Dear Linden Labs, please fix these issues
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-15-2009 17:21
1) What is with the light intensity/ diameter issue? Everytime I back away from someone with a face light then swoop in, it looks like someone switched on a light bulb. It makes working with the facelight nearly impossible. I know some machinima people who swear by the facelight. How do you guys do it? If I'm doing any sort of complicated shot it flicks on or flicks off like a bulb blew out or something. It's crazy!
2) Tracking. What is with tracking these days? I alt click on someone to point my camera on them and the camera shakes like it is on some rocky boat or something. The image like vibrates. I used to do these beautiful tracking shots, letting the person guide the camera, and now I can't do it close up because of the awful shaking.
3) Windlight. I mean there are so many wonderful settings where the environment looks absolutely beautiful, then when you stick an avatar in there, it looks awful. I've had to compensate a lot with that and my latest client was complaining the avies looked "yellow." There are times there are such hideous white blotches on their face or a tiny bit of shadow makes their skin look more newbie than my orientation day. Windlight is wonderful but it's unfortunate that such a small selection of settings for it is actually acceptable for an avatar without them looking, as one person said to me, "a skeleton with no skin."
4) I like to put haze density up high (at least i "think" it's haze density, AWM told me to lower the settings and I did and I think it worked), especially for today when I was shooting on a mountain /snow area where I wanted fog for the effect. When I put it up, and i am far away from avatars, suddenly they look like aliens with huge black eyes and diamonds for mouths. When they try to move , they get stuck in place, like 90% in slow motion.
5) The flicker issue. Ok I know there was a fix, thanks for reporting that guys. However, it's really weird and I would have never figured that out. Anyways.. this is off my worry list but I'm going to post this here in case anyone else was worried about this issue and doesn't know the fix yet. There is another post for it recently and the fix works. Check it out.
Anyways.. that's all I have for now. I guess my experience wasn't totally negative, but because of the above my shoot got pretty delayed today.
Special thanks for AWM for helping me out on such short notice with some good tech advice for the "alien" issue. I'm pretty sure it worked!
Linden Lab, anyone else, care to help me with these other issues? Thanks guys!!!
|
Taff Nouvelle
Virtual Business Owners
Join date: 4 Sep 2006
Posts: 216
|
02-15-2009 17:26
The facelight problem is probably due to the fact that you will only see 6 lights , so they will be the closest 6,
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-15-2009 19:56
so my avatar has to be physically closer the avatar i am filming? But how do I do that without seeing myself in the shot?
|
Robustus Hax
Registered User
Join date: 4 Feb 2007
Posts: 231
|
02-16-2009 08:10
Ariella, I used to have the problem with the crappy looking avatars in Windlight with my old Geforce video card.. I upgraded to Geforce 8500 and the avatars look good again.
As with the face light, flickering issue... just posted he JIRA bug in the forum... the only way I work around this is to turn off Local Lighting and try to adjust to sun position to give me the light I need, but Im also doing this for indoor sets where everything can be lit, so it wont work for every type of shot.
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-16-2009 18:24
Ah. that's awful. I hate not working with local lights in a lot of situations. If I report these issues, will you guys sign it?
thanks!
|
Toxic Menges
Time Lady
Join date: 4 Jul 2007
Posts: 206
|
02-16-2009 18:54
I have a groovy vanish anim that shoves your avi under the ground .. perfect for filming up close so the 6 mights issue doesn't cause as many problems. IM me inworld if you want it 
_____________________
I'm bumping you to an 8.3. You obviously have a strong sense of self and you are very much in control of your sensual side. You're the kind of girl that guys are willing to beat each other senseless over, just hoping for a few moments of attention from you. Congratulations and shame on you. you are a slut in the very best possible meaning of the word!
Trout Re-Certified
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-16-2009 22:26
that sounds fantastic! I tried an invisible bubble- definitely didn't work. I'll IM you! Thanks!
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-18-2009 16:41
Another hugeee, annoying issue:
FIX THE ISSUE ABOUT TV OR OTHER MEDIA NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY REGULAR DIRECT QUICKTIME LINKS!! WHAT IS WITH THAT?!?!?!!?!?!?
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-18-2009 16:41
oh special thanks to Toxic for the invisible animation- that thing rocks!!
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-18-2009 16:44
btw i have a good graphics card so the skeleton/alien issue cant be my graphics card. i basically have the highest i can get and any higher than this are apparently so "new" they have issues. i get 40 FPS with everything boosted. Uh thanks for trying to help me out guys.. i am still in disarray over all this crap which clearly LL should try to fix! Because it hasn't been an issue for a short amount of time it's been an issue for months!
|
Rosco Teardrop
PookyMedia
Join date: 28 Nov 2008
Posts: 61
|
02-20-2009 06:30
From: Ariella Languish Another hugeee, annoying issue:
FIX THE ISSUE ABOUT TV OR OTHER MEDIA NOT BEING ABLE TO PLAY REGULAR DIRECT QUICKTIME LINKS!! WHAT IS WITH THAT?!?!?!!?!?!? Can you explain that problem Ariella? I can set a link to an mp4 file on a server and it plays just fine, or is it something else you mean?
