#if I need my blorbos to kiss I'll have to write a fanfic tho

[thevikingwoman]

These are really great tips! The truth is you can do a lot with vanilla gpose. I think it's important to remember this!

Running 3rd party tools is always a risk and it is also very time-consuming - not to mention unavailable if you don't play on PC.

I'd like to add some tips of my own; and some comments on some of the above.

Take lots of shots. You can always take a lot of shots from different angles - I end up with a lot and go through them to find the best.

2. Get really creative with composition. No mods required to make find that angle that reveals something interesting.

3. Use combat animations. As mentioned above, the last emote will be retained unless you /sit, but it's more than that, it's the last animation. As mentioned above, you can combine this with toggling battle effect on and off and see what works for your shot. Do note it will be the last one and teleporting is also an animation. So you have to find a critter you can beat in an area you want the shot and then try to move to a safer place that still has the environment you want. You can get killed while gposing!

4. You can save your lightning spots and settings so they don't reset every time you enter gpose. You can use this - with A LOT of patience - to grab shots in combat that are stunning. This is the best use of this I've seen, this shot and process is mindblowing.

5. adjacent to point 7 above, really try playing with light placement. Backlight can make for interesting contrasts, depending on what you do. I have a dark green skinned character, and find a soft light on face really helps bring out her features, but it's not always what I want.

6. try using limb darkening. It can cut off artifacts and just frame the shot nicely.

For an example of my own, the second shot here uses a combo of 2+3 to encircle Eulmore with a SAM animation - the result is fun and unique!

Which brings me to another point - the first shot is very soft light but saturated, which is similar to a lot of re-shaded gposes. But you do not need that!

7. Use the color filters! I know it's mentioned above, but I really think it can change everything. Don't be afraid to play around! Using manual brightness + the bright or pastel filter can really change a gpose A LOT. example below under the cut

Lastly, last spring I ran a vanilla gpose event and it was SO much fun. I will run one again for sure. here's my whole archive for that event, look at the variety and creativity vanilla gpose affords.

Ex of filter use:

I wanted to grab some gposes of my new black mage glam, and our FC house has a nice little bridge and weeping willow. ALL of the following are taken used different light + filters.

here's a nice, well colored shot that I think works really well - I think I used a bright 1 or 4 filter here

what about a softer light? The weather is foggy and the pastel filter enhances that

or we can turn up the brightness for something a little more intense

Here I used the victory (or battle?) emote to focus on her glowing staff. Turning the brightness all the way down makes this a really different shot.

lastly here I played with adding some light directly to the trees and a balanced filter with moderate light intensity. I really like this, and it may be the one I keep for her glam collection

all in all it just depends on what you're trying to do and convey, and don't feel limited by running vanilla only.

yes, you can't create custom poses or pose npcs - but there's still a lot of creativity to explore!

Vanilla Gpose Tips

I get asked occasionally how I make my screenshots if I'm not using shaders or mods. The short answer: Patience. Gpose's suite of tools is a lot more robust than it used to be when it was first released. But if you want a screenshot to really shine without using third party add-ons, it's not something you can just go into gpose, take a printscreen and get back out. You might capture a moment with nice lighting that way, but it takes more than that. 1. Choosing a location and time of day is job one. What kind of mood are you trying to convey? Does your intended screenshot have a theme (or a prompt?) or are you just looking at your new glam and marveling at how fine your character looks in it? Does a lighter or darker setting suit the character better? Setting, time of day, and weather can affect this. 2. You can stop time and weather from changing. I keep this on by default because it can take upwards of 30 minutes IRL to fine tune a screenshot. The middle button below. Make sure it's highlighted.

3. Toggle battle effects on/off. It's the button right next to the time/weather stop, the icon of the guy holding the sword. If the icon is highlighted as it is in the screenshot, your battle effects are on. If you want to capture pure motion and not worry about battle effects, turn this off. 4. Wet effect. Use it, use it, use it. It doesn't just make clothes look wet and make skin glossy, it actually helps to bring out texture and detail on the character's outfit. Especially since the graphics updates in 7.1. I've found it also adds shine to hair and can help the eyes stand out more.

