Day 62: Yellow Bikini and Color Matching

It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini, that she wore for the first time today.

Lets pretend for a moment Im in Hawaii or someplace warm. :P I felt like going in the water today. Fortunately, you can do that in Second Life! Anyway, I came to Siggy's WaterWorks. Siggy's is a combination waterpark and business. They sell pools, pool furniture, swimwear, surfboards, and the excellent Swimmer HUD (that lets your AV swim).



Siggy's is a FUN place, full of water slides, diving boards, lounging chairs, jacuzzi's, and pools. I love the water slides and the diving boards (you can select the type of dive from a menu). :)

Unfortunately, when you hit the water, you drop to the bottom like a rock. You need the $400L Swimmer HUD to complete the experience and let you glide across the water. It was a choice between the HUD or more hair...decisions...decisions... :P



You can choose to sunbath on a towel (like my pinup girl pose? :P)



Or relax in one of the many beach chairs scattered throughout the pool and beach areas.

Excuse me, does this coconut come with free refills?



When you are tired from lounging around, sit in one of the many jacuzzi's to relax.

I would recommend bring someone with you to Siggy's (i.e. a date). Its a fun place to goof around for a while and then sit in the jacuzzi together. To come to Siggy's, click on the Search button, select the Places tab, and enter "siggy". The SLURL is WaterWorks (180,26,25).



This yellow polka-dot bikini is inspired by the first bikinis to appear in the 1950's and 1960's. I chose this because the original bikinis involved...well... more fabric. They were basically one piece suits split in two to bare the midriff. OK, I admit it! Im a bit shy, even in Second Life.

Here is another pet peeve I have: anything with thin straps in SL looks bad.



Here is an example of a white spaghetti-strap tank top. The straps look horrible! And try as I might, I could never get a decent texture-based strap in SL. They always look painted on. And matching the seams is a nightmare. Thats why you normally see me wear outfits with full shoulders or strapless corsets.

Now extend this issue to the modern bikini bottom. A small painted triangle is suppose to cover your butt. I dont need to show you a photo...its pretty bad. So to get around this whole issue, I am wearing a very short swimming skirt with little tiny prim pleats. This looks cute, and gets around the whole bikini bottom issue.

Lets talk for a moment about colors in SL, and how to match colors between things, like a set of earrings and your shirt. Note that you will need "Mod" permission to an object to modify its color. Also, make sure you make a copy of an object before modifying it.



Colors are expressed as 3 numbers in Second Life, one each for Red, Green, and Blue (or RGB). When they are all 0's, the color is black. When they are all 255 (max), as in the picture, then the color is white. All other colors are represented by different amounts of Red, Green, or Blue. So pure Red would be Red = 255, Green = 0, Blue = 0.

Almost all graphics software use these 3 numbers to represent colors. So if you know the 3 RGB values, you can have an almost precise match from one program to another.

So assuming that you made a set of the Red Dot Earrings we discussed a few days ago, how would you match them to the new purple outfit you bought? Purple is not always purple...there are many shades, and often depends on lighting in SL as well.

Just a note: if you are using the Red Dot Earrings for this exercise, you need to start by changing the Shininess to "None" to get an exact color match. Shininess darkens the shade dramatically.

The easiest way is to take a snapshot of the item with the color you want, open the snapshot in Microsoft Paint (or any paint software, like Photoshop), and use the eyedrop tool to find the RGB values. We will go ahead and use Microsoft Paint, since it comes with Microsoft Windows.

When you are setting up the snapshot, make sure that the item you are trying to match is lit correctly. Try clicking on the World menu at the top of your screen, select Force Sun >, and Noon. You may also want to move the camera around and zoom into the item to make it easier to pick the color later. Once you are satisfied, take a snapshot of the screen by pressing the Snapshot button at the bottom of your screen.

Next, start Microsoft Paint (Start/Accessories/Paint). Go ahead and open the snapshot file you captured above in Paint.



Select the Eyedropper tool (circled in red). Now click on the area of the picture with the color you want. For example, I chose one of the yellow polka-dots. Note that the color may change slightly depending on which part of the yellow polka-dot you clicked on. You can see the color that was picked in a little box on the lower left.

To get the color values, select Colors at the top menu bar, Edit Colors..., and Define Custom Colors >>. The Red/Green/Blue values are at the extreme right of the window. Just jot down the values.

Now go back to SL and edit the Earrings. Go to the Texture tab, and click on the Color square. When the Color Picker comes up, enter the values you got from Microsoft Paint. Note that the current version of the SL Color Picker is a little buggy, so when you enter values by hand, make sure the values are actually accepted by the Color Picker. (Mine likes to change them around sometimes)

And thats it! You can now do precise color matching between any 2 objects in Second Life! Very handy for accessories or when you build objects involving prims with different colors.

* Just an update: I forgot to mention that if a prim attachment and a clothing item (like a shirt) has the same color, the prim attachments tend to appear slightly brighter. So if your earrings and shirt has exactly the same RGB values, the earrings would appear brighter. I dont know why. But what I normally do is set the color to match, then darken the attachment slightly so the shade matches as well. You can darken a color by using the slider in the SL Color Picker.



Oh...I dont feel very good...think I had one too many coconuts ;P









P.S. I tried making a little movie using Second Life's Movie to Disk feature. Check it out: