Yes, that is right. I am going to tell something about a product! And only because I am very excited about it and think every Second Life Photographer will want to have it!

The Black Tulip Camera HUD.

I have never used a camera HUD in SL before, as I just fiddle along and accepted the occasional failed image or having to re-do a shot because I moved my camera and could not find that perfect angle back. You know; you spent some time and finally have the perfect picture and then you see you need to derender or rezz something, or your pet jumps on your keyboard and tataaa: gone is your perfect framed shot. Or worse: you crash.

The past days I have been using the Camera HUD from Black Tulip by Auryn Beorn when shooting pictures at the soon to be opened Fantasy Faire. I was so easy to use and helped me a lot in getting 15 sims photographed without losing time in manually repositioning my camera.

The HUD is really easy to use, it comes with a clear manual; but I was able to use it right away without having to read it first….so that means it is simple to operate!

How it works?

All you have to do is attach this nice vintage looking HUD (it can be clicked on the little hand to minimise it when not in use). Once you have set up your shot, and you are totally happy with it, click on the HUD (save) and a menu appears and you can save the camera position and give it a name – up to 60 positions available!

Now, if you need to do something else to change your scene, and you move your camera, or you crash/need to relog….no worry and no panic!
Just click on the HUD – restore – and in the menu choose the position you saved. Then simply click on ESC (the HUD tells you that) and voila: you will see your camera going back to how it was!

Perfect!

As I cannot show examples of pics of the Fantasy Faire yet, and I didn’t have a lot of time to make all kinds of images for this blogpost, I have created one to show you what I did.

I’ve saved a shot in the HUD from my sofa in my home and then went sitting on all the spots, taking pics of every position. When standing up and sitting, I’ve accidentally moved the view, but with the HUD it was easy to restore it.

After I had all the pics, I stacked them on top of each other in PicMonkey (as I do not have Photoshop) and erased bits and pieces to make it look like I am sitting there with 4 of my clones. Because all the shots were exactly the same, it was really simple to do – imaging this for photo’s when you change outfits or avatars for every shot to make it look like an actual group of people.

The HUD does not save windlights or avatar positions, it only stores the camera focus.

I believe there are many cases in which you can use this HUD, I for one..will never leave home without it anymore!

The Black Tulip Camera HUD is currently only available at the Pose Fair till 29th April and after that it will be in their mainstore and on MP.

PS: Yes, you see in the image that I have used a test version which was given to me by Auryn a few weeks ago, for testing only. She never asked or expected me to promote it in my blog or anywhere, but I do that because it is awesome :P