How will windlight effect textures?

I realized that some textures found in world for various builds just plain don't look amazing... so.. I was wondering how they would look in windlight. I mean I see all of these stunning shots on Torley's blog and such, and can't wait... but then I realize that the neighbour with the crappy brick textured house might still just.. look crappy.

So how will windlight effect something like this, if at all?

Windlight won't miraculously make bad building textures look better.

It may make some good building textures look worse.

It did, in the last publicly available version, totally screw up the matching betweeh avatar textures, prim textures, and terrain textures. Combinations of those that worked seamlessly in the normal client had huge differences in brightness and color tint under Windlight.

In addition to WindLight, Torley also uses several custom debug settings to get that amazing look to his pictures. I would love to live in a world that looked like his big landscapes, but I think my computer would just grow feet and walk off in a huff over all the extra work!

A bad texture will always be a bad texture--Windlight won't change this. Not even a new game-engine would change this.

WL may cast a new 'light' on the textured surface, but it will not change to quality or general look of the texture.

So... will windlight really make SL look all that much better? I mean.. since we're all using textures for our current engines and such, if we change, won't they just look out of place in a more realistic world?


And I want Torley's capabilities then lol

You have them. Torley just published a very extensive blog...a mini-handbook of photography, really...that gives all of his/her secrets and settings.

aside from windlight.. and I use all the settings I can so far =P

Windlight will make skies look better when you are at sea level. It's fine for static PR photos, and that is about it, in my opinion.

The only way to improve the way a texture 'reads' is:

* adding bump mapping or normal mapping
* baking shadows
* higher resolution

These things can all be done now (albeit the bump map code for SL sucks--it uses a predetermined bump algorithm, instead of actually using the textures grayscale)

Windlight will affect the overall look and feel of Second Life. A brick wall will still be a brick wall no matter what kind of light you shine on it.

Windlight will not change the resolution of textures (that's up to you). Windlight will not change the quality of a texture (that was up to the original creator).

It's true that a better lighting system (HDRI, etc) will improve your perception of a given scene...but it will not affect textures in general.

Yeah we definitely need better bump mapping...anyway

Thats essentially what I meant... it won't help the textures, but it will help things like the scenery and such with the lighting, physics, etcetera... so it seems to me that 'upgrading' to windlight will actually make SL look more awkward as a whole

I'm not a clothes maker, but I've spoken to some who worry that the problem of matching textured prims (as in flexi skirts, etc) with textured clothing will be exacerbated by Windlight.

This could mean that matching outfits bought in the past may not match once Windlight is launched. But who knows?

Yes. Both clothing and avatars that use prim parts (furries, especially) will have to be replaced or retextured if they don't fix how Windlight affects avatar, prim and terrain textures. It's also going to screw up a lot of nice builds that use terrain-colored prims to make terrain features that are otherwise impossible in SL.

But hey! Torley's snapshots will look fantastic, so it's all good, right?

I have seen a snapshot of Felonhall in Windlight and i use terrain texture matching (sculpted landscaping) and the area looks the same apart from being more vivid, all matches up well (even got a snap of my "furry" freind that looks likea fox, looked the same, apart from more vivid and a bit sharper, no change 2 the general matching of textures tho

Chaos, it depended a LOT on the Windlight settings each viewer had, and the position of the sun in the sky at that instant. 95% of the possible combinations looked like crap. But a few looked quite good, I understand.

My own experience was that out of 15 to 20 default light sets that I tried, none of them looked good. My prim parts were more brightly lit than my avatar skin. Terrain prims that used to match terrain they were embedded in now were glaringly obvious.

Maybe if you have a killer graphic card it looked OK. I don't know, since I don't have any systems with high-end video cards.

This is what I've been wondering about. Given the huge array of settings anyone can choose from, isn't everything going to look different to everyone? That could be seriously annoying for all the content creators out there.

That - is exactly what I worry about.

Imagine making a set of pottery in the real world, in teal blue and earth brown. But you never know what the customers will see when they walk into the store! One sees them in baby blue and faded beige, and another sees them all in neon green and pink. (!)

Or exhibiting a dress in a fashion show, but 10% of the audience sees it through a red filter, another 10% through a yellow one - the possibilities are endless.

coco