Depth of field is a cool effect that make your backgrounds become more blur, while highligting the subject of the photo. Join the group to learn/share about this techniques!
Drawing inspiration from a recent discussion on avatar customization, I'd like to highlight some pages dedicated to best avatars on Koinup. Starting with IMVU, that is completly based on the avatars creation and customization.....
Here's a stream of the most coolest IMVU avatars posted on Koinup
Morgana le fay delight our eyes, with this splendid image from Dragonblight, a phenomenal Warcraft hotspot
If you are someway involved in the virtual photography, probably World of Warcraft with its own amazing landscapes and environments, could be really a major destination for you. Give it a try, and come back on Koinup with some amazing photos!
The undefatigable Torley just published on the Second Life blog a series of tutorials on creating depth of field in Second Life snapshots. Read the Torley words, here
You can also add Torley to your contacts, and kept you updated on his stream!
I started a discussion in the Avatar group about the basics of customization of the avatar in various virtual worlds. It seems that IMVU and Second Life give the most huge tools and opportunities for customize the avies. Enjoy the topic and enter your opinion, here
Posted by Kitina, Zul'Drak is one of the most evocative World of Warcraft images posted on Koinup. Zul'Drak is an area located in eastern Northrend (world of warcraft realm)
AuraFalta just created an amazing group for all the Cyberpunk things in the metaverse. The group is open to all the virtual worlds, so don't exhitate! Join it now!
Aura is seeking for some volunteers to help with the moderation!
Are you interested in cyperpunk stuffs, sims, and items? Join the group and send a message to AuraFalta
JuiLoon founded a group called SL Fashion Bloggers. This group is for all fashion bloggers and for all who want to know what's new in SL!
So, if you're interested in fashion, and would you love to be updated on the new trends, and news, this group is exactly you were looking for! Join the group now!
Join the group: Second Life Comics Contest and you will have the chance to Win 10.000 L$ (and testing your creative comics skills!!!)
Koinup is partnering with the developer Deep Semaphore to bring to you the first Second Life Comics Contest.
Deep created a super-funny HUD, called MURKU, that allow you to create a comics inside SL, in 5 minutes! To take part in the contest, you have to grab the HUD and create a strip or comic frame and upload to the pool....
Have you ever hear about Frank Miller, the legenday comics book writer, well you can replace him in the star system of comics......if though, only in the metaverse ;-)
Read the easy rules in the contest presentation page, read how to grrrrrrab the HUD, join the group and make your day!!
We had three funny days in SMAU, we meet some Koinup members, too. Mainly we spent a lot of time with Baldr, who report on the meeting here and Magggg (Magda), in the photo above near me and Edoardo
Thanks guys/girls for coming! Hope to see you again soon
It was very nice and funny to meet in real life, people you knew only virtually. This make us think that it could be really nice to make it possible a most huge summit for koinup people. If you have some ideas, please contact us or leave a comment, here
Recently, Photo Sessions became a regular event held every Thursday, co-hosted with Koinup. We are very proud to welcome one of the most popular and talented artists on the Koinup Second Life Community.
This session is a special event because we will be launching Tur’s exhibition on the Orange Island Photo Gallery. We will display a selection of his works during two weeks. Thursday you will have the opportunity to ask him about the story behind them.
Following a friendly talk, Tur will share his Photoshop post-processing method with us. You can lose your words and have a look at the amazing Tur gallery on Koinup
Along with more traditional virtual worlds, The OpenSim community is quickly developing on Koinup. So I'd like suggest you to join some group related to Open Sims.
At first, I invite you to have a look at Cyberlandia Cyberlandia is an italian grid, based on the Open Sim platform. It's quickly growing and it is one of the most important destination for metaverse people from Italy
Then, I invite you to have a look at Avatar Hangout Avatar Hangout is one of the most structured and well done OpenSims. Enjoying this place (and group) you have the clear impression the Opensource movement is doing great things! Enjoy these groups now!
