This little post-processing tutorial will answer one essential question: How to turn 2 arms into 8! This is the final image we’re going to create:

And here’s how to do it! Please take note, in the following I’ll use the method of taking pictures in ‘depth mode’ – you can as well take the images in front of a greenscreen or bluescreen as we did in the CabaretBeauty tutorial. Using either of both methods has advantages and disadvantages, always keep that in mind!

I’ll start with advantages for each:

GreenScreen is something that’s portable and you’re not dependent on rezzing anywhere. As well, you have all freedom for a final composition of the picture, as you pick the background yourself.

Depth Mode allows you to use it in any situation (unless your computer crashes on it) – and when it comes to the overlaying work as will be described in the follow, it is extremely forgiving when it comes to edges, as there won’t be any fuzzyness and you don’t need to be as precise with setting things free as you need with greenScreen background – the background colors are all the same on all layers anyhow ;-)

But there’s also Disadvantages for each:

Depth Mode does not display ANY prims that are partially transparent – be it texturewise or prim wise which makes it extremely difficult to catch exact lines of hair for example! (this will not have any bearing on our work with DurgaDevi, luckily, which is why all attachments in this set are full prims so they show in the depth shot ;-) – and for partially missing hair in a cut-out, we’ve covered that with the ‘advantage’ section of depth mode already: all layers are the same anyhow, and the lowest layer has no cropping! )

GreenScreen is a royal pain in the a** to get out of half-transparencies. (like hair fringes!) – if you want to work with a solid background color to use the magic wand, you should pick a color that is close to your final background image that you will put underneath our 8-armed Durga. For example, if you want to put her in a forest, take greenScreen. If you plan to put blue clouded sky or water into the background, rather use a blueScreen. By doing that, the ‘un-clean’ parts in semi-transparent areas of your SL shot won’t be as bright obvious.

And well, here you go!

(please click image for larger view)

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