How to make a good fashion photo (part IV)

All about attachements

System pants, skirts, shirts are still the basics of every outfit. But time is long gone, when flexible skirts had been the only attachment we were offered. Today almost every outfit comes with a lot of attachements, sculpted or not, and if it wouldn’t, to be frank, I wouldn’t consider it high quality. But on the other hand we have to prepare them carefully for a good picture.

• Is everything at the right place and has the right size?

After you chose everything to go with your outfit, now it comes to the most important thing of all. Check for the final touch if every attachment is at the right position and fits to your body size and height?

Check your hair. If it hasn’t the correct size, there might be some parts of the hair coming out of your ears (left side). But the next problem might be that if it’s right around the ears there might be something visible from your head (can you see the small light spot left above the ear in the right picture?). Best and easiest way to solve this problem is by using a skin with a dark hair base.

Next look at the collar. On the left side it fits perfectly around the shoulders. But the high hem of the dark shirt looks awfully if it’s not covered by the white collar. So I tried to shift the collar up a little bit. Now it’s good for the hem, but not for the shoulders. Since it’s a sculpty it might be very difficult to edit the size (if it’s modifiable at all) in a way to get a higher or thicker collar. And if too thick it won’t look good either. So what do we do with this one? Wait for the next part of my tutorial. Actually, remember, we want to do a fashion photo. So we will check all these things with the final pose. And in a lot of cases these problems won’t be visible for the camera by choosing the right pose and the right camera angle.

I often have a problem with my body shape when I’m changing shapes. I don’t know it it only happens to me or if anyone else notices the same. When I change shape, everything is just perfect, except… the upper arms. The never have the size I’ve given to them. In consequence my bangles never fit quite well (see right picture below). It’s easy to fix, but I have to do this step every time, which is really annoying. I go to Appearance Menu, click on Shape, Torso. I don’t have anything to change there, I can even click cancel. But afterwards the upper arms have the right size (left picture).

• Has any new attachment removed another one?

In the first picture, the boots are attached the lower leg, while the invisible prim is attached to the foot. Now the bottom of the jeans is gone, it also had been attached to the lower leg. Actually I don’t know why the invisible prim isn’t linked to the boots and everything is attached to the foot. But this problem is not are real one, you can easily see that the style of the jeans and the boot don’t fit together. So you have to look for another style of pants or other boots.

In the second picture it’s not a decision of what to wear. Gown and jewelry fit perfectly. However, the collar of the gown and the necklace are both attached to the spine. Normally you have chest and spine as a good attachment point. And a lot of jewelries are offered in two versions within a pack, one to be attached to chest and one for spine. So you can choose the right one if the other attachment point is needed by your clothes.

In this case the necklace consists of two parts, so both attachment points are needed. What to do if you still want to wear the collar? Well there is no other possibility than to look for another attachment point. Maybe nose or mouth can do, at least for a photo. Actually they won’t do if you are moving. Try it out, you will see that the movement of the collar goes with the head, not with the shoulder part. That can be funny sometimes, but it’s not what you intend. If you have a viewer that supports the double amount of attachment points (like e.g. emerald does) you can use chest2 or spine2. But keep in mind that people who use a viewer that doesn’t support these additional attachment points won’t see your attachment.

In any case you will have to do a lot with the exact positioning of your attachment. So before you start, MAKE A COPY OF THE ATTACHMENT to save the original with it’s position and rotation. Hop on a simple posing stand to fix your body. “Wear” the COPY of the collar. Now it’s in its original position as given to you from the designer. Take a snapshot, just to save how it should look like. Detach the collar. Attach it again, but use “Attach to” and choose the new attachment point. It won’t be in the right position or rotation. So you have to use your editing tools. Move and rotate till it looks like in your snapshot. If you have problems with this, leave your hands off, it’s better because it’s quite some fumbling. You still have the original one, you just have to wear it and you’re fine again. But you have to choose another necklace for the dress.