AVPainter were imported back into the photoshop file for subsequent processing to match perfectly with the rest of the skin.

Finally, to get the subtle skin texturing, blender was used. Blender is an advanced 3d tool that allows for ray-traced renderings. A skin texture and bump map were supplied to blender along with a host of settings for subsurface scattering, ambient lighting, and specular higlighting. From this, a detailed surface texture was obtained which, when layered upon the rest of the skin gives it it's photo-realistic appearance.

All of this got me to version 2.7 or so. Then I started wearing the skin on a day to day basis checking for flaws. How did it look in various lighting conditions? What happens when the avatar stretches in various ways? Any comments from random passerbys? This went on for weeks until the initial public feedback version 3.0 was finally released (available for 1 linden at OnRez and my mini-store within Second Life). Eve is now up to version 3.3, taking the consolidated opinions that I've gotten from feedback. At this point, I am down to subtle detailing like the exact thickness and color of the eye liner. I am also getting ready to finalize makeup shades for lips, nails, eyes, and cheeks.

The skin is still not perfect and, if you'll remember, perfect is what we are shooting for here. But here's a teaser

Welcome to Brandi Lane

2007-09-19T06:50:00.001-07:00

Well, here it is, my inaugaural posting for Brandi Lane. This blog is to discuss product releases for our Second Life store. At Brandi Lane, our commitment is to only bring you top quality merchandise -- no compromises, not second bests. There are way too many vendors in second life selling rehashed freebie goods and just plain garbage and our goal is to rise above that crowd into the ranks of the truly distinguished designers. And the only way to do that is to be perfectionists -- and so we are. Stay tuned here for upcoming announcements on products we are releasing to improve your Second Life.