Lions and Tigers and Windlight OH MY!

Ok....I gotta ask how to do this cause I keep seeing all these post by folks who have a terrible time with windlight.....and complaining that it makes everything gross. Now, I understand that not everyone has a graphics card that's going to allow them to run with the environmental settings.....and thusly have to deal with the defaults (which yeah, they're not great, no question)

But.....for the remainder....who have the capability, and so far have not messed with the environement settings (and I KEEP running into people who have NO idea what they CAN do in windlight......and I show them......and suddenly they're amazed) So....what I'd really love to do is pass on a bunch of my settings. I've got a lot that work beautifully....in fact I have an entire day cycle set up so I NEVER ever see the default light settings. Everything looks just fine....fluffy things,......feathery things....avatar skin. It's all fine.

HOW do I upload the sky settings to be able to share with folks? I know how to pull them out of the SL folder.....but beyond that.....what do I need to do to make it so others can download them off the web? I grabbed Torley's eons ago....but not sure how that file was compiled.

Maybe if LL did a better job of documenting it's features and not assuming everyone is a savvy enough to instinctively go poking around and fiddling there would be less griping.
*What , you say? LL take proactive steps to ensure people know how to use their product? Madness! Sheer madness!

But you are right. I don't use a Windlight viewer myself, but seeing the pictures, It does look nice. It was such a big change to SL that they really should have some sort of easy to find basic user's guide for it.

The last mention I saw of anything like that was back in November of 2007 when the man himself mentioned something about Windlight settings becoming a saleable commodity in SL - along with the prospect of sim owners being able to have their own Windlight settings as regional default.

Otherwise, the only way I can think of transferring Windlight settings efficiently would be to zip the xml files and email them to other residents.

But of course we can't upload zip files.

If you don't actually have access to a file sharing server, you could look in to that, though I have no clue what it costs to upload files to one or how any of that stuff really works. Or if you know someone with a server that would host the files for you for people to download from.

Yeah, I am mostly clueless here, but I know such things exist.

Additionally, you would then need to tell people where to download the files from and give them some solid instructions on which directory to drop the files into.

I discovered if you have spaces in the name of the WindLight setting the XML file puts a % sign or several of them where the spaces should be, and I can't upload to my web site anything that has a percent sign.

I tried renaming them and then they didn't work. I evidently have to rename them in world from the Environment editor. And think of new names with no spaces.

At that point I got disgusted and stopped trying. You know, if I'm going to work that hard it should be on something permanent like a painting.

OMG GIVE THIS WOMAN A BAGEL!

WTF - they have NEVER detailed anything!

Can you imagine what it was like in 2003 to log in for the first time - walk around, lose your clothing, and then buy a box that has pictures of a nice dress on it and then when you put the clothes on a box appears on your head!!! zomg i was sooooo frustrated and so pissed off at this Fey Brightwillow person that just sold me a BOX for $200L!! (whatever 200L meant back then is beyond me, i just knew that my free fake money was dwindling).

Yea. Where the hell are the instructions for this world. WE STILL NEED THEM LL. And no i don't mean a commercial book you can buy.

Why rename them? just put them all in a zipfile and set them on your server.

create downloadlink and include a guide.txt in the zipfile to tell people where they should copy the files to.

If space is needed, let me know. I can upload it and paste an url here.

I would guess the easiest thing to do would be to post the files on a file-sharing server like Rapidshare or something like that. Just include a text file in the .zip with all the instructions on how to set everything up, then post the link to the file in the forums.

Whats to understand? SL is EASY!

I've played FPS's that had steeper learning curves!

Yes, because you HAVE played FPS and other games SL is easy. But a lot of people come in without that experience. And if SL is planning on getting more "regular" people into SL, there will be even more.

Duh!

I guess I was thinking people could pick and choose which ones they liked. I went to a picturesque local and took pictures of the same scene with all the different settings and wanted to have the download link under each one. But that's silly. The files are so small people are going to want to get them all at once of course.

Eventually I get the hang of this high tech stuff

Hmmm....

Ok.....well, renaming is out right now for me because it seems I cannot save any more changes to my windlight settings. Not a big deal since I have tons and I just tweek them if I want.....usually it's for pics and I adjust the east/west positioning of the sun. But most of my sky names have spaces......so I guess I can't upload to a file share.

But.....I can easily throw a few in a zip file along with insructions and send them off to anyone interested. I'd be more then happy to hold a crash course too if it would help anyone.

I know initially when WL came out in the firtslook viewer, LL promoted it pretty hard and Torley did a bunch of video tutes......The problem is that a lot of folks simply don't bother trying the other viewers so they MISS all the info on new features. I don't pay attention to them because I'm happy right now with the regular viewer. But, I also learn pretty quick now that I've been here a while. So, new features don't scare me so much with the updates.

So.....let me just throw this out there......if anyone is interested.....send me a private messege here and I'll put together a zip folder with some settings and some instructions and send them off to foks who want them. It's just silly to allow your experience to be less then ideal when there IS a way to make it better.

My provides gave me more than enough webspace so i can host the files for you.

so if you (or anyone else for that matter) wants me to do that, send them to me: [email]benski@upcmail.nl[/email]

I will then upload them and post the link here for downloads.

LL has so completely dropped the ball with windlight. They BARELY got it functional after a year of work, then didn't take the extra 4 weeks to make is USEFUL.

Where is the ability for parcel owners to define windlight settings for their parcel or estate?!?!?

Where is the ability to script those settings so we can have changing lighting conditions like you know... weather???

COME ON LL! Can you like finish anything?

If so, finish windlight and make it MEAN something.

I'm with you, Brenda...and I *have* played other games that had at least "some" understandable documentation when a new upgrade was announced.

There are people within SL from the computer geek savvy types to retired people who are just getting the hang of a PC and heard about SL as an interesting place...and everyone in between.

I used to teach computer classes (application software) so I know a bit more than some people but a lot less than others. The few times I go into a viewer with Windlight (generally to test something on the Beta Grid) I look at what are supposed to be all kinds of settings to tweak to penultimate perfection and see...not much.

I'm still happy with my prehistoric 1.8-whatever viewer and get a giggle when my friend crashes out of Windlight on his powerful PC.

Oh, back to the topic...LL imo would have a lot MORE users enjoying what they and more importantly to me, what their residents have put so much time and effort into creating if they would just WRITE SOME INSTRUCTIONS.

/me pushes soapbox to the side

If you have the Hippo viewer.....you'll see that a ton of Enviromental Editor presets have been created .....far more than any SL viewer.
It's a good starting point to developing your own presets for each part of the day/ night cycle and using those instead.

Redgrave skins have a good one to eliminate Windlight shadows on skins. The possibilities are endless.

Wow! I'm way behind on viewers. I've used Nicholaz (of course *smiles*) and the Cool Viewer. I've heard of Kirsten's, but Hippo is a new one on me. Are there others as well and what are the pros/cons of each?

THIS!

I've been here close to two years and have no idea what half the things on the menu do. I've never played computer games before, so have no base of learning.

I'm away from my main computer for a few days and can't get in-world on my laptop. One of my goals was to go into the knowledge base and learn about all the things on the menu that make me say WTF is that. There really isn't much there.

You would think at the very least, they could make a list of a menu selection, with a definition of what it does. How about a printscreen, with a list under it. I mean, that can't be more than a few days work for one person.