Shiny?

Well, we could start with you telling us what you are using for video, or more specifically, what video card you are using.

Being on a mac, I sadly keep it mostly off because I can't afford the speed hit.
1.7 seems less laggy, so maybe soon I'll be able to afford it on. Hope so.

Try this suggestion (from Dan Linden)

We turn off some features if you have 256M of memory because they tend to crash or run very slow. You can turn bump/shiny on again at your own risk:
remove this line
RenderObjectBump FALSE
from
C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\settings.ini

It was 4 months before I could upgrade my pc to be able to view Shiny....my eyes were open to a whole new Second Life....I revisited everywhere i had been in a whirlwind tour to see what I'd missed out on, and then had to go back into my inventory and edit everything I had built in that time.....another 4 months on, I haven't looked back either, Shiny is my best friend

I would rather remove Enabran's dick than turn off local lighting, and I don't even have shiny turned on.

This is true, but you are assuming that once turned on, no one would turn it off, which isn't the case.

I had it off for the first three months, (because you have to have a really up to date computer to be able to use it without lagging). Then I got a brand new laptop and was able to turn it on, so I did, but ....

It *is* a big slowdown to turn it on, and ....

not that impressed,with the "shiny" stuff I have seen.
so I turned it back off and never looked back.

Does someone have a suggestion of a place to go where having shiny turned on will be so fantastically impressive that I will be compelled to keep it on? I havent seen anything worth the performance hit yet.

Abbot's Aerodrome ?

I've never found it to be as nearly a big slowdown as local lighting, high draw distance, or anything else. On substandard hardware, it could conceivably be a problem, but it's definitely the least taxing of the "advanced" options.

I wish people who set up vendors would NOT use shiny... since you can't see the damn picture on display... don't know if they realize they're probably losing sales

I have nothing on.

Local Lighting is deactivated on my clients. I'll not turn it on even when people tell me of some cool lighting effect. It's simply not worth the drain on the card for the absolutely crappy results.

Probably you are right, unless it's different on macs. I thought I noticed a big hit though.

Or they can at least select the display surface and make it non-shiny while leaving the rest of the object all slick and cool looking.

I <3 Shiny!

Can I come over?

Yes, I have Shiny on.

When I first started SL, I had about the minimum computer requirements. It wouldn't even allow me to turn on Shiny. (The option was always shaded and unselectable.) Boy, what a difference! No way would I give up shiny now. I kept wondering why people chose to texture things with a matte solid color instead of using a texture. Now I get it!

Yaha she has it, 256mb of ram, *cries*

Stuff looks BAD with shiny on. Details vanish as many things turn into an ugly, grey, bland kinda mush.

Guess I need a new video card.

...

Let's everyone remember that Enabran needs his dick.

I wonder why there's so much stuff that has shiny without a texture... there's a powerful appeal in using both—even a subtle sort of brushed steel "under" the shiny adds to the awesome layering effect.

I have shiny on to (usually) see objects as they were meant to be. This doesn't mean i'm a big fan of the med/high shine. I think the effect is quite monotonous and bland compared to the huge diversity in shine effects in rendering (or real life for that matter).

Those few ocassions I use shiny, I tend to compromise and use the low level shine combined with 'shiny' textures (textures with built in shine effects or gradients). Often the sum of the two elements is better than the individual parts, and it also makes objects look okay for people with shiny turned off.

List of people who voted "No":

Brian Livingston, Casandra Jackson, Dakota Callahan, Dianne Mechanique, Ellie Edo, Euterpe Roo, Frans Charming, Hummus Fonzarelli, Jsecure Hanks, Lisse Livingston, Lo Jacobs, Minasojo Massiel, Pendari Lorentz, Roberta Dalek, Schwanson Schlegel, Stig Olafson, Zapoteth Zaius, Zarah Dawn, ZsuZsanna Raven, Zuzu Fassbinder

Edited list of people who I've heard of:

Ellie Edo, Euterpe Roo, Frans Charming, Jsecure Hanks, ZsuZsanna Raven

Wow... I need to meet more people.

Anyways, I like the effect of shiny a lot. You could tell if you saw some of my products... much of the time, I don't have time to texture things, and shiny produces nice results quickly. I'll post up a few screenies of my new store (gasp) in a bit...

Until a few months ago, I didn't have Shiny on, because my built-in "graphics chip" blew the big one. I was lucky to get 1-2 FPS in Second Life even without anything special on.

With the upgrade to a much better card, I found myself not only able to operate with shiny on, but Local Lighting, as well! For me, this was a wonderous thing. Things not only shined, but then they could GLOW, too!

As time went on, I became more and more used to these effects, and I began to notice their flaws.. Shiny is somewhat over-used, and can very easily make a build look bland. I saw this personally with an office tower a friend built. The shiny looked great on the outside, but its proliferation on the inside was, shall I say, monotonous. EVEN THE WOOD ACCENTS SHINED. It took me severla moments to notice there was wood there at all.

And Local Lighting, while far from perfect or even realistic, wasn't bad for simple things.

So, in the end.. I might do without local-lighting, but I guess I'll keep Shiny on, mostly because so many knuckle heads design their builds around shininess. ^.^

I have everything off aswell, lets cyber.