Animah poses promotion to end on 15 May

The gift certificate notecard to obtain six free Animah poses included with our products is valid until 15 May. Hurry up and get yours if you haven’t got it yet!

PhotoStage and PhotoLite update available now

Version 1.1.2 of PhotoStage and PhotoLite is available now via automatic updates for current owners. To obtain these free updates, please go to the Options menu and click Update. Check your User’s Manual (here or here) for detailed information.

An improved version of PhotoStand is also included with these products.

The major new features and changes in the new version are:

• TRU textures are no longer included with PhotoStage; 42 great textures from other providers are being used now (36 before).
• Backdrop texture tiling and editable glow for PhotoStage. You will need the latest Windlight-enabled Second Life viewer to enjoy backdrop glow.
• Create commands are not necessary now before editing a light, effects generator or gaze point.
• The interaction radius of lights, effects generator and gaze points has been extended to 50 metres (it used to be 10 or 20).
• 43 modelling poses are pre-loaded on PhotoStand, including 7 exclusive poses by Kali Meads.

Also, please remember that a gift card for 6 Animah poses is included with this new release.

This update will be made available at the Ananke Media Systems demo site in Lady Vale (112, 225, 301) and the web stores OnRez and SLExchange in the next few hours.

Enjoy!

Free Animah poses available now

The gift certificate notecard to obtain six free Animah poses is available now when you buy or update any of our products containing PhotoStand, and will be available until 15 May.

Get your PhotoStage, PhotoLite or PhotoTools Pro at our demo site in Lady Vale (112, 225, 301), OnRez or SLExchange, and enjoy your favourite poses from Animah!

Free Animah poses with PhotoStand

We have just closed a deal with Animah, the renowned pose makers, by which anybody who buys or updates any of our products that include PhotoStand between 15 March and 15 May 2008 will be entitled to six free poses to choose from Animah’s huge collection.

How does it work? You will find an Animah gift certificate notecard inside your product package between the above stated dates. You need to go to the Animah store, select your favourite six poses, write their names on that notecard, and send it back to Animah. They will dispatch your poses of choice as soon as possible. Please see the notecard in the product package for details.

Remember that PhotoStage, PhotoLite and PhotoTools Pro all include PhotoStand. Buying or updating any of these between 15 March and 15 May will give you six wonderful poses from top pose makers Animah.

Enjoy!

Kali Meads poses for PhotoStand

Enterprising designer and artist Kali Meads has agreed to let us include her seven exclusively designed poses as part of PhotoStand. Yes, the same poses that we were featuring at the PhotoStage Launch Event. We believe they are fresh and unique designs, departing from the usual modelling poses that we see everywhere today.

We will distribute these poses with the next release of our products. Thank you, Kali.

Tutorial: Updating your PhotoStage or PhotoLite

In this tutorial I explain how to update your PhotoStage or PhotoLite. Owners of these products are entitled to lifetime updates, which basically means that once you buy from us, you will receive any future version of the same product for free, forever.

Having the latest version of your product is important, since we often introduce fixes for all those Second Life glitches and performance improvements, as well as new features. Also, we usually do not support products that are not up to date.

If you want to stay up to date, the first thing you need to think about is how to find out whether a new version has been released. There are basically two channels that we use to publicise updates: this web site and the Ananke Media Systems User Group. We suggest that you join this group to receive notifications about new releases and the occasional exclusive gift.

An alternative way to find out whether an update has been released is to make your product check for updates. I explain how to do this in the next section.

New updates of PhotoStage and PhotoLite

We have just made available a new version of PhotoStage and PhotoLite, numbered 1.1.1 in both cases.

The major new features in this release are:

• A chat interface has been added. This means that you can control your PhotoStage or PhotoLite by typing commands on the chat area.
• The much improved PhotoStand 1.1.0 is included. This new version of PhotoStand features rotation pinning.
• Technical fix: we have rewritten most of the communications infrastructure in both products, which works around the cause of the dreadful stuck menus effect.

Please see your User’s Manual for detailed instructions on how to use these new features.

If you already own a PhotoStage or PhotoLite, remember that you can obtain this update for free by click Options, then Update from the main menu. As usual, you can buy these products from the Ananke Media Systems demo site in Lady Vale as well as the online stores OnRez and SLExchange.

Rotation pinning on new PhotoStand

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.

PhotoStage update coming soon

We are working hard on the next version of PhotoStage. After having received great feedback from many customers, we decided to incorporate a few enhancements that will be included in version 1.1, to be released soon. If you are an owner of PhotoStage you will receive this update for free.

In addition to lots of minor improvements and optimisations, these are the major new features in the upcoming version:

• A HUD will make using the PhotoStage much more enjoyable. You will be able to avoid menus except for a few uncommon commands.
• A Channel setting will let you operate up to 9 different PhotoStages from a single Control Box or HUD. This is especially useful if you want to set up multiple PhotoStages side by side.
• An Update button will be added to the menus, so you can check for updates manually without resetting the whole PhotoStage.
• A few top-class modelling poses will be included with the PhotoStand.

We hope you enjoy these improvements. As usual, your feedback is crucial for us to make the best studio photography toolkit in SL. Let us know what you think!

Modelling stand added to PhotoStage

Some of our beta testers have suggsted that PhotoStage should include a modelling stand in the package. Although you can get modelling stands from a number of sources, we agree that bundling one together with PhotoStage completes the product nicely. Therefore, we have developed PhotoStand, a simple modelling stand designed to work together with PhotoStage and PhotoLite.

PhotoStage will come with PhotoStand from the very first moment, and PhotoLite too as soon as it is available. The User’s Manual is already online.