Face Light Problem

HEY,

I look stupid without my face-light. Resent days it does not work anymore. Im trying to take some nice photos of my clothing. I make clothes using photoshop, and the photos does not make me look good without my light.((

Do anyone else have the same problem?

Jennifer

Well.... we need more details to determine what might be going on. Which viewer are you using.....have you made any changes to preferences....either deliberately or possibly by accident.... it should work.....but more info will help determine what's going on.

The new viewer changed many people's settings to not include local lights. Try checking preferences...it turned my lights and shiny off, I needed to manually enable it again.

Thanks alot for you respond!! I will try the prefrenses. I get back if it works or not.
I HOPE it works!!

It's likely this.. unless you change some stuff in your SL files directly, it will not keep the a few settings, those being:

Local and Nearby Lights
Flexiprim Quality (It's set way down low)
Bump Mapping and Shiny

======================

I've only seen it in the newest RC

IT WORKED!! Im so glad!! I dont use prefrenses alot, so thanks for helping me.
Now I look good again.. hehe....

THANKS!!

Jennifer

You may have to do that EVERY time you log in, if using the current RC, just be warned. Also, if using the RC, then bump mapping and shiny is by default off when you log in. With it on you will crash alot more, but things will look better (How they're meant to)...it's really up to you

Instead of using a facelight, which can cause many, many problems, here's an easy fix. Open up your Advanced Sky dialog (World -> Environment Settings -> Environment Editor -> Advanced Sky). Click on the Lighting tab. Crank down the intensity for Sun/Moon Color, and turn up the intensity for Ambient. Your face will now look how it used to look in the old viewer.


What's going on is that before Windlight came along, the old lighting system in SL relied almost entirely on ambient light. This was totally unrealistic, but it was more uniform, so it was easier to texture for. Now, with Windlight, we've got a much more realistic mix of direct and indirect (ambient) light, which behaves a lot more like how things work in the real world.

Textures, particularly skin textures, that were designed to look good in the old, flat, unrealistic, lighting system cannot and do not look good under the newer, more realistic conditions. There's a bit of a learning curve in store for all texture artists in SL, to discover how to make more robust textures that will look good with this better lighting setup.

In the mean time, you can make things look exactly how they used to look, simply by lowering the intensity of the direct light (sun/moon), and increasing that of the ambient light.

I have a friend at the elementary school I go to inworld who no matter where my camera is, I always know when she walks into the room. The floor in a 10m radius around goes from a beigy-brown tile to white, and the lights in the room, by and large, go away.

She complains a lot about lagging, too, and has troubles makign thee walk from homeroom to gym, or gym to lunch.

I did a highlight transparent on her, to discover a total of three facelights, each about 0.3m, and each fairly bright. I suggested she drop them, but she says she needs them to look okay. I suspect that these are likely contributing to her lag, amongst other things.

To boot, rather than looking okay, she looks horribly washed out with all those lights on. It sure softens whatever lines she sees, but ot also does in her nose, lips and cheeks. She looks just slightly goth with all that light on her flesh, or like a walking Nagel painting. She she turns them off, or even goes for a much lower intensity, single facelight, she looks more "correct" -- in that her face has some definition to it.

I am biased, but I'm really beinning to wonder if face lights are worth the trouble. I already know that what I see might not be what they see, and is certainly not what others see. The view is (as it was was) subjective, and affected by a users own settings as well as their computer's graphics card and whether or not they have local lighting even enabled.

Of course, it's okay. We can be slaves to vanity. I like to look good too. Yet let's not fool ourselves and think that a face light is a cure all.

what a spoilt little child, but i guess we should blame the parents.

'tis a fair cop, but society is to blame.

I did notice, in the switchover to windlight, that my "nice and subtle facelight".. was actually now too subtle.

I WAS at:
Intensity 0.7
Radius: 0.7
Falloff: 2.0

I am now at:
Intensity 1.0
Radius: 0.5
Falloff: 2.0

With the light only about 3 inches infront of my mouth, below the nose.

Again, if you think the Windlight defaults are realistic, you need to go outside more often.

Is it possible to design more realistic lighting using the WL environmental editor? Probably, but that's not what the Lindens have given us with those defaults. They were obviously more concerned with a pretty sky than giving us something usable for a consistent user experience. I really wonder how many newer users who join primarily for the social aspect are going to quit in frustration when they can't get their avs to look decent.

We need to sticky Namssor's optimal skin settings and hand them out to newbies on notecards so we can stop the abuse of facelights.

Ann, if you were to make a RL model (pick any material you want) in the shape of the avatar face, and bring it outside on a sunny day, and take a good look, you'd see that the shading on it would look a hell of a lot closer to what you see in Windlight right now than to anything you've ever seen in SL in the past. Until you've done something like that, kindly don't preach to me about who needs to go outside more often.

If you want to say way SL was lit before was better looking in your opinion than the way it is now, that's your prerogative. But saying it looked more realistic before only makes you sound unobservant. The previous lighting conditions could not exist in nature in a million years. But now, even if you don't particularly care for the aesthetic of it, at least direct and indirect light both have their place, which is exactly how it works in the real world. So by definition, it's more realistic now than it was before. I fail to see why that is so hard to accept.


If you don't like the defaults, don't use them. You're free to set your lighting any way you want. The Lindens have already said they might hold a contest for new defaults. If they do, submit yours.

