Press Release LUMIPro Announces 3.3

LUMIPro promised you rainbows and after one of the longest and likely the most difficult beta programs for LUMIPro to date (10 beta releases to our testers) it is ready to go. So lets talk about what you will find in LUMIPro 3.3.

FROM THE DESK OF STEFAN:

One of the things that makes LUMIPro different than others is that LUMIPro is a living creation and is upgraded 3-4 times a year with new features and new capabilities. I'm excited to announce the 6th major release in the last 3 years .I've been thinking long and hard about whats next for LUMIPro. After recording a few of my own videos as well as talking with other customers, frankly I decided it was time to expand upon the use of color in lighting. This release is all about enhancing the color of lighting.

I studied several options for color pickers and got pretty much every color matching hud I could get my hands on. Talked with several people who use them for feedback.

Realizing that we're dealing with a very broad spectrum of people online from beginners to techies to RL photographers, I've been experimenting with a color user interface that made sense. After much discussion including discussing with a couple RL theatrical lighting friends, I decided to include several of the RL color gel catalogs as part of the user interface and a more simple RGB interface for the techies. I frankly like the color catalogs as there is 40+ years of picking these colors based on their success in real situations.


Check out the review at http://picsbypeep.com/2013/08/22/beta-testing-lumipro-with-color-picker/ .

There are a list of things that I cleaned up that have been bugging me personally as I used the LUMIPro in my own work, as well as customer feedback.

1. Rotation of the sit ball is now repetitive. just click and hold and it rotates


2. REM type checks and doesn't report errors with the talent TPs or logs out


3. No more derezzing the projectors or sitballs after 4 days. They announce and become visible. This was causing problems during set development that took longer than 4 days


4. The backup server deals with correct color names


5. Help->lighting details reports the correct model's colors, not just the owners colors.


6. Joystick (Navigator) steering the projector now has an icon vs transparent to address a viewer bug.

I was doing my first shoot with beta8 and wanted to re select the red ball and tweak the color and realized there was no way to tweak a color you always had to start again, so I reworked the hud to now allow the balls to report their current color so when you either change models or change balls the color picker restores the last used color.

I also added an information button that send you the the Lee Filter website so you can read about the RL filters.  Under RGB entry I also added the ability to enter a Lee Filter number and it will select that.

So, 100+ hours of coding , the LUMIPro team brings you your rainbows. As always follow the LUMIPro blog. LUMIPro. The manual is updated as well., this resource is the most comprehensive manual I've seen for a SL product and as always if you own the LUMIPro join the in world group for immediate help/solutions/tips/tricks or drop and note card to myself or Colleen Criss with any questions.

LUMIPro is a lighting system for Second Life .The 3.3 version added an entirely new color select method that utilizes the best lighting from RL and makes it available in Second Life.

LUMIPro Announces The First High Resolution Animation-Based Gazing System for Second Life Photographers

 

   LUMIPro Announces The First High Resolution Animation-Based Gazing System for Second Life 

Photographers

LUMIPro continues the tradition of offering the highest levels of capability for serious Second Life photographers with its High Resolution Animation Gazer™ technology.

 After lighting and posing, setting the eye position is one of the greatest challenges SL photographers face. Prior solutions focused on having the talent “gaze” on a prim in-world, or offered basic 9-position eye animations—solutions that made self-portrait work extremely difficult. LUMIPro’s new High Resolution Animation Gazer™ feature offers a much better solution, both for models and for self portraits. 

The photographer now has fine control of 125 eye positions ranging from -30 to +30 degrees, horizontally and vertically, with independent eye control for up to 4 individual models. These Priority-4 animations only adjust eye position and work seamlessly with the LUMIPro pose system to create full body and eye control.

 The new High Resolution Animation Gazer™ seamlessly integrates with the LUMIPro HUD, and its intuitive interface will have photographers using the new capability in just minutes, with no complex new features to learn. Now photographers have a single HUD that controls lighting, projectors, animation, and gazing into a single intuitive HUD. 

Continuing in LUMIPro’s tradition, simply pressing the help button takes you to video tutorials and manuals so you’ll be up and running quickly. Following the tradition of LUMIPro, this is now the 4th major feature to be added to the existing LUMIPro L3 family as a free upgrade to existing users, over nearly 2 years since its introduction.

 LUMIPro is a game changer in lighting for photography in Second Life. It was developed by a pro photographer in RL who found the lighting systems available in Second Life to be inadequate, and got tired of the limitation of rezzing prims and moving them each time he reposed his model. LUMIPro changes all this. 

