Physical Book of Second Life Avatars On Sale
Giff Constable of the Electric Sheep Company (aka Second Life resident Forseti Svarog) has published a book of avatar portraiture from the virtual world of Second Life that’s now available not just in a virtual edition but as a real, old-media paper book as well. Out for about a week now, Avatar Expression gathers “56 color photographs revealing personality across a range of beautiful, exotic, humorous and even abstract” avatars. It’s available in its virtual edition for free »in Second Life«, or you can order one for $13.68 (the cost of production) at Lulu.com. A couple of dozen copies of the phyisical book have sold since publication was announced a week ago, Giff says, so hurry and get ‘em while supplies last. Actually, they’re printed on demand, so there’s no hurry, but pick one up anyway; physical documents recording the history of virtual worlds are few and far between.
I got my copy yesterday. The quality is pretty nice, however, as with most print version of Second Life material, it always prints darked that it looks on screen. The shots are absolutely beautiful, however, with the love and effort revealed in each avatar’s attention to deal and unique atmosphere.
Does anyone have tips when shooting Second Life screenshots for print? The ones in the Official Guide all look fairly nice, but when you’re shooting a darked scene (such as night in Svarga), getting the detail of the shot seems to prove difficult (we typically print to a color laser printer). Any tips would be appreciated!
Argh, too early in the morning. version = versions, darked = darker, that = than. Thanks for your patience, my fingers are not yet behaving today.
Hi Flip — I think you need to optimize the images for the particular printer, which means printing out color test proofs with various levels of light and saturation. The paper copy of Avatar Expression has higher resolution of course, but is darker than the virtual copy. Next time I print with Lulu I will definitely be doing some additional photoshop work to my photographs. Glad you liked the book. – Forseti
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