Avatars are still looking darkened in Windlight

I was trying to make a profile picture for my SL screen name and wanted to use the Windlight viewer for it. Unfortunately, the newest Windlight viewer still makes avatars look too shadowy when outside in direct sunlight at noon. I had to Photoshop my avatar in the normal viewer onto a picture of the scenery in Windlight so that I could find it acceptable.

(This is a picture of me with my avatar superimposed on top of the Windlight background)




(This is a picture of my avatar in Windlight with the newest viewer)




I was wearing facelights in Windlight, but it does no good. A friend told me the lighting in Windlight is like trying to shine a flashlight on your face (facelight) during a nuclear explosion.

Heh...
well it's not just your av, it's everything. All objects in world. the contrast is way too high, it's movie film contrast as opposed to eyesight contrast.

THough I /belive/ that it is an issue that is being worked on.

I've tamed it somewhat by adding some ambient light from 9am to 3pm and adjusted the gamma, it's better but everything now has a more muted look, sort of like overcast when it isn;t. It does not match the bright, med contrast look of the original viewer at all. And that's the best I've been able to do.

I found turning the sun way down and the ambient way up worked wonders for me; my Av looks as great as the scenery now.

Personally I like the second one. Though the color in the second one is a bit bland, the first one just looks flat.

The second shot has more realistic lighting. In the first one, the lighting is flat and low contast all the time, making your av's face look like crap. If you want more even facial lighting when the sun is above your head, use a fill flash.

Take a look http://www.flickr.com/photos/gilliemichet/214598904/ at that photo and see which version of SL it bears more resemblance to, with respect to facial highlights and shadows when the sun is overhead.

I think that in most circumstances the WindLight contrasts look better than the more bland standard graphics. Close - up portraits might be the exception here.

What is a fill flash? One of the reasons my face looks flatter in the first picture is I slapped that picture of my avatar over the picture of the Windlight background. It also looks a little flatter because of the light on the face, but that is the way I want it. It does NOT look like crap either. The light shows the detail of the skin in the face.

If I wanted realistic, I would press the big red X and go play in First Life. I could always go outside in my real life lawn at noon and bask, yes bask in all of my natural beauty in a lawn chair; I don't think I would need a facelight in real life either. What is with the realism kick the Lindens seem to be on? When is the last time you saw someone in a magazine with horrible cave dweller shadows on their faces like in that second picture? People come here to be superficially beautiful or at least some kind of fantasy avatar; the background (sky and water) comes second.

Can someone please just tell me how to use a facelight (or some other trick) in Windlight so it will work like the other viewers? I'm not going to use Windlight until I can.

This...


does not look like this...


The people in the real life photo have much higher color saturations in their faces and less intense shadows. Second Life is not realistic. It may be modeled after real life, but it basically looks like a big cartoon. The Windlight water is the only thing that looks really realistic (and maybe the new sun).