Ananké Media Systems

Rotation pinning on new PhotoStand

22 February 2008 at 2:18 pm Anna Tretiak Leave a comment

You would think that a pose stand is something very simple: you sit on it, move forward and backwards through the list of poses, and little else. Most nice stands also incorporate a rotation feature, so you can adjust the angle of the model on the stand as necessary. And that’s about it, most of the time.

However, some situations require more. Imagine that you are using your run-of-the-mill pose stand at your studio, where you also probably have a backdrop and some other elements and tools. Most likely, you want your models facing you, the photographer, most of the time. For some of the poses, you may want to rotate the stand to one side or the other in search of that perfect angle; you may even rotate it 180 degrees for a back shot. In any case, the “default” position of the stand, the most common one, should be facing you. Bear with me.

Now, what is the meaning of “facing you” for Second Life? “Facing you” means that the rotation of your pose stand should be such that its local negative Y axis points towards you, i.e. away from the backdrop. I don’t mean to write a complete introduction to grid geometry, and depending on your familiarity with the Second Life coordinate system and rotations, you may need to use some faith here: the “forward” face of any object in Second Life, seen from the perspective of an observer, is determined by its local negative Y axis.

Now that we know that, we must realise that most regular pose stands are not rotated when you rez them inworld; this means that their rotation is zero; this means, in turn, that their local negative Y axis coincides with the global negative Y axis. If the stand offers a menu-, chat- or HUD-driven rotation feature, it will rotate in relation to that “default” position. In other words, rotating your stand 30 degrees to the left means that it will be now facing 30 degrees to the left of the global negative Y axis. If you reset the rotation to zero, it will align back to that axis.

Of course, you can rotate your stand using the Edit tools of the inworld editor; most stands do not make a difference between this and the scripted rotation feature. Editing your stand and rotating it, say, 45 degrees to the left, is indistinguishable (as far as the stand is concerned) from doing the same thing via the menu-, chat- or HUD-driven features. As a consequence, when you “zero” your stand, i.e. you order it to go back to the default, no-rotation position, it will go back to aligning its local negative Y axis with the global one.

This should not be a problem unless you happen to have your backdrop and photo equipment oriented in a non-standard direction. By “non-standard” I mean not aligned with the global negative Y axis or, in other words, rotated. If you edit your backdrop, look at the Z rotation in the Object tab of the Edit floater and you see “0.00”, then your backdrop is not rotated, and most pose stands will work fine with it. However, if you see any other non-zero number, your backdrop is rotated, facing in a non-standard direction. At my studio, for example, my backdrop is rotated 270.00 degrees.

If you are in that case, like me, you will realise that the “zero” rotation for your stand does not make the model sitting on it face you. This is because the rotations for stand and backdrop are different. At AMS we like giving small details like this the necessary attention, and we believe that you should be able to “pin” the base rotation of your pose stand to any angle that you wish. For example, I have pinned my stands on 270.00 degrees at my studio, to make them coincide with my backdrop. That way, whenever I zero the stand’s rotation, the model faces me.

If you have read this long you will be happy to know that we are incorporating a rotation pinning feature in the next version of PhotoStand, numbered 1.1, which has already been distributed to members of the Ananke Media Systems User Group as an exclusive preview. With PhotoStand 1.1, you can rotate the stand either manually (using Edit) or via the menus, and then click a Pin button. This makes the stand adopt the current rotation, whatever it is, as the new base or zero rotation. From that moment on, all rotations are relative to that base, and zeroing the stand brings it back to it, no matter what direction it is pointing in.

We hope you enjoy this feature. Please leave your comments and send us your feedback; it is always welcome.

Entry filed under: PhotoStand, Technical, Tips. Tags: pinning, pose stand, rotation.