LUMIPRO is a HUD worn by the photographer that controls all aspects of lights worn by the model or self. Photographers can adjust position, color, radius, and falloff of lights, and it all works in zero rez and no-script sims! The built-in posing system controls up to 4 models independently, without the need to rez pose stands, gazers, or lights. LUMIPro also features projectors that allow rezzing multiple spotlights or projectors to cast shadows, again all controlled by the HUD.

 

An example of a shoot with fine eye position control using LUMIPro High Resolution Animation Gazer™

From the Desk of Colleen: With LUMIPro, you are actually just 4 minutes away from the perfect photo! Pose yourself , pose 4 models, catalog your poses by gender and save... even your favorite light settings. Wear your HUD anywhere! You or your models can wear the projector and LUMIPro lights, tp to any non-rez sim, and shoot without the bother of trying to get groups or chasing sim owners around to ask for rezzing perms. Just wear, tp, and shoot! My HUD is never off of me and I am never out of LUMIPro lights. I've wore it all to Ambrosia Dance Club, one of Second Life's most active and packed clubs with zero issues, AND my friends have had as much fun shooting me in it as I have! See the results here . They don't even own the LUMIPro—it’s all me, and me from their camera. 

From the Desk of Stefan: This project was nearly 6 months of deep diving into the depths of technical animation and user interface work. A detailed study of the animation systems of SL indicated that left and right eye positions are little documented. With some experimenting and prototyping, I was able to prove that eye animation was a viable method of controlling eyes. Prototyping was required to ensure a reasonable trade-off between the level of control and the quantity of animations. From observations of other animation-heavy solutions (with 1000s or 10,000s animation), teleport and lag became impossible and finally concluded that 125 animations ranging from -30 to +30 degrees horizontally, and -20 to +20 degrees vertically, was the right solution. The generation of the 125 animation scripts was done by dedicated python scripts and a single tedious night of manually uploading 125 animations one at a time. It was another 2 months of investigating how to get the right integration into LUMIPro before we could make this release possible and over a month of beta testing before this release was realized. I'm excited. This seems to be a game changer!

What our users say about LUMIPro:

  Wise Sandalwood blogs her thoughts on LUMIPro.

 “I do a lot of self-portrait work, and eye positions are extremely important to me. While LUMIPro has become indispensable to my work, the goofy tricks I used to get my eyes where I wanted them were convoluted at best, and required TP viewers to get the level of control I needed. It was even more difficult when working with clients, as I not only had to explain my arcane processes to lock eyes, I could not control what viewer they used. And let’s not *even* talk about setting eye positions on no-rez sims—that was virtually impossible! Thankfully, the High Resolution Animation Gazer™ that Stefan has developed puts all this nonsense in the past. I’d say “the future’s so bright, I’ve gotta wear shades,” but then you wouldn’t be able to see my eyes :)” —Corinne Helendale, LUMIPro Master Photographer.

   

“If they would set a prize for best found possibilities in SL. You earned it!” —Aida Lundquist

 “Ya don’t need telling , but I will anyway.. LUMIPro is light years ahead of anything else in SL: literally nothing comes remotely close :) Just watched the video, sweet! Just when I think it couldn't get any better... it does :)” —Safi Mesmeriser

 “You make the single greatest tool in SL for us to use .” —Cali Badger

 “BIG hugs for making such a phenomenal tool that I cannot live without! <3” —Calypso Sparrowtree

 “TY soo much I Really LOVE this HUD ♥ “ —Applonia Criss

“Well first off, your lighting system? Oh my god, you created it right! It’s such a powerful system. I couldn't live without it. It literally gets used in every piece of work I do now.” —Nik Arlington

 “When you do it with the LUMIPro, it’s almost like doing a real life studio picture with all the lights :)” —Krise Shepherd

ProPoser Pose Fair Opens This Weekend

Poses and Animations Fair

"When Love meets open arms"

11th - 25th February, 2012

and LUMIPro will be there ! Will you?

Proceeds to benefit ASA, (Autism Society of America).

Sponsors:

FANTASYLAND ESTATES

- -

Avenue Magazine Moolto Magazine & Social Network

BeStyle Magazine My Face pool Social Network

The BEST OF SL Magazine Oh Boi Magazine

BOSL Radio Royal living LifestyleMagazine

Glance Magazine Scruplz Magazine

Explore Magazine SecondnightsMagazine & Social Network

Icon Magazine Supermodel Inc. Magazine

Imagine Magazine Too Sexy Magazine

Levity Magazine XPoser AD system

Maniera Magazine

                                        Proposers is a group for photography, pose and animation lovers. 

