Obsession with facelights?

OK, I was at an event last night and there was this girl that had six, yes... six, light prims attached and they were apparently all set to full intensity and radius.

I'm one who enjoys seeing the ambient lighting provided by the venue builder, if any. When an avatar shows up all lit up like that, all I can see is white and I'm forced to turn off local lights in order to see anything at all.

I don't have a problem with one, low intensity, light prim placed to highlight the face. I've seen some that actually did seem to help a bit, But I have been seeing more and more hair makers attaching four or even six light prims to their hair. When you can only see the six closest light sources, this is just awful and, to me, just plain wrong.

Am I missing something here?

No you aren't. But then some people sport bling which kicks you off your chair or live in bright pink towers or ... <insert your own piece of garish tackiness here>

Bottom line: Tastes differ and many people don't understand the concept of local lighting. Live with it and just wait until the walking lantern moves on. Then you're free to admire the ambiance.

Yes, you're missing something: These avatars belong to a secret group, the "Angels of Darkness," with the evil plan to steal light from SL. You'll notice that whenever one approaches, all light sources behind them blink off, until they've become the closest--and therefore, only--light-emitter. Ironically, because they're always closest to themselves, they are doomed to wander the grid never seeing any light, having stolen it all for themselves. Tragic, really.

I completely agree, too many facelights are not only unsociable but also just plain silly.

Reminds me very much of an Eddie Izzard sketch. One matchstick hangout out the corner of your mouth, James Dean styley. Looking cool. Two matchsticks...erm...not cool.

I dont see the point in body / face lighting un less youre about to take some photos. I see a lot of people with whole body arrangements on 6 plus lights...i dont see the point..but i guess its personal choice...its all abit "HEY LOOK AT MEEEEE" lol

Facelights are about vanity. We all know what thier intended purpose is. They soften the polygonal harshness on the avatar's face. Polygons are like ZITS (wait till Windlight becomes the standard), and facelights are the CURE. I'd have to agree that in some instances the cure is worse than the disease, but complaining about or banning face lights does nothing to solve the bigger issue, which is an outdated rendering engine. So, I guess we all have to make our choice for now - Do I want Polygonism, or Illuminitis?

New residents are probably unaware they are wearing face lights supplied with prim hair too!

One vote for illuminitis please.

There are obvious glitches in the way your face appears in much of SL's "Natural" light.

Just turn your AV in a circle while leaving the Natural and local lighting alone and watch the areas around the nose ..

Also in the body, for women between the breasts.

Its not natural looking shadows that appear its creepy and weird looking glitches.

Face and body lights are just an attempt to compensate for that effect.

If they go overboard, thats not strange people go overboard on everything in SL.

In the case of the avatar I mentioned, I wouldn't expect her to understand the concept of local lighting. Her "birth" date was 3/8/08 so way too new to grasp that.

What I DO expect is that the hair makers grasp the concept before attaching enough lights to their hair to max out the local light sources. I have several hair pieces by a well known and successful designer that all have four light prims attached. Why?

At least she provided a command to turn them off, which I do as soon as I wear them. However, that just brings up the problem of active listen scripts for each light prim. When I have a chance, I plan on editing the hair and just deleting the light prims. I just don't think they have a need to be there in the first place.

LOL

Yeah that's a wee bit much for sure. I use windlight and I do a lot of photography and ONE simple face light is enough to smooth out any odd shadows in the skins so that's why I use it. It helps, but no way would I wear hair that has lights or stick a whole bunch of lanterns to my avatar...that's just as bad as flashing bling. I can totally see your frustration. The problem with SL is we are all only seeing what's on our own screen.....so said person with a zillion body lights is most likely unaware of the blinding hazzard they are causing everyone else.
Yes, it's about vanity....and yes....SL is our world meant for us to do as we please.....but clearly it can get a bit out of hand when everyone's idea of the perfect world has different illumination settings. *sigh*

As I said in my OP, I have no problem with one, well placed, low intensity, limited radius light prim. It can work wonders on the harsh and unrealistic shadowing. But 4 or 6 light prims at full intensity and radius only serve to wash out everything in the vicinity of the wearer and only make the lighting effects worse.

facelights are evil !

