fullbright or not?

I never have this problem, and I've never worn a facelight for more than about 10 seconds. I hate the things.

The trick is to fix LL's mistake - create your own day cycle in the Environment Settings menu. You can use any setup you want, all the way through. Personally, I've created a midday, a sunset, a midnight, and a dawn, all with a little bit more even lighting, and more aesthetically pleasing colours, for me.

I had the same Question when they first installed windlight and what it boiled down to was simply the matter of how to take snapshots of the product and not make it look like hell.

Set the sun at 3:10-3:20 PM and face the front of your build West and you will get very nice bright natural looking results.

just a FYI

Large objects or builds that have full bright on look terrible at night. It is as if they are like some kind of billboard lit up 24/7. Strategically placed lights of course are a different story. Signs and
vendors will often be full bright as well.

I used to use Full Bright a lot. Esp on pictures on the wall, but have since stopped using it almost totally. (and indeed some things look bad at some times of the day.)

What I would have to say is...................................

SL needs to fix 2 MAJOR bugs (and yes, I will call them bugs)

1: Stop light (and yes that includes normal light sources and the SUN) from shining straight thru walls as if they don't exist. Why should my house be lit up inside like a torch at sunrise even with blinds and doors shut.

(Yes I know this is/might be coming soon)

2: More light sources need to be able to be seen at the same time, so as you walk around things don't light up and go dark depending on how many other lights are in your view.

If these two BUGS were addressed then I suspect apart from a few things you wish to glow at night there would almost be no need for Full Bright much anymore.

On darker builds fullbright isn't an issue as far as I can see.. the variations of light have little serious impact.

on lighter textures though, the build takes on the predominant colour of the light. So white, pastels etc will become orange a dawn etc

Changing your own viewer preferences is a good way to make sure you see everything in a way you like. What it doesn't do is fix the way others see it. Not so good if you're trying to sell people things or create an atmosphere.

What I've also noticed is the impact of the light varies depending on where you are - up around 4000m it washes everything with the colour, on the ground it's less overwhelming.

Unfortunately this doesn't help with my latest build, which is white marble and pastels. In fullbright it looks good-acceptable except at night, without fullbright it only looks good at midday, the rest of the time it looks rubbish.

This is an outside/open air build so I appear to be damned either way. Unless someone can come up with a suggestion on how to make the lighter colours resist being flooded by the environment light.

glow and shine don't appear to affect it, so any suggestions (other than abandoning it despair) would be more than welcome..

I'm sure I've seem talk of scripts used to control fullbright or brightness of prims
Like have fullbright turned on when the sun if ruining the look (time of day) and turn fullbright off at other times.

Personally, I think that - like "Glow", bump mapping and most everything else - it's a tool. Used in moderation and in thoughtful ways, Full Bright can add some very nice affects. But should your whole house be "full bright?" No more than it should have brick texture mapping on every texture or have glow set on every prim at 5.0... (Don't even get me started on the misuse of GLOW!)

Building anything should be an art. Your goal is to create a memorable and believable likeness to some image in your mind - fantasy or reality, it doesn't matter, it all strives to be "possible" for the imagination.

And if I make something that invites people to want to flip through the day/night settings on their viewer to see it in ALL phases of light, then I've done something right. If a build is stunning by day... captivating by night... spectacular by sunrise and enchanting by dusky light... then I've done it well enough. People who view my work shouldn't be thinking about how I created what effects (with bright? with glow? with ps shadows? with just a regular ol' plywood prim?)... they should be too emersed in the ambience and presence of the build to care.

If I wander through my shop by sim night and I overhear a comment like, "I like that one, but it's just so DARK" or something like that... then I need to revisit my use - or lack there of - of my available tools. Not just flip the whole darned thing to Full Bright.

Anyone can shape a prim in SL. The ones we consider "masters" are the ones who use all of the available tools at their disposal to create the stunning spots in SL that bring our fantasies to life.

Agreed. I ALWAYS use full bright for my textures that have baked lighting. It is (in my opinion) a waste of time to bake the textures and not put them full bright in world.

I didn't think anyone but n00bs made fullbright buildings. I've had people set down fullbright buildings in neighboring parcels and I have gone to them cap a pied begging them to turn off the glare.

