Seasons of Moe

WILLCA

a Second Life lomographic Camera by MrWillsmere
version 1.01 - feb 2008

MrWillsmere Camera (Willca for short) is my attempt to bring in Second Life the spirit of Lomography. It's a set of actions that i've developed for Adobe Photoshop CS3 that you can apply to any snapshot taken in Second Life. The result is a square format, higher contrast, soft focus, sepia-toned image that is much more cinematic and lifelike and less syntethic than the starting 3d snapshot. Also, following true lomography rules, the process is able to generate unexpected results and happy mistakes.
Willca is distribuited as a creative commons - attribution licence: you can freely modify and distribute, but remember to credit me as the autor.

Download site
To download last version of Willca, just click on this link:
Willca Download
The archive contains a zip archive with a atn file and a instructions rtf.

How to install
To use Willca, you have to have Adobe Photoshop CS3 installed on your computer. First, unzip the downloaded file on your desktop: you will have a instructions.doc file and a mrwillsmere.atn file. Open Photoshop, and visualize your actions palette by clicking on "window>actions" (or alt+F9). Then, click on the upper right menu icon in the palette to open the drop down option menu and select "load actions", then browse for the mrwillsmere.atn file. Press "ok", and you will then have a new folder named "MrWillsmere" to your actions. There you will find the Willca actions.

Using the camera (technical)
To use Willca, just open a starting image in PS, then click on the Willca name in the actions panel and click on the "play" simbol in the lower part of the same panel. If you set your actions in "button mode", then each action will be a single button and you just have to press it to have the effect applied to your image. If you want to apply the effect to multiple images, it's far easier to use a Photoshop batch action. Just go to "edit>automate>batch" and you will be presented with a panel where you have the choose which action to apply ("Willca" from the set "MrWillsmere"), a starting folder holding the images you want to process (beware: ALL the images in the folder will be processed) and a destination folder (or the option to save over the originals). Click "ok", then go back to play on Second Life, or make yourself a tea. Come back and marvel at the results.

Example image:

After Willca developing:

Using the camera (philosophy)
Do you remember the old days before digital photography, when you had to wait for your film to be developed and printed before seeing your images? When every shoot did count? And no postproduction was avalaible? Using Willca you can live photography as it was born... and get rid of that digital aftertaste of all Second Life Snapshots
How to do it? Remember to follow the lomo rules : be fast, always ready to take a snapshot (ctrl+shift+s), without thinking about the results. Collects all your snapshots by saving them on disk in a folder. If you want, you can limit yourself to 12 shoots or 24 shoots - you will have only a film to fill in a session of shooting!
Then, open your Photoshop and launch a batch on the folder. You can "develop" the images over the original snapshots or choose to save to another folder. The true Willca photographer will take his chances and overwrite: no trace of a plastic-looking original must be left!
Then, just take a look at the result, and choose the best images: often, no additional postprocessing is necessary, but you can tweak things a little if you want. In this way, taking photographs in Second Life becomes more similar to classic rl photography, rather than mere postproduction in Photoshop.

Tips and tricks
1) Starting resolution. When you take your SecondLife snapshots, it's better if you set the output at high resolution (like 1600x1200 pixels). Willca works better with hi-res starting images, and you'll end with smoother, more life-like images. However, if your starting resolution is lower, Willca rises resolution the same, as it needs more pixels to obtain a satisfying result. The ending resolution of Willca is 1247x1247 pixels (don't ask me why): this makes a 10cmx10cm image at 300 dpi printing resolution.
2) Square format. Inspired by 120 cameras like Holga, the output images of your Willca are square. That means that your original image will be cropped. This can lead to unexpected compositional results, as the severe cropping sometimes transforms the images completely. As you get used with your Willca, you'll learn the best way to frame an image in your Second Life Viewer - or just be ready for any surprise.
3) Image contrast and luminosity. The final results on your Willca will depend a lot on the light settings you use in your viewer, but also from the image overall hue and luminosity. Willca usually doesn't like greens, blues and dark colours, while gives its best with browns, gold and skin tones. If you use windlight you will see that some light settings (like Barcellona, Pirate or Sailor's Delight) will give far better results than other (like Gelatto). Feel free to experiment.
4) Free your camera. Learn to use your free camera commands, either by visualizing the free camera controls or by alt-, ctrl- and shift clicking on things you see around you.
5) Shoot close. This is the same as the 5th lomographic rule: "approach the object of your desire as close as possible". Willca is not for landscapes... rather for stealing portraits from your Second Life adventures. Always be ready to use ctrl+0 to get closer to your target before taking snaps.

