full bright skin option as opposed to facelights

I disagree. We couldn't turn those things off until just recently, while facelights have been around for quite a long time. They were always intended to make an avatar more presentable to others (as well as one's self).

There is an ambient light level as well as the directional lighting from sun, moon, and local lights. "Unlit" objects would have a brightness based on the ambient light level only. Materials would allow this to be applied to the avatar and prims by defining the surface as low contrast.

The face light I usually wear is very subtle..... but I disagree that it's all about vanity.

First of all.....everything about SL is dedicated to first person viewer perception. None of us are going to see SL as others do.....unless we're running on multiple machines. So....the idea that face lights are vanity related is moot. We do what what we do because we want our own view to please us. There's little control over how anyone else is using the tools provided....so it doesn't really matter. I don't like those harsh stage light face lights.....because I am at least considerate of those around me.......In fact....as much as I love Sirena hair.....I'm not comfortable using it because of the intense light feature.

But.....again......noone seems to be addressing the fact that windlight settings can hugely effect and improve the way things look. And again....this isn't about vanity either since we all can have different settings going on at one time.....it really doesn't matter how cool your screen looks because there's no telling what's going on in everyone else's viewer. So...the idea that it's vanity related, is sort of an impossibility. It's just about wanting to see something that is aesthetically pleasing on your own screen. SL was designed that way.....to give each user control of their own world.

Perhaps a lot has to do with the different graphics cards being used too.....I can't tell you guys how many times I have helped people with windlight....who had only just updated their pc or graphics card. There's a LOT of folks running around in world who are NOT using the environment controls to their benefit....either because they don't know how....or they can't, due to graphics incompatibility.

I spend probably 90% of my in world time doing photography....so I'm always adjusting my viewer....I'm always exploring new locations.....and I use all sorts of different costumes and props to get effects I want. And I'll say this.....I am always able to get an appealing image by using environment settings alone. I even limit my use of photoshop because my aim as a photographer is to capture as pure an image as possible in-world.

The more I read posts like this..... the more I think maybe I should start holding windlight tutoring classes. LOL Seriously.....no offense or slight is intended to anyone here.....it's just that I believe there's widely untapped luxury in windlight, and it causes a lot of unnecessary frustration.

Not for me. Most EMPHATICALLY not for me. I change my avatar at the drop of a hat, switching species if necessary to fit in with the people around me. I want to look right for the people who see me, and everything in SL that makes it harder for me to tell what I look like to other people is a negative.

So facelights are a negative. People disable them, and they mess with other people's builds, and they look differently depending on where you are. And yet people will use them rather than fiddling with Windlight settings because Windlight settings aren't shared with other people.

And Windlight is a negative. For most people, Windlight settings are a waste of time. Obviously, you're an exception, you're a photographer. Windlight is great for you. But for most people all they really get from Windlight is water reflections.

But Materials, which is what this thread is about, would be a huge win. They would reduce the negative impact of Windlight, and they would provide a much more similar experience for everyone.

Are you SURE you are not female?

No facelight on me. =^-^=

I'll take that as a compliment.

In all Fairness to Sirena Hair
she does give a note card with each purchase showing how to use her menu that turns off or on the lighting OPTION and to adjust shades..

it is not that intense that it lights up everyone around you or casts on builds..

Back to the subject of fullbright skin. No way! Fullbright prims glow in the dark. I don't want to see glow in the dark people too. Unless maybe we are roleplaying a nuclear disaster.

Agreed! It's bad enough when a facelight makes someone's face glow like they have their own personal follow-spot trained on their nose. But to have their skin glow all over? Yuk! Which radiation disaster did they just escape from?

I have this nice little parasitic tool that "swallow" light sources, pretty cool to turn of any facelights in your vicinity.

Which is what we need is Materials, as Linden Labs promised when Windlight came out, which would allow you to make an avatar or prim "matte"... not brighter than ambient, but not excessively highlighted by Windlight.

Um.... wha?
Look I'm not advocating full bright skin. The thought of it sort of scares me actually. However... the OP is concerned with how her avatar looks and for people to tell her to adjust her windlight settings is just stupid.