I mean, yes, if you don't make your buildings fullbright, they're dark at night. Isn't that the point?

Ferrets are crepuscular and often nocturnal, depending on their food supply. Before Windlight I could set my "nighttime gamma" to the point where I could see at night without a light, and since Windlight I can play games with the day cycle (but it's bugged, it gets wiped every time you upgrade) to get similar effects.

Ick.

Ambient occlusion is not realistic.

I agree with the restricted use of fullbright, and fullbright trees are just wierd.

However, I do add fullbright in a few more cases than are mentioned here, but ONLY when it is coloured.

I have selected a soft apricot gold, and I use this shade to colour the lighting 'effects' (except in my Ice Palace, where it is a pale blue shade, which makes you shiver). I also add this colour when I am using 1 to 5% of 'Glow', for thrones, Church altars etc. Without being fullbright, 'glow' allows my Sagrada Familia Cathedral windows to appear lit-up at night, and this is so from a distance, as it would not be with merely fullbright.

Reducing the fall-off from 10m to 3 or 4 m then results in a warm soft candlelit effect, at all times of the day or night, on the underside of fireplace mantels, around chandeliers, and in curtain poles to really make the most of sculpty curtains/drapes.

As I see that most people leave fullbright plain white, I do recommend experimenting with colouring that light, and then reducing the fall-off. There will be a point at which things do look good at all times of the SL day, and never overwhelming.

Best wishes from Ainee Kohime

And neither are unmoving shadows.

depends on the build and location

The sim i just finished building was done entierly in Full bright but I did custom textures and i shaded the entire thing.

that way no matter the time the build looks amazing

nameof the sim is

Sxy2nd go check it out

First of all, I'd like to say that I do believe it to be a well done sim. The texturing is nice, the build itself is, landscaping, and so on. Now, moving beyond that, I'd like to show something. If you wish the pictures removed, please just say so.

First, the sim (And my current avatar of choice) in regular old CTRL+SHIFT+Y daytime.



It looks nice, the lighting all (Generally) matches, and so on. I believe the lighting it's designed for is actually with the sun down a little bit, but was just taking a couple quick shots for my points.

Now, take a look at this picture:



At first glance, it's still nice. It took a second for me, I admit, to realize that it does indeed look very off to me. I had to pay attention to what I was seeing, rather than just stare at my screen.

The lighting no longer matches, in many ways. Take a look at my avatar, in contrast to the build behind him. He's far too dark! Take into account that the grass is also eerily bright all over, and yet the plants and rocks strewn about are dark as they should be, and you start to realize something here is off. Take a look over my right shoulder, and you'll even see a statue, fullbright, with baked shadows. Where is that light coming from? Why is nothing else lit in a fashion that would allow that statue to look like that? There is certainly something wrong with that, says my mind.

The buildings are all lit like the one behind me, which in contrast with the night sky is almost truly confusing. Again, there are no lights, or shadows, that would account for this uncannily lit building, so one has to assume it's glowing of its own accord.

Now, one last image:



Now the problems are more obvious. We have some Linden Land in the shot, in the same sim, which can't be made fullbright, and the contrast is more obvious. The beach is relatively dark, while the boardwalk, ground, and buildings behind remain explicitly bright. The plants are properly darkened, but this just adds to the confusion in my mind, personally. It just doesn't make sense.

And then you realize there are shadows there, under the chairs, and from the boardwalk. Now, generally, these shadows match in direction. That's all well and good, but... where are they coming from? With the beach, and plants, as dark as they are, there shouldn't be enough light to cast such strong shadows. Take into account that not everything has those shadows, and it seems that the only logical explanation is lighting, and yet there are none there, at least not visible.

This is the problem with Full Bright.

I'll quote this snippet again:


As I said earlier, I think the build is well done. I cannot, however, agree that 'no matter the time' it keeps that same level of quality. For an entire sim to look good, at any time of day, with full bright active, it needs to follow a few requirements, that are really just more of a hassle than it's worth to most people.