Neda Andel just founded the group: Female Avatars. If you're wondering how beautiful can be an avatar (from various virtual worlds, because the group is open to all VW's supported by Koinup) you should browse the images in the pool and eventually add yours (join now)
Some Second Life residents are starting to manage their inworld activities, using Koinup Groups. The Virtual Artist Alliance crew just created a group for his weekly photohunt. I invite you to join the group and take part in this metaverse project...
But, let me also give some further tips for sync your inworld activity with Koinup
1) If you own a sim, you can create a group with the same name of the sim (this way, the group will be featured in the sim page on Koinup, here's an example)
2) If you have some activities inside virtual worlds, you may want to create a group to update members about news, announcement, contests related to your business (here's an example)(this is for all virtual worlds, not only SL)
3) Use threads to get involved more people over your brand/activity/club. Ask their feedback and build the community together with your buddies (here's an example)
"An unusual building has landed on Orange Island. Are you curious enough to discover what has happened and where it came from? Using various communications devices scattered across time, the player will embark on a remarkable journey, an adventure that takes Second Life gaming steps further.
Be careful when touching those buttons though... you never know when you might end up"...Read more on the Kaaos Effect Group
Kaaos Effect is a Second Life game created by Madpea productions and sponsored by Orange Island You can read more about this fashinating game on the Orange Island blog
Luca Lisci aka Vive Voom is one of the emerging artists in Second Life machinima scene. Indeed, he's more than emerging, he has some unique experience, as he took part in the Peter Greeneway project Blue Planet as machinimist (you can watch here the Blue Planet footage edition) and work in the art fields since many years. These months Luca is not only working with Machinima in Second Life, but he is starting a whole survey of all the virtual worlds potential for making cinema.
Here's the Inteview!
When you're creating new artworks and machinima, where do you draw ideas and inspiration from? And What is your background in Art creation?
I've always got myself into building stories and fables. Every installation, movie or image I make (virtual or not) is an attempt to extract pieces from 'mindscapes' inside of me.. and you know what? .... when i got them out of my mind they start to talk to me in a different way, giving me the opportunity to unchain new visions more...it's quite a never ending trip in itself LoL... I keep looking for that experience at every moment of the day: this quest has become a mantra, a beautiful obsession... I cant simply stop. I only got relief when I cross through other artist's experiences, like rewinding movies again and again ,for example Bergman's The Seventh Seal , Cronenberg's Videodrome or Greenaway's Prospero's Book.
I started my career as a young concept artist and illustrator for kid's books and games, while studying design at politecnico di Milano university. I worked in so many different creative businesses, from the CG industry to web to advertising to art exhibitions as creative director. See, my father is actually a painter, and i think that's the main reason why i feel so urgent about making art... something in my blood i think :-)
What advice would you give to beginners with Second Life art and machinima making?
You know, the main thing is: 'express yourself'! Think out of the box, Art's is not for the faint of heart..We are in a wonderful age: we really can share, build, and live our imaginery togheter, thanks the digital worlds..... It's not easy, but always be proud to be artist, even in times of deep sadness or despair Art can give answers.
Tell me two Koinup artists you should recommended for the next Koinup Interview? Hey it's full of people there, and so many virtual worlds to look into! I surely can nominee Kheri Batal, Poid Mahovlich, Velasquez Bonetto, Josina Burgess, Icarus Robbiani, Marco Manray, Mila Tatham, Arco Rosca, AWM Mars, Raul Crimson and many many others. I don't want to forget anyone, but really I think virtual worlds are the next big thing in art's history.
Along with Second Life, are you exploring and testing other worlds as tools for machinima? Yes, I've already some experiments made in SIMS, There, World of Warcraft. Recently with Solidea's team I've made some nice trip into OpenSim.