Double BS. I'd be willing to bet the majority of the population doesn't even know the Advanced menu exists... let alone how to shut off attached lights.

Are you not familiar with the Mute feature?

Doesn't matter - if they turn off all local lights as a matter of performance, your facelight goes poof anyway, and it has NEVER been guaranteed that anyone has their local lights on.

As for the advanced menu... anyone that watches Torley's tutorials knows it exists, and people tell their friends how to fix settings. I imagine that most people who have spent any significant time in world old know what it is.

As for the mute feature, it doesn't render them completely invisible.

As a clothing designer, I can guarantee you that 9 out 10 ppl have no clue how Windlight settings and local lights affect how avatars look. Facial rendering, which is where ppl look first (unless it's at your boobs), is especially mediocre. The other annoying thing is where prim dresses try to blend into the avatar mesh. Pre-Windlight, the transition was relatively smooth most times of the day. Now, it goes from bad to completely ugly depending on where the lights are coming from. Fabric doesn't suddenly change from dull matte to bright where RL skirts flair out. And one shouldn't have to change the color on a prim skirt from red to red + 20% gray just to match the same color on the glitch pants.

FWIW, I used to wear a facelight in my newbie days but stopped when I realized I was lighting up the room for 5m. Recently, I've seriously considered getting one of the new subtle ones since the default Windlight settings are so dreary most of the time.

The part you quoted was in response to some snark about the Debug menu, not the Windlight options. I agree that most people don't realize what they've got with Windlight. But as for the gray shading - IIRC, that's being corrected in the release candidate. Avatars are not as dark as they were before.

I made a few subtle photography lights... sometimes I forget I even have them on, but they are for night photos.

Hmmm I think this would make the problem worse then. I have to add gray to the prim skirts to make them match the avatar -- not the other way around. As to the Admin/Debug options, same thing, I'll bet you 9 of 10 ppl have no idea they are there or what they do. Of course, the old-timers or ppl who make some sort of living or activity out of SL do but the average user -- I doubt it.

I may revisit this. I made my own mini-photog studio to take fashion shots for packages. I suppose a facelight wouldn't be much more than what I did there but I'm lazy about scripting these days and having an adjustable one would be nice.

I see I forgot to include ambient light in my earlier post. Brain working faster than the finger I think, but that's no excuse as they're BOTH pretty slow now days
The industry term "unlit" simply means not having any lighting calculated for a specific surface, and that's exactly what full bright is. If it had a brightness based on ambient light (which increases and decreases throughout the day cycle), you would be able to use the eyedropper in the color select panel, sample a solid-color full bright texture, and get a DIFFERENT value at noon and midnight. It doesn't work that way.. you always get the same returned color because the unlit texture is using a default preset brightness level that never changes. It's completely unaffected by ALL light inworld.

I agree about the materials. LL shouldn't just create assignable materials for surfaces though, but take it further by creating a definable shader tree that could be applied to a surface. Preprogrammed effects and filters, with user defined values, and user defined/uploaded custom materials would allow for mindblowing things not seen in SL so far. What they REALLY need to do is tear apart the Half-life or Unreal source and copy how materials and shaders should be done lol.

I tend to like them.

Can anyone point me int the direction of one of the nice subtle ones.

If you don't have it yet, get a MystiTool (made by Mystical Cookie). Then use the implant and play around with the /1 LIGHT settings.

Thus you don't need a separate attachment; you can use the Mysti, which (IMHO) is a must-have anyway.

The MystiTool implant uses three local lights, roughly in front of the knees and out past the shoulders. They can give a pleasing effect for photos and are adjustable, but three lights are a bit much to leave on all the time.

I do have a MystiTool, is there anything it cant do?

I'll give it a try. as long as it can be made fairly gentle and turned on and off easy, it should do me.

But still.. saying it's not 100% guaranteed that others aren't seeing you in the way you'd most prefer (ie, with the lights and anything else you've configured), doesn't mean it feels just as valid to customize your appearance using a method that you know with 100% certainty that others cannot see (ie, Windlight).

Certainly in my case I tend to use gentle facelights to overcome the problem that a shadow in the wrong place can create a horrible seam just below the nose on many skins (and that's with a good skin - with a bad one, that seam will always be there).