*No Linden Land Showing
*No Linden Water Showing (The shine changes depending on lighting, and could be red at sunset when the land is still purely lit)
*No Shiny Attribute (They become relatively dull at night)
*No non-prim avatars (They respond to lighting, unlike all those fullbright prims)
*Baked/faked shadows where appropriate for the emulated time of day

Along with this, you'd either have to contain it inside of a sky-sphere to avoid the Linden Sky showing through and ruining the effect, or have an explanation for the brightness at night (Such as light fixtures, which could also help with the non-prim avatars).

I think most creators would agree, that's quite a hassle. But, if you're creating a completely full-bright build, these are requirements that have to be met if you want it to follow the general rules of RL. You could, alternatively come up with some other explanation, RP style. (It's all covered in glowing dust, perhaps).

If you're fine with things looking out of place, or improperly lit for the time of day, that's fine. Nothing wrong with that, but it's my personal belief that unless you follow the above requirements, you can't say that it looks as good at any time of day.

Therefore, I avoid full-bright, unless I deem it necessary, or if I ever get to the point of doing a fake-lit interior. Though, even for that, if you take into account the future of SL, and the upcoming (Eventually) shadows, then that becomes redundant, or iffy. You'd need to script it to be able to have that fake lighting turned off, if you wanted to ever sell any to the people who can see those shadows. (Then again, if we always took the eventual future into account, nothing would get built.)

Again, I think your build is a good one, Flix, and I was just using it for pointing out issues that I have with Full Bright, and your above statement.

I personal avoid full bright for virtually everything. I love natural looks, and to me a night scene should look like a night scene. But if there's something "full bright" in the viewer, whether it be artwork, a tree, a building - it's like a s sharp stick in your eye.

To me, full bright has it's purposes - I have it switchable with lighting, so that lights look more natural. But when it's time to turn off teh light - the fullbright parameter is switched off as well.

Bottom line for me - no full bright unless it's absolutely called for. Please.

I personal avoid full bright for virtually everything. I love natural looks, and to me a night scene should look like a night scene. But if there's something "full bright" in the viewer, whether it be artwork, a tree, a building - it's like a s sharp stick in your eye.

To me, full bright has it's purposes - I have it switchable with lighting, so that lights look more natural. But when it's time to turn off teh light - the fullbright parameter is switched off as well.


Nautilina makes great shower and water stuff... but they also make lighting that includes the ability to switch fullbright on and off with either a switch, or automatically. Unfortunately, in automatic mode it will turn it "on" at night. But switching - that can be useful.

At the end of the day (pun intended), if something is full bright and not moddable - I will not buy it.



Moonshy, thank you. That is the bottom line in all of this.

well.. the thing about sxy2nd build was that it has a static time on it.. so the chances of anybody unless forcing the issue to midnight was mute. the reason i used full bright was because I did the entire sim as a prebaked canvas. carefully making sure that all of the textures were the right shade since the sim is viewed at dusk that is especially hard since the color of the sun affects different walls differently.

Below are four builds that I did in full bright because they are for photography props.. once again they designed to be used for props so they have to stand up to harsh lighting requirements for the avis (ie face lights extra lights etc)

but like I said earlier.. it all depends on your build.. IMO full bright with paying carful attention to all wall sides and shading right can make the builds look better..

http://www.flickr.com/photos/flixsaiman/

I loathe and detest fullbright because it gets over-used. I understand that it has good results when creators exploit a little discretion and use it sparingly on details such as signage, for instance.

However, fullbright buildings and objects look especially bad during night time, more often than not ruining the atmosphere. The same can be said for Glow, which glares through textures with alpha channels.

In the case of both features, I can ignore my own convictions and appreciate the Blue Mars policy of limiting content creation to professionals. Both features are quite simply too sensitve and potentially damaging to the in-world experience to be left to ill-considered whimsy.

The problem of colour variation of textures throughout the day can be solved by balancing the Windlight settings. Windlight is perhaps best known for spectacular sunsets and terrifically moody cloudscapes but it is also a very useful tool for correcting these less obvious details. Careful attention to 'Scene Gamma' can help preserve colour and texture detail even during the brightest noonday sun.

Having said that, the principle behind Windlight remains effectively pointless until sim owners at least can set regional weather. Otherwise, even the most beautifully balanced settings are only useful for photographers at best and a vanity feature for the rest of us at worst.