I'm looking forward about having the opportunity to cross all these worlds with a single avatar...It should be a big thing...since then I'll enjoy different techniques for different visions those worlds give me.
"Are you a beginner or an intermediate photographer in Second Life? Are you making art experiments and would love to receive constructive comments from the most skilled Koinup members?
For the second time, Orange Island & Koinup Photo Sessions host a “Mentor review”, a great concept created by Trixibelle (Cala Rossini in SL) called “Mentor Project”.
Join us on Orange Island Thursday, March 19th at 1PM SLT to show your work to SL’s most talented mentors: Senna Coronet and Cala Rossini.
They will review your work and make a deep analysis of it, and also give you advice & tips to improve your snaps & use your favorite softwares.
So don’t be shy and submit your work to Cala Rossini in-world!
Textures, environments, sky, windlight sets...don't make you think to World of Warcraft? I invite you to have a look with your eyes and enjoy that place for taking photos or dwarf role playing!
Koinup: Your <a href="http://www.koinup.com/">Virtual Life</a>
Waiting for the Dynamic Shadows Second Life Viewer release (imminent according to some rumors), you can already have fantastic "light and shadows" 3D experience, by visiting and exploring some amazing SL sims.
For example, you should visit "6pi". 6pi is a lovely naturalistic hotspot, where you can relax, immerse yourself in wonderful lighting atmosphere and take tons of photos
Koinup: Your <a href="http://www.koinup.com/">Virtual Life</a>
If you are a machinimist in World of Warcraft, or if you love to watch funny clips made in the world of Azeroth, probably you may want to join the Warcraft Movies group.
The undefatigable Doubledown Tandino created a new cool group on Koinup, it is called: Remixing Shots into Artwork and it is about a collaborative artistic project open to all the Koinup members!
Says Tandino: "Post your snapshots from virtual worlds. Untouched photographs and snapshots. By posting your own works into this group, you are agreeing to allow others in the group to "REMIX" your pic. Any original snaps you post to this group is an offering to artists, photoshopitistas, and generally anyone to contribute their talents by adding to the original by REMIXING it into a new work of art."
Koinup media partner Hiperia 3d News just published on his blog two cool machinima, created the first with Second Life and the other with The Movies.
They are both two creative and well directed stories. Watching them in sequence, probably will give you the chance to compare Second Life and The Movies as Machinima tool. Watch them now and read the story!
The best poses of the metaverse group is open also to IMVU people! The potential of IMVU as tool for showcasing avatars poses is huge and really fashinating.
There are awesome posers working currently on IMVU I invite you to have a look at this works, called Partner Pose by SuperiorChic to know what you can get there....
Photo Sessions is becoming a weekly appointment. This thursday, Cala Rossini and Senna Coronet, two well known Second Life photographers and artists will guide a Mentor Review event.
So if you are starting with photography and art in Second Life, this is your chance to get some useful tips and be learned from two well skilled artists
Do you want your pictures tipped during the event? Submit your work to Cala Rossini. Read more here
Meet us on Thursday 19th of March at 1.00PM SLT on the Orange Island
Shoji is a well known photographer (and explorer) on Koinup. He's currently exploring the most metaphysical and surrealistic places in Second Life. I suggest you to have a look at his gallery
What is your favourite windlight setting? Did you create a wonderful sky and would love to share with friends?
Join the best windlight settings group and add your windlight photos, share/ask information about the atmospheric second life rendering engine! Join now!
Lets go on with the tour on the virtual identities. Regarding Koinup members that cross art within various virtual worlds, you can't miss the amazing work of Magggg. She is a well known artist, very acknowledged in the Sims 2 artistic scene, and recently she started to work also with Second Life artistic tools.
Crossing media and worlds is sort of constant in many koinup members
Here, you can admire a recent artwork called She goes her own way created with the Sims 2
in the image above instead a wonderful avatar portrait created within Second Life, called Hymne a la Beautè
Enjoying this amazing piece (called Anamorphose) by Lolmac Shan, you can see how the virtual worlds are shaping a new kind of digital art. Avatars, Prims, Sculptie, Pixels are the building blocks of a new way to express ourselves. Second Life and other virtual worlds are the ultimate tool to make art!