_____________________
http://weebitfilms.blogspot.com http://www.pookymediafilms.com
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-21-2009 09:31
Can you check to see if you can play www.ariellafurman.com/videos/ibmep6.mov on your TV, Rosco? Thank you 
|
Rosco Teardrop
PookyMedia
Join date: 28 Nov 2008
Posts: 61
|
02-21-2009 13:48
It didn't play on my screen, but it might be a bandwidth problem. I'm no expert in quicktime compression but it looks like your data rate is way too high and you havn't compressed the audio. The file size should be less than half of what it is for letting the bandwidth of SL handle it.
Also, even tryinf to watch it in a browser was stuttery, which might be my connection, or your server is not very good.
So, try reducing the video bitrate, and use AAC for the audio.
Alternatively, upload it to youtube or blip.tv and use them as the streaming servers. Let me know if you need any help on that.
_____________________
http://weebitfilms.blogspot.com http://www.pookymediafilms.com
|
AWM Mars
Scarey Dude :¬)
Join date: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 3,398
|
02-22-2009 00:13
There are two main considerations when streaming movies into SL... Databit Rates.. and the loadings on the client UpdateImage pipelines.
Data Bit Rate you can determine by simply loading the movie into your qt player via your HD, while playing, Window, Movie Inspector, gives that and more information.
Loadings on the SL client, click the play button, press Ctrl+Shift+2, look at the lime green portion of the graph, will probably be around 5% without the movie streaming, see the difference while the movie is playing. Idealy it will be around or less than 25%, I've seen some as high as 90% and it nails you to the floor. Its a cruder way to judge the effects, but a good benchmark.
Ctrl+Shift+9 is a much more detailed way of seeing the effects, as you can drill down the render sections, to see multiple effects.
The more passive the codec, the lesser loadings on the QT pluggin and Client rendering pipelines. MP4's being some of the higher effects due to the compression routines, even though you get a better data bit rate, its a balance.
Try using the IMA 4:1 audio codec, but select Mono and or 8bit sampling rate, to reduce the audio bit rate, then play with codec and their settings available for the movie layer. As you already know the benefits of pixel size and shape, this can give you higher resolution that allows for greater scaling when veiwing in SL, with lower overheads. Use 25fps as a maximum, and even try 20fps as a test version for comparison.
_____________________
*** Politeness is priceless when received, cost nothing to own or give, yet many cannot afford - Why do you only see typo's AFTER you have clicked submit? ** http://www.wba-advertising.com http://www.nex-core-mm.com http://www.eml-entertainments.com http://www.v-innovate.com
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
02-24-2009 20:15
wow! thanks guys!! Those are all great tips!
So today I exported all my movies to flash for my site, and on top of that I exported to youtube, where all my movies have a high quality option. Woo hoo! I was able to play it on a TV I bought and voila- success!
|
AWM Mars
Scarey Dude :¬)
Join date: 10 Apr 2004
Posts: 3,398
|
02-25-2009 06:22
To explore moe the Windlight options....
Windlight offers 1,000's of permutations whereby you can create unique settings, that can be saved in templates. You can share those templates with others. What would be awesome, would be if the estate settings could include the settings, beyond the simple 4 on offer. Then the sim could be presented in the way the creator intended.
Haze (Atmospherics).. I use this to create different depths of lighting and to gain the illusion for depth of feild. In the Twilight Zone movie, I used it to bring the foremost details into focus of the viewer, and also to allow me to use my editing programme to give realistic looking lightening effects. By giving the distance haze a specific colour, I could select that layer of colour for the effect within the movie. You can do the same at different distances, creating multiple layers within the scene, and therefore move/apply your effects to a greater degree.
There is also the Haze multipliers, and Distance multipliers. You can adjust the effects, and even colour. Horizon adjustments, do just that and effect the horizon line and the Sun/Moon auras. Combining that with the Sun/Moon Focus and Brightness, you can generate some great effects, especially when combined with Cloud effects. An overall controller for Horizon Haze/ Sun/Moon combinations, is scene Gamma. Having Scene Gamma too low will cause a lot of problems with contrast. If you find your scenes are always too bright to begin with, try setting your monitor to a neutral setting using DisplayMate. This will help you set your system without any bias towards warm/cold settings. Having the correct levels of Contrast, Bightness and Colour Balance on your system, you will find your output results of your movies will increase in quality.
There are many ways to position the Sun/Moon. Start off by choosing the time of day in the first Editor Window, keeping that visible, to allow for futher adjustments. In the Advanced window, under Lighting, you have a similar slider, that is for Sun/Moon height in the sky. Consider this to be the Seasonal adjustment, afterall not everyone get the sun at directly above them with 0 shadow cast, at every location of the planet. Then you have the East Angle, this moves the Sun/Moon at a horizontal plane. Between those 3 controllers, you can position the Sun/Moon anywhere in the sky. By adjusting Horizon Haze, Cloud Multiplers and density and Sun/Moon Focus/Brightness and scene gamma, you have almost total control of the environment.
Consider the benefits sometimes, to shoot a scene, and chroma key your subjects into it, using the exact same saved atmospherics.
_____________________
*** Politeness is priceless when received, cost nothing to own or give, yet many cannot afford - Why do you only see typo's AFTER you have clicked submit? ** http://www.wba-advertising.com http://www.nex-core-mm.com http://www.eml-entertainments.com http://www.v-innovate.com
|
Ariella Languish
Registered User
Join date: 27 Oct 2005
Posts: 190
|
03-03-2009 16:18
interesting!! this is great reading material-- thanks AWM! I will try those techniques. Sometimes i cant help but do button clicking and see the effects of stuff, but this will def. make that process faster.
|