- Facelights do nothing for polygons. Set your Avatar Detail preferences and increase your gamma if you want light.
- They are huge lag generators. Each time you avie moves or changes its pose, the viewer has to recalculate the lighting on each face of every prim and other avatar in a 10m radius.
- They just wash your face out in white with creepy shadows.
- People who wear them don't even see their face most of the time.
- They steal light sources from the local environment.
- They put you in a radiating pool of light like you're screaming "Look at me !"
- They just look unnatural.

It is just wrong to be wearing a light on your avi.

I never liked they way they looked, I don't use them. I can't even imagine what 4 or 5 on at once would look like.

I find that there are times when I want a face light, but most of the time I don't. It's why I end up using the light in the MystiTool implant (comes with the full HUD), which can be changed in intensity turned on and off, etc. Much easier to mess with.

Mari

What a lot of people don't realize is that the light(s) will make you look different to everyone based upon which viewer they are using, some of their other Preference settings, how good or bad their graphics card is, how their monitor is adjusted (contrast, brightness, color calibration), and who knows what other factors. When I was messing around with the face lighting months back, I started different versions of the viewer, on the same and different monitor, just to see the effect. Convinced me that the lights were not really going to do what I had originally thought they would.

They are only good for making us look good to ourself so that we can then assume we look like that to all others. But hey - my world...

Luckily, I see very few people flooded in face/body lighting. And even someone lit up a bit bright would have to be far better than the woman I saw at Phat's the other night: her entire avi was lit up, and a few of the lights were blinking - she looked like a freakin firelfly.

My facelight is very subtle.

Maybe LL should take a hint that facelights are so popular and have another look at how they light Avatar's faces up.

---

Since people are not wearing the lights as a "look at me" spot light.

They are wearing them because they don't like how their face looks in many situations.

I can sort of understand using facelights during the day, but why use them at night? When its dark, the "evil" shadows aren't there. At night, I half expect moths to start flying around the lights. Most of the time, they are just too bright.

I guess I'm in the minority, but I preferred the brighter, early Windlight. The shadowing could be harsh, but in reality, those shadows do exist. I think we are used to not seeing them, because photographers use fill lighting to minimize them.

Nika wins the thread

Yes, but what is 'night' to one might be 'noon' to another. I know people that always have their world set to noon unless a certain photo calls for something different and I know another person that avoids the noon setting like the plague.

Then there are the accidents - I had my client set to noon (and I had a face light on) for some pictures I was taking and forgot to set the lighting back and remove the face light. I then went dancing and the guy commented on the face lighting because the default at that time was night and I just hadn't realized it.

That is one of the problems with a world where we can each change so much about how we see it, but not all of those changes impact what other people see.

Doh!

The radio-active mutant look is "in" this year.

Facelights remind me of all those airbrushed magazine covers I see at the store... (>_< Ick!

For a fan of teh darkness like me, they are unneeded. I take snapshots all the time and it's very rare that I've had a problem with looking wrinkled or blocky... in Windlight! People see me and they see all kid... unless they're in denial. And, I have not yet seen what I believe to be an ugly avatar. (@_@)

I take it back... I have... All those "beautiful" ones that mute people after one line of open chat. Plenty of facelights on those. (=_=)

Agreed!



LMAO

Seriously though, for someone to wear a facelight object in an effort to combat bad lighting effects in the viewer is really a matter of personal preference and that doesn't bother me so much. It is when the designers are building them into their hair or other prim clothing items that gets me. Especially when they use so many light prims needlessly.

Nibb makes some valid points. They do cause client lag for everyone in range. I just finished removing the light prims from some hair pieces and, as I suspected, each of the four prims had an active listener script just to add to the lag.

If designers are going to add these things, they should, at least, take the time to understand the implications of doing so.