Cienega invite members to share on the groups posters of their upcoming or past artistic and photographic Second Life shows. Its a great chance to promote your upcoming show in SL (but not spam please). If you are taking part or you are managing an artistic exposition or group show, well you may consider to join the group
We are launching a new column on this blog, it will be called: Virtual Identities
The column will cover Koinup members which are exploring at the same time many virtual worlds. The other day we posted about Panteleimon Aeon multiple identity between Second Life - IMVU
If you have accounts in various virtual worlds, please post some pictures of your virtual identities and leave a comment here on the blog.
The aim of the "virtual identities" is to encourage people to explore virtual worlds and share their virtual lives here on the Koinup network
Discovered by the one of the most undefatigable Second Life Explorers (I'm talking about Liqueur also known as Liqueur Felix), Nurutumbo looks like a fantastic, dark, apocalyptical sim in Second Life. A must view for the tenebrous photographers and metaverse explorers.....
Koinup: Your <a href="http://www.koinup.com/">Virtual Life</a>
AM Radio is well known artist and builder in Second Life. His sims are the most fashinating things you can view in SL. Nitwacket made great a trailer for his creations.
Do you have a funny avi? Have you seen (and photographed) something comical in virtual worlds? Do you know something amusing is happening in your world? Cool, join the funny avatars group and share the most amusing/funny things of your virtual life!
"Post images, photos and machinima from Second Life and OpenSim in this group for consideration in Hamlet Au's New World Tableau series on his blog New World Notes (nwn.blogs.com)". Read more and if you'd love to see your images featured on the most important second life blog, join the group and add your stuffs!
More and more people are getting involved in more than one virtual world. Sometime its only a joke, sometime it is a sign that crossworld identity is real thing for many virtual worlds users.
Here's Panteleimon Aeon a well known Second Life (and Koinup) member (and artist) joining IMVU (with a rejuvenate and kewl avatar!)
Photo Sessions, the Koinup & Orange Island brand venture devoted to Second Life Visuals and Photography, now has its own Koinup Group! You can Join the crew now! and invite your friends, too!
Don't forget to take part in the next Photo Session event on Thursday 12th of March at 12.00pm SLT. Read More
We have just created the Koinup Group: The best poses of the metaverse The goal of the group is to share informations about posers and poses available in the Metaverse. Currently only a bunch of worlds are allowed in the pool (mainly Second Life, The Sims, OpenSim, IMVU), this is because only these worlds are allowing members to create poses....
Each time a new virtual world will provide users with the chance to create their own poses, we will add that on the group! Enjoy now and invite your friends to do the same!
As you know, the Photo Sessions are a series of events dedicated to help SL Photographers to share and collaborate. In the past, Orange Island and Koinup partenered to offer unformal focus on popular Second Life Comunity in Koinup. Today, we digg deeper and propose to you a real class.
Meet us on Thursday 12th of March at 12.00pm SLT for a class about poses and expressions run by our dear Raul Crimson.
Raul's work is often expressive, sometimes perplexing. He always try to fool our sense with real avatar's expressions.
The session will be split into two parts. The first one is dedicated to explain how it is crucial to make your own poses when you tell a story in an image, or whe nyou want to create something unique. The second part is about how to make poses, inworld pose maker and freeware software.
The class consist in a slideshow with selected images, URLs for information and downloads of software and finally some simple instructions about the use of this “posemakers”.
"Medieval, Fantasy, Mythical are the poor cousins in Second Life, often ignored for the big corporate or often deemed worthier sims..
let's celebrate the work put into create places of our imagination and show those places that allow us to play out our dreams" .....continue to read here
As you know, virtual worlds members often go behond snapshot and photography, they even turn images in artistic visions.