We wanted to open the New Year with a different event rather than our famous Hunt. Sitting on the couch and watching the snow falling, and the Holidays fast approaching, I thought it was the right time to have fun again and HELP for a GOOD CAUSE.
I have had the great honor and opportunity to get in touch with the ASA (Autism Society of America). Autism is a great deal nowadays, that appears in early childhood, usually before age 3. All autism disorders affect a child's ability to communicate and interact with others. December 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued their ADDM autism prevalence report. The report concluded that the prevalence of autism had risen to 1 in every 110 births in the United States and almost 1 in 70 boys.

MISSION:
We came out with the idea to have a EXPO where part of the sales will be donated directly to the ASA.
Donation Kiosks will be placed on the sim too. Documents and/or proof of RL Donation will be shared with the Proposers Group after the end of the event.


*WHEN:
From 11th to 25th of February, 2012.

*SIZE:
2 Sims host this Event

*NUMBER OF CREATORS:
Up to 180 Posemakers and Animators will be there.

LUMIpro L3 Press Release

Immediate Release.

On Saturday, January 28, 2012, @ 4PM SLT, the LUMIPro team is releasing the first commercial-grade photography system in Second Life to incorporate projection prims.

LUMIPro is already the professional choice for controlled lighting in virtual worlds. Hundreds of top Second Life photographers, bloggers, machinamists, and artists are using LUMIPro daily in nearly every form of commercial publication and gallery exhibit, and they expect unprecedented levels of control and flexibility, and for LUMIPro to remain on the cutting edge as new technologies become available. As a commitment to our existing customers, the addition of projection prim is being offered as a free upgrade.

Stefan Buscaylet, the lead developer for LUMIPro, first presented the concepts of projection prims at the Second Life Community Conference (SLCC) in August of 2011. "Imagine high end real life flash lights with controlled focus and intensity and add to it both the ability to add a colored gel and an ability to project various textures and you get the basic idea of the L3 projector," says Stefan. He lead a multi-month effort with tight team of key photography experts of prototyping various concepts to best integrate projection prim into the L3 project. "The final solution is culmination of 10 different pro types and incorporates some great ideas from customers into a seamless solution with only limited additional learning required" says Stefan.

The L3 projector takes not only the concept of a focused light, but also offers the concept used regularly with hot lights RL calls "gobos." Gobos, or "go betweens," are textures placed between the light and the model and scene which add texture and depth to the lighting. "A tree casting a richly textured light of the sun onto a model and scene is an example of a gobo. Now imagine having that level of control times ten," says Stefan. Each L3 Projector offers nine different textured bulbs with five different gobos, and when combined with hundreds of different gel and intensity combinations gives nearly limitless control to the photographer. L3 allows control of any number of projectors.

An example of using an L3 system using existing modeling lights along with the new projectors. Stefan did this shot for a customer with only 5 minutes of setup shot in the corner of his skybox against a white wall.

Version 3 of LUMIpro is for artists and pro photographers who demand complete creative control.

What our client base has to say about LUMIpro ....

Reviews from LUMIpro User Base

Definitely an Improvement

Posted August 21, 2011 by Lincoln Garnet 5 stars

I’ve been using the Lumipro products for quite some time and I LOVE the power it gives me. Very nice system – between being able to pose models (male & female) and run through personal lights – always guaranteed to light a subject just right.

And on top of all that, customer service is fantastic. The one time I had an issue, the manufacturer got right back to me and helped troubleshoot.


Jasilyn Amiot: I am in love with this hud it has awaken my love of photography in sl again, it gives me so much freedom to explore the many many wind-light settings that set the mood



Thalia Heckroth: Been a LUMIPRO user for a long, long time.
It is by far one of the best tools we have on Second Life for photography purposes!
http://thaliaheckroth.com/archives/2012/60-januaryenero-2012/225-stefan-goes-beta.html


This is the best

Posted September 06, 2011 by AylaNeissa Magic 5 stars

when taking Second Life pictures I find an excellent lighting source is Lumi-Pro This is among the best I have ever found on the market place. After working with daz, vue, poser and other digital art tools I really know the value of a good light source. Lumi-Pro lights is similar to what I work with in these digital art programs and Its well worth the price. Very easy to use not a big learning curve so it is very user friendly. I LOVE IT! This is the perfect Second Life photographers lighting source.

Imagine Magazine Interview with Stefan Buscaylet

Contact Information:
Colleen Criss: colleencriss@gmail.com
Manual and product pictures available at lumipro.blogspot.com
A collection of L3 customer photos are available here http://www.flickr.com/groups/lumipro/

Join us at 4pm SLT at http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Opium/114/93/25 for our intro party. Music provided by Miles Eleventhauer.



Come meet the L3 team.

Also , our new and constantly updated manual in downloadable pdf format can be found HERE.
http://bit.ly/suGbij
Come see some of the awesome photography of LUMIpro.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lumipro/

One lucky person will win a LUMIpro L3!