5. Sticker Mode. Yes, there are oodles of cute minion stickers, flags, and numbers, but there are also some great effects to be found in the Decorations category! Sparkles and twinkles, lens flare, among other things can help enhance metallic points on a glamour, AND they can be resized! So if you want a more subtle twinkle on the edge of your spectacles or earrings, you can tilt and downsize your desired sparkle. There are also cute flowers and hearts. 6. Quick Keys. If you're playing on a keyboard, the 1 on your top number row freezes the screenshot. This is extremely helpful if you're trying to catch a battle emote right at a specific moment. If you miss it, keep trying because emotes will continue to cycle until you change them. R and Scroll Lock will both hide/unhide the gpose controls. X will turn on lighting. Space Bar will toggle your character to stop them from facing the camera and vice versa. 7. Lighting Intensity is Dependent on Distance. The closer you're zoomed in on your character, the brighter the light is going to be when you turn it on. Try adjusting your zoom in or out and toggling the light to see if the illumination is to your liking. You can also adjust the RGB on the lights to fit the mood/environment. I also recommend turning on Manual Brightness. 8. Color Filter and Screen Effect. These two features, in my opinion, require the most patience. Not every color filter and screen effect will work well together in every scenario. Click through and preview all of them in your screenshots and see if some SE's work better with your preferred CF. You might find an unexpected combination that you love. Trailer and Echo color filters are great for flashbacks (no one uses Aetherometer, it's an eye bleeder). Use the Pencil or one of the monochrome CFs and Noise 2 SE to create a nice black and white film or photo effect. 9. Frames. Frames are one of the more limited features and not always needed in order to capture a great screenshot. Action poses benefit from the Cinema frames, however, while more lighthearted moments play well with the photo options.

10. Emotes. Before you enter Gpose, be sure to /groundsit to clear your most recent emotes. Summoning mounts and minions also count as emotes for the sake of Gpose. By the same token, you can use battle abilities before entering Gpose, and this is what it will cycle through. You can't activate a battle ability while IN Gpose. You will have access to all of your non-battle emotes and facial expressions, though. You can combine any emote with any facial expression by choosing the action first, and expression second, so you can /prettyplease and /awe at the same time to make your character look hilariously horrified. If you enter Gpose with an active battle ability, you can still apply a facial expression to it from within the tool. 11. Bits and Bobs. Enable Manual Focus and Depth of Field will help bring out the details of the background more, and will help to make a more cohesive screenshot. Manual Focus is great if you want your character in the frame, but you want to shift the focus elsewhere, to an object or another person in the background for example. In the same menu where you'll find emotes, click the second eye button to "Track Camera". Your character's eyes will follow the position of the camera. Lastly, again, have patience. Allow yourself time to play with all the tools Gpose has to offer. You're probably not going to get the winning screenshot after clicking Printscreen just one time, you should take multiple shots from different angles with different lighting and effects, then compare them all and pick the ones you like best. And remember, even if it's the true endgame, it's not a competition. Your screenshots are not "worse" or "boring" just because you're not using third party tools. I look forward to seeing what you create, and you should too.

