The default lighting is terrible

Say it isn't so!

What else?

There are content theifs among us.

I probably shouldn't say much more. I really don't want to skew what is likely a happy SL existence for you.

Content theft?

How long has this been going on!!!??!!

Do the Lindens know?

We think so.. but they know about the lag and the lighting problems too.

And there seems to be some sort of ongoing issue with the asset servers - or so they tell me, anyway.

Oh great, now we are gonna lose Colette. I was trying to shield her from the borks.

lol good point though.

The shadow draft viewer helps a lot: you still get discoloration in an enclosed space (more obvious with white than a normal texture though), but it's uniform at least.



Top is windlight, bottom is the shadow draft viewer. Sunrise/noon/sunset/midnight respectively.

It's slightly disconcerting in the latter since you can't actually see any of the walls or seams at all anymore .

(Since the sunlight is blocked by the walls and there's no light anywhere in the box you never see the white as white in case that wasn't clear)

Am I understanding correctly that the bottom four images are thought preferable to the top ones? Or is this just a preview of the upcoming shadow draft viewer that presumably won't flatten interiors in some future version?

It looks better when you don't have walls that are a flat colour .

Here's a more practical example:

Windlight would have been great as part of an overall development of lighting and shading within Second Life.

Addressing lighting without addressing shadows makes no sense to me. I just assumed that the two went together. Well, with Windlight, Linden Labs addressed one without the other.

The universal environmental light from Windlight overpowers local lights, highlights flaws in the very crude geometry of Second Life, and just inexplicably casts no shadows.

It ruins textures made to deal with the bad lighting prior to Windlight (which coped by drawing in highlighting and shading). That may be the cost of progress. But the "progress" of Windlight looks out of place beside the other archaic graphic features.

It's possible to cope with Windlight situationally by having different sets of settings for various conditions. That really doesn't help Second Life be a shared experience between residents.

Windlight is a technical improvement in some senses that really seems to overall make Second Life a lesser experience. It's the kind of technical improvement one would expect from a technical team that isn't managed, but free to choose its own projects.

It's been complained about before, but I don't have a problem complaining about it periodically. If shadows and geometry are updated, I might be able to appreciate Windlight.

Thanks for the clarification; they certainly do look better.

The IMG tags didn't work in my browser, so if I'm not the only one who saw nothing, the examples Kitty posted are at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kittybarnett/2543472289/sizes/o/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kittybarnett/2543472383/sizes/o/

I think the colors are awful. The floor and left wall are almost the same color in both pictures, but the facing wall is so orange in one of the pictures. It's just so unrealistic - and crap.

I not using anything but current version of SL. I have made some custom lighting settings, but do not make default.
Default is always same-- much troubles to go to my custom light.

someone can show me how to make my settings always default when I log in SL?

Thank you for assist

If you go to the advanced sky editor there is a button for day cycle editor. In there you can edit the key frames such as 9am, 12pm, 3pm and you can replace the default preset for each. I think you have to click 'save test day'. This saves your day cycle and it will always use your presets even after you restart SL. Use with caution. You can do quite a bit with the day in there and I'm not sure how to undo it all except maybe reinstall SL.