Or, even better, make money on the deal. Windlight settings are going to become tradeable assets soon. Come up with a setting you think looks good, and sell it.


Consistent with what? Flatness? Boringness? Circa 1998 level graphics quality?

The whole point of all of this is it's a first step toward bringing SL's graphics into the modern era. Shadows are right around the corner. Normal maps, bump maps, and material shaders will follow. What's happening now is the foundation for all those things.

Seriously, would you really prefer that SL stay stuck in the 90's? Or would you rather it grow to look as good as next-gen video games and Hollywood special effects? I sincerely hope you'd choose the latter. We're a way off from that, obviously, but the road to modern graphics in SL has gotten significantly shorter with Windlight. You would do well to appreciate that.

In the here and now, as I keep saying, you'll either learn to make more robust textures that look good across a variety of lighting schemes, or you'll end up buying from those that already have. You're making a much bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. Embrace the change. Quit resisting it. It's positive if you let it be.


I'm guessing that those who aren't used to the flatness of the old world won't even think twice about how things look now. The only reason anyone thinks the old look is "more realistic" is simply because that's what they're used to. Surrender your prejudices and just look at it objectively, and it's pretty easy to see what an improvement the new lighting is.

Again, if you're a texture artist, you'll either adapt or you'll go away. If you're a texture consumer, you'll either start buying from those who know what they're doing in the new lighting, or you'll go away too. Either way, the world will keep growing. The only question is do you want to grow with it or disappear? Simply complaining about it accomplishes nothing.

As I said in another thread, the WindLight defaults are actually pretty realistic -- to a CAMERA. They're true to what is actually there, not to what the mind's eye sees. Go get an old-fashioned film camera and take some slides (NOT prints, the printing machine color-corrects those); you'll see what I mean.

I didn't say that. No one ever claimed the previous lighting was supposed to be realistic; what I'm saying is that the WL defaults aren't either, despite what its advocates say. I don't turn glowing orange or pink when the sun hits the horizon in RL, so I don't see why my av should in SL.


And have no idea how I look to others. Content creators have the same issue...maybe their build looks fabulous under the settings they've tried, but they have no idea what other people are going to see.


No, consistent in the sense that all users would have defaults which looked decent - avatar, content, AND sky - to use on a regular basis, with the *option* to use the environmental editor when they wanted a specific look. LL has basically made figuring out the environmental editor mandatory if you want to have any quality of experience in-world. That shouldn't be the case.


I'd rather LL considered how the changes they make affect the average user. Improve the graphics, by all means, but do it in a way that serves the whole community and the new Residents coming in. If the current Residents can design presets which make decent avatars, content, and skies, LL should be able to do so with the defaults.


Your opinion. I'm entitled to mine. LL could have made this a much easier transition just by spending more time on the defaults, but they didn't bother.


I haven't seen anyone say that; what we're saying is that it's more flattering to avatars and existing content.


I want LL to keep its entire user base in mind when it implements changes, not just the techie minority.


More and more, neither does attempting to talk to the Lindens as a whole...they just go on doing what they want to do.

To those who can't see the shortcomings of the new viewer and especially the new defaults ..

If it really was such a big leap forward it shouldn't require so many explanations.

Even if its a technical masterpiece as some claim --- LL failed miserably in ease of use and setting a good first impression.

Honestly, this is a Windows 95 v. Windows 3.11 debate. The technology - and textures of skins - need to move forward. As was explained somewhere but not quoted by Ann, the previous lighting system used a LOT of ambient light, and the cure to it for existing content is to increase the amount of ambient light. Go to the Windlight made my avatar ugly thread and copy Namssor's settings.

how is that user friendly?

We are debating staying behind versus moving forward. WL allows you to light things up by using more ambient light, but the lighting system has to change - it has to move forward. We cannot keep using so much ambient light - and what good is it if people are using facelights to create their own lighting anyway? Facelights in and of themselves are a condemnation of the lighting system.

Lighting needs to go forward. And so does skinmaking. Backwards compatibility is rough, here, but it can be done by changing the light but new skins SHOULD start to be designed for the new viewer. It's not going back.

I did, I looked washed out (

So I went back to my old friend Nicholaz

I read what Namssor said in that other thread ..

Nam said that she doesn't need to adjust her textures, that instead we should change our settings.

That doesn't seem to agree with what you are saying.

People wouldn't use facelights if they felt they didn't "need" them.

Maybe Im missing the whole point

Either textures need to be adjusted for windlight or they don't.

IF making these heavy changes to the settings corrects avatar's appearance, but thats because they make it more like the "old way" then it doesn't mesh.

I mean Its either A and B

but instead it sounds like people are saying its A and B , A or B, neither A nor B , and all and none of the above.

You can play it two ways here, legitimately. You can change your settings to make your av look satisfactory, with a lot of ambient light.

Or you can get new textures that fit the defaults, with much less ambient light, which is more realistic.

I am not debating moving forward...Windlight has the possibility of improving SL's graphics exponentially. What I have a problem with is the way LL chose to implement it. They stopped at the skies and called it good, never mind the rest of the SL world.


Even before face lamps became so popular, the old standard lighting was much more flattering to avis. But that it is neither here nor there. My point is, and will continue to be, that LL needs to revamp the defaults to be usable for something other than gazing skyward and leave developing personal presets as an OPTION.