[hilarychuff]

so would it be repetitive if i ask you to do asoiaf too haha? do twilight tho 👀

ok i'll do both just for you 😉

asoiaf

otp: ya also jonsa to absolutely no one's surprise

favourite canon pairing: hmmmm tbh i don't really read much outside of my lil sphere. i love nedcat but wouldn't really engage in nedcat fanfic. i love sam/gilly but wouldn't really read for them. honestly maybe cersei/jaime bc i have read stuff with them in it and they're so fascinating to me but not in an i'm-rooting-for-them kind of way. i'm sort of similarly invested in dany/daario too. OH. robb/jeyne is very sweet to me.

worst pairing ever: sansa/tyrion. like honestly considering that sansa is my blorbo i can sort of ship her with anyone and to a degree i absolutely do but a lot of those needs to exist within certain parameters (like an au that sort of resets/reevaluates power dyanimcs) but i haven't really found a fic that has been able to compensate for that with these two in a way that feels meaningful to me. then again i also haven't gone looking!!! but ya probs them.

guilty pleasure pairing: you know i also love me some dany/sansa under the right circumstances, especially when it is toxic and complicated and messy, and even better when jon is also in the mix. dany/jon doesn't really do it for me at all but when you make it a love triangle with SANSA in the middle i am like ok tell me more!!!!! i'm listening!!!!!!!

a pairing you want to see more: honestly i know marg is also a teenage girl but i have always kind of felt that tyrion/margaery would be a way better pairing than tyrion/sansa, especially show/fanon margaery considering why don't ACTUALLY know that much about canon marg's personality. tyrion still gets to date a hot girly who is smart and clever which is what everyone who likes him wants for him but now she is actually ambitious (as opposed to just wanting to have autonomy) and could appreciate his cunning/schemes/what he could bring to the table for her. also she clearly has fewer problems getting with a lannister!!!

that pairing everyone likes but you’re like “lol no”:  hmmm idk about everyone likes but i have seen enough people do ned/cersei and i just don't think it's for me. like i see what ned could bring to the table for cersei in terms of a worthy husband and i haven't engaged much with this ship so maybe i'm just missing it but to me it seems like the vibes would be like???? ned making cersei good through the power of his love??? and maybe we should just let a woman be evil 😤

favorite non-romantic pair: sansa and arya i think probably!!!!!! the stark sisters are something that is so important to me and i love getting to write scenes for them

twilight

otp: hmmm i think i gotta go with edward/bella for this one. honestly i think i was kind of sold on jacob in new moon until he kissed bella and she punched him in the face and then everyone was like "ha ha yay jacob shot his shot" and i was like EXCUSE ME???? that said back in like middle school i'm p sure i did think all the bella/edward soulmate pining stuff (the SILENCE when he LEAVES) was desperately romantic

favourite canon pairing: that said..... rosalie/emmett supremacy. rosalie is a queen. she deserves everything!!!!!

worst pairing ever: cannot express enough how completely uninvested i am in alice/jasper. he is both a) uninteresting to me and b) a confederate soldier who seemingly has never really reckoned with that!!! alice/bella much more interesting frankly. alice/ANGELA much more interesting frankly!!!!! wait i forgot about jacob/renesmee. it's jacob/renesmee.

guilty pleasure pairing: hmmmm. maybe rosalie/bella. can you imagine???????????? i can. :) bella stop talking about how hot rosalie is all of the time maybe!!!! that said i kind of also love rosalie as a bella hater lmfao so that makes it complicated for sure. but imagine bella in bella-edward levels of despair over her love for rosalie and rosalie kind of like.... i hate u but u ARE delicious. i also hate that i think that. and yet.... delicious. idk there's something here.

a pairing you want to see more: SOMEONE WHO IS WORTHY OF LEAH!!!!!! she deserves to have a girlfriend. maybe angela. maybe one of jacob's older sisters. no men allowed, thanks. she's a lesbian TO ME!!!!

that pairing everyone likes but you’re like “lol no”: it's not that i don't like carlisle/esme it's just that i am also BORED by them. maybe if they got more in canon i would care more. also i wouldn't really say this is a ship that everyone "likes" but while i can get behind an ot3 for edward/bella/jacob i am really not interestined in edward/jacob on their own 

favorite non-romantic pair: seth and jacob!!! seth and bella!! seth and leah!!!! seth is baby. he too deserves the world. maybe a boyfriend. both clearwaters are gay, no further questions, your honor.