El Firecaster

Fire from Within

Good to be Back!

Posted By on May 9, 2012 in All | 0 comments

I just spent almost 2 weeks in the hospital. It was horrible. I hope I never have to do that again. I have spent the last week or so seeing different docs and adjusting meds. It has been NO fun. The whole time I just wanted to feel good enough to blog. SO….now I do…and I have been thinking and thinking. . .TRYING to come up with something “life changing” to blog. . .and all I can think of is. . .GOD. . .it is good to be back!
Thank you to everyone that has so generously welcomed me back. Thank you to all the wonderful creators that have been patient with me while I get my “groove” back. And thank you to everyone that offered up thoughts and prayers for me while I was ill. You will never know how much it meant to me!

I was kinda glad that the first hair that Alli & Ali asked for me to model was Raissa. So I am told, the name means “Queen” in some language. And so the first dress I thought of that had a regal appeal, was this gown from Vero Modero. It comes in red, which is really more a dark burgundy, and so I chose the white one, being afraid that the red one would be too dark for good hair pictures. I took off the LOVELY collar that is normally worn with the gown so you could see the curls that line the lower back of the neck but I DID wear the amazing feather attachment that is to be worn on the pelvis.  I think it truly makes you feel like some kind of a royal creature.

And so, having took off the collar, I searched for a “royal” yet non-traditional set from Finesmith Designs to adorn my neck and ears. Finesmith is by far THE BEST when looking for a “futuristic” design. This particular set comes in several different colors and each one of them lend a different look to the set.

This skin is the newest release from Akeruka, Blanca. It comes in several different skin tones with several different lip colors and eye colors available, as well as a cleavage and a non cleavage design. Be sure and check out the special edition of Blanca that is featured at the “Culture Shock 2012 ” event.

The nails that I am seem sporting here are from WTG Jewelers.  It is their “French” nail and it comes with a HUD with LOTS of different base colors, a white and a black pearl and diamond set along with the ability to wear rings or take them off.  I took them off of the right hand, but you can see how lovely they are from the left hand.

Every since we did our Valentine’s Day videoblog, I have been LONGING to go dancing at Amorosa Ballroom (NO, V. . .I have not forgot!)  So I decided that if I could not actually dance there, that taking pictures there would be the next best thing.  Let me just take this time to say, that these pictures were taken with the Dolphin viewer.  They are not exactly the best pictures I could have taken to show off how beautiful shadows are with Dolphin, but I don’t have to worry about that anymore, since I can easily walk around with shadows enabled and enjoy them all the time!!

I know that people are always saying that shadows and the ability to have them is often viewer specific and what will work for one person may not work for the next, but after having tried LLV.3, the latest versions of Firestorm, Singularity and Exodus, along with downloading the Linux version of Niran’s HOPING that it would work on my Mac, since a Mac version was not available and STILLLLL not being able to find “the perfect” shadow, I had almost given up.  MOST of the viewers slowed down to a crawl once I pushed them to Ultra and shadow enabled.  Some had nice shadows, but ended up with blocks when I took a photo larger than my screen size.  Some had shadows, but no ability to adjust the shadows to suit me.  And some just slowed down to a terribly low FPS, making taking pictures painful.  Others crashed, slow. . .crash, crash. . .slow. . .crash, slow. . .OMG. . .taking pictures can be SOOOOO terrible!

Finally I read a review of the Dolphin viewer here at Inara Pey’s blogsite.  I had HEARD of dolphin before, but even when going to the website and looking at the Mac download, the creator says that HE cannot really test it on a Mac..and so he has no idea if it will work on a Mac or not.  So,  needless to say, I was greatly doubtful that I would have ANYTHING but poor results, if ANY.

MAN. . .was I wrong!  Dolphin is my new viewer of choice.  I preface this by saying that it WILL NOT work properly on my Macbook pro, that has a Nvidia card, but it works like a charm on my new Imac with a AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics card.  I can easily zip around the grid, (although it DOES take a bit to load textures from places it has never been before, imagine that??) and the pictures. . .oh man. . .(breathe a sigh of relief).  I can take the largest size picture available with BEAUTIFUL shadows, (that I can adjust as I please), with or without DOF (that I can adjust as I please)with Anisiotrphic Filtering on and  AA ALL the way up to 16!  Not only does it work on a Mac, kind dolphin creator, it works better than any other viewer I have tried thus far!

Perhaps it does not work so well on EVERY Mac.   Like I said, it does not work well with my Macbook pro, although I think that has more to do with  its’ Nvidia graphics card.  But I would certainly encourage all Mac users to give it a whirl.  Perhaps it will be the same magic viewer for you that it has been for me!  Good luck, fellow Mac lovers. . . and to you, Mr. Dolphin. . . TYTYTYTY!  You have restored the joy of one SL viewer and picture taker.  May you bring joy to many others…:))

Until later. . .

STYLING NOTES

*Gown: VERO MODERO / White Mistwalker Gown
*Skin and Lips:  Akeruka– Blanca Nat Cleavage Mk13,  Akeruka- Blanca Lips Nat Rosso
*Nails and Rings: +:+WTG+:+ **French** nail
*Hair:  Alli &Ali– Raissa Hair Blackberry
Shoes: Baby Monkey– Beckie Pump- Pinks & Purples
Lashes: *REDGRAVE* Eyelashes -39- Luscious
*Necklace and Earrings: Finesmith– OG earrings, OG necklace
*Eyes:  IKON Utopia Eyes – Trojan Blue (L)
*Poses: Purple Poses
Location: Amorosa Ballroom

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