Carlotta Ceawlin founded such amazing group called: Second Life Visions and invite all the people which are using virtual worlds as inspiration for having artistic visions to join the group and showcase their works there
If you are looking for an exotic sim, a fantastic beach, amazing stuffs to buy and a real hot temperature (its not a joke!), you can't miss Las Islas, the new cuban venture by Naiman Broome
Probably you may know about Naiman, because he is the creator of Las Arenas Rosadas, the most photographed Second Life sim ever.
Las Islas is the perfect hangout for your first date, for photographers seeking hot sunsets, for metaverse explorers avidly looking for new places to visit.
Koinup: Your <a href="http://www.koinup.com/">Virtual Life</a>
They are real, as real as the first life emotions. So, its with a great pleasure that I'll suggest you to join the Virtual Emotion group founded Cienega Virtual Emotion is open to all worlds and to all kind of emotions.
Today, some members sent postcards from the virtual world Twinity, directly to Koinup. It is a great news, because a new virtual world deployed the postcard tool, allowing people to share more easily informations from the the inner of the world to the outside web-sphere.
If you are a metaverse explorer and love to visit virtual worlds and share (real time) your visions on Koinup and other websites, well I invite you to download the Twinity software and start to send postcards on your Koinup gallery!
You can also enjoy a new group dedicated to Twinity, recently created by SeredWoollahra
"The tail and ears sure, but, there is more to us Neko babies than just that. Its all about how you put that together and how it makes you..you." Continue to read in the Neko Style group presentation and if you love cats so much to look like one of them, enjoy the group now!
Do you remember the Mentor Project? It was the Koinup Pre-groups Era, Trixibelle called to action all Second Life art and photography experts, asking them to share techniques and help with beginners.
Now Mentors has came back with a a new brand name (and group), it is called Tips and Techniques and it has been founded, obviously, by Trixibelle (you may know her also as Cala Rossini)
As I was saying earlier with the mentor project, if you are a mentor you can join the group in order to share tips, tricks and techniques with friends. While if you are a beginner, you can join the group (now) to ask help to other people
I love to see many virtual worlds spreading out on Koinup with several groups, related to art, community, places, and cool things happening in those worlds.
The blog will have a sort of special edition these days, completely dedicated to Koinup groups.
First group, I'd like direct your attention is: Avatar
Avatar is the group to share all about your avi, from images to tips about customization, shapes and skins for your virtual self. I'm looking forward to see you there in the Avatar hangout the image above "Poison...Poison Ivy" is by Magggg
After 3 months of hard work, the undefatigable Koinup chief technical officer Edoardo Turelli (you can know him as Edo) completed and (just) released the Koinup Groups.
Onestly I'm too excited to write a long post. This is the feature that will make Koinup a complete, involving, ultra-funny place. If you thought that Koinup was a great place to share your virtual life and connect with your virtual world friends, now you have the chance to use it in even much more rich way.
The Second Life Places directory is growing quickly, but we'd love to further increase the pool with specific resources. For example, we'd love to have more: Science Related Second Life Sims.
Second Life is filled with amazing scientific sites and research sims, running simulations, tests, trials, innovative projects and managing communities inside the grid.
Following this link, you can find some interesting slurls. We invite you to exlore them and share some postcards on Koinup, in order to improve the Second Life places directory
MaxMoney is a perfect example of the potential of Second Life as 3d building and artistic tool. Discovered by Poid Mahovlich, the MaxMoney sim is filled with incredible builds and fashinating artistic installations, I think you will have great time to explore
Koinup: Your <a href="http://www.koinup.com/">Virtual Life</a>
If the avatar become a creature you can't control, well probably its time to kill him. No, its only a joke. But, please watch this amazing machinima by Vive Voom (also known in real life as Luca Lisci), called "I will kill Vive Voom"
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