Wind/Light Textures: What and Where are they?

There was alot of fanfare about wind light then not much info after that. The only content provider I know using it is Jordy Ishnoo.


So anyone know what program is used to make this glowing texture effect that makes a nice glow even when the sim is on full midnight?

Someone gave me some names fo some texture designers selling textures with this effect but I cannot locate any of them.

Light and Glow in the Edit box.

I am not understanding what you mean about the only content provider using WindLight. We all use Windlight unless you are using an old client that does not support it. It is the atmospheric lighting and shading engine. The only way a content provider could use it to any advantage was if they created their own settings (preset) and made them available for you to download and use, and only then would their particular use of WindLight make any difference. Everyone one else would see it different depending on their own settings. This is the big fail in WindLight, that you can create all the atmosphere you want, but no one else will see it unless you provide the preset, and they go to the trouble of downloading and using it.

What you show in that image is a combination of two things:

First is a surface texture that has baked-in lighting effects. This gives you the "cone of light" on the wall, or the "puddle of light" on the ceiling. The maker of that place you took that pic most likely created each texture specifically for that surface, in a 3D rendering application with better lighting controls than SL has. Many texture artists and builders in SL use this technique for high-end building work. Done well, it is a stunning effect. The problem is that it essentially "locks in" one time of day or one lighting effect as what "looks best", and at other times of day the scene may look very odd. To do it right, the texture artist has to know EXACTLY how the builder needs to be using the textures. This limits the usefulness of these textures to custom builder/texture artist teams, or to builders who create their own custom textures. And as SL slowly improves lighting effects and shadow rendering, such texture "cheats" may become obsolete.

Second, the surface itself, after having the texture applied, has had a subtle "Glow" setting applied with the building tools, and possibly a "fullbright" setting. This will make it appear to glow if WindLight shaders are active. Not everyone will see the effect the same way, but for most high-end systems, it can look very good, if done very carefully. A little glow can be splendid. A little too much looks radioactive.

There's definitely some confusion here.....

Windlight is already part of the main SL viewer and has been for a while. Windlight is the application that allows us to manipulate our atmosphere settings, everything from haze to the color of the sun. It's a fantastic tool if you have a graphics card that can support it.

The glow, as was explained.....has nothing to do with windlight....it's a setting in the prim itself. And the textures....again....that's been explained. I think you'll need to be more spacific about what the question really is....because windlight exists in the main viewer already.

Oh.

Well I like this effect. My video card is garbage and I can see it on the pre fab I bought from thsi guy. Sadly, h only does residential builds. I can't find any commercial builds using this effect that comes out looking like this.

Thanks for the feedback.

It's certainly a nicely done build. The other thing I didn't mention is use of the "Local Light" property of a prim, which creates an actual illumination source in the area that will also light up avatars. I use that a lot when I place a fireplace or similar feature in a build. But that isn't as reliable in creating very specific effects like this, because the SL client can only render the nearest 6 local light sources at a time, and "real" light in SL doesn't get blocked by prims, and can't be directional at all. So it's easier to fake realistic lighting effects in builds like this with fullbright, glow, and carefully pre-planned textures.

One thing you can do, although its a bit primmy is to place a white to transparent gradient texture over walls and floors to simulate shading effects. Use white for sunlit areas, black for shadows, and different prim shapes and cuts and colors for spot effects. Done right, it can add an extraordinary level of realism but it takes a bit of work to get it right. The guy who did the Greenies passed that trick on in a class he gave a year or two back.

Ok. I will try a texture with vine cut outs and have the white texture wall behind it and see how that looks.

I will also advertise for someone that knows how to make these textures, lol.

No need to advertise, I have those in my free texture shop (see my profile in-game for a LM).