A real Holga image:

How Willca was born
A couple of years ago, i bought for myself a Holga camera - one of those trendy cool toy lomo cameras that every self respecting graphic designer has to have. Cool factor apart, the Holga proved to be a real pleasure to use, and became a trusted companion. After years of digital manipulation, the idea of having to wait for images to be developed proved to be incredibly teasing. Moreover, the Holga camera has a lot of little quirks that give its images unpredictable results, while keeping some common key factors: the square format, the soft focus and vignetting, the rough grain and fake colours, plus the occasional light leak and double exposure. I became a fervent fan of cross processing techniques that made every image coming out even more beautiful and weird. So, when i first started to play with second life photography, i tried to imagine a way to obtain that look in sl pictures too. Inspired by similar Photoshop filters (the best one around being Swisswuff one), i developed a PS action that could take any sl snapshot and transform it adding the moody quality i liked in lomography while keeping some sort of unpredictable result. Soon, the action became a very garbled mess of filters and adjustements, but the effect was starting to look pleasing, and i keep adding little touches until i was satisfied with the result. I then realized I would have been happier if I shared the enjoyment of virtual lomography with other sl players, so I decided to make the filter avalaible to everybody.

Extra and future features
In version 1.02 a WillcaNoCrop will be added, to allow developing and cropping in different formats than square.
Also, Willca 1.01 is a 100asa version - the 400 asa, allowing processing of darker images - will be included in 1.02
I'm also working on a porting of the action from ps3 to ps2 - which is made difficult by the absence of an "add" mode in ps2; and a crossprocessing colour version of the Willca. Help and feedback are appreciated: please refer to my flickr page or to this blog.

Licence
Willca is released under a creative commons - attribution - no commercial use agreement. You can alter, redistribuite, share this software freely, but please credit me as the author.

A couple of years ago, i bought for myself a Holga camera - one of those trendy cool toy lomo cameras that every self respecting graphic designer has to have.

Cool factor apart, the Holga proved to be a real pleasure to use, and became a trusted companion. After years of digital manipulation, the idea of having to wait for images to be developed proved to be incredibly teasing. Moreover, the Holga camera has a lot of little quirks that give its images unpredictable results, while keeping some common key factors: the square format, the soft focus and vignetting, the rough grain and fake colours, plus the occasional light leak and double exposure. I became a fervent fan of cross processing techniques that made every image coming out even more beautiful and weird.

So, when i first started to play with second life photography, i tried to imagine a way to obtain that look in sl pictures too. Inspired by similar Photoshop filters, i developed a PS action that could take any sl snapshot and transform it adding the moody quality i liked in lomography while keeping some sort of unpredictable result.
Soon, the action became a very garbled mess of filters and adjustements, but the effect was starting to look pleasing, and i keep adding little touches until i was satisfied with the result.

All the photos I have since now been posting on this blog and on flickr use the same filter. My philosophy, pretty much following the lomo rules, is to take a lot of snaps inworld not caring much about the result, then performing a batch on the snaps with the mrwillsmere action, "develop" the results and choose the best images. In this way, taking photographs in sl becomes something more similar to classic rl photography, rather than mere postproduction in Photoshop.

Right now the action is developed for PS3. I'm trying to port that on PS2 too, but it seems some layer mode (add) are missing and the effect is not the same. As soon as I'm happy with the results i'm planning to release the filter to the community, for everybody to try the fun of second life lomography in mrwillsmere style!

Feedback and suggestions are appreciated!

PS: For a while, i've been posting my photos on this blog.
Lately, I started to use Flickr - it's easier to manage photos and quicker to upload.