Windlight 1.19.0 (80044)

This freaking ROCKS i love windlight, it is one of the best things to happen to second life since SWRp, this gives me a completely new outlook on my second life. I can stand on one side of my home sim (Ord Mantell Home of the Order of New Hope) for all those SWRpers looking for an order to get into and watch the sunrise and then stand on the other side and watch the sunset, or even just staring up at the stars when i'm not RPing and watch the moon go behind the clouds. It's awsome, it's so realistic. The only problems i've seen with Windlight were resolved after i uninstalled my original version of sl (current release) and the newest RC 1.19 i think, as well as when i turn on hardware skinning i the graphics options my avatar (except for any attachments i have) disappear. Just so you guys know my system specs are a follows:

Toshiba P205D-S7479
AMD Turion 64 X2 Processor
3gb ram with 1800 mb of added memory from Readyboost
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 with 256 Dedicated memory and 768 shared with ram.
Windows Vista Home Premium with Full direct x 10 shader support on video
17" screen with Tru-Brite technology
Vista rating 4.4 (because of Hard drive data rate)
250 gb sata HD
Realtek High Definition Sound with Harman/kardon 2.1 speakers and Dolby digital Sound room.

P.S. sorry for such a long post but I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!

personally...i do NOT Like Winlight..only reason i am even using it is cause mysterioudly my regular SL program crashes before it gets to the login screen and before anyone asks..no i didnt update my video drivers, yes its an ATI All IN Wonder X800 series, and it was fine yesterday..but today wont work.

The clothing looks fin in Winlight but my avatar's skin looks absolutely horrible! It looks like its at 16bit color even though its not. Posters and pictures like what you see in s hops of clothing in a vendor look horrible too.

i haven't seen any problems like that, you might want to check your lighting settings see if that helps

I have to agree with Tyan. I absolutely love Windlight. Of course a lot of it has to do with the fact that I love taking pictures in SL. I recommend it to anyone and actually got a couple friends to get it just buy showing them what I was able to do with pictures. I've always been a big fan of using SL as backdrops for pictures and look for sims that are amazing with windlight or even just interesting and taking pictures. I've been in SL for almost 3 years now and I think this is one of the best things to happen. My reasons for thinking this:

1. It's something different. A feature in SL that the residents have control over that they never had before. If you are one of those that have problems with change, just give it a chance.
2. I like that fact that I can go from one sim to another and say for example I am now running really laggy. I would use to get frustrated and relog and grumble and gripe. Now I go into my preferences and turn my graphics down (I run at the highest quality most of the time) with just a click of the button.
3. I usually run better in WL. I will say that recently, not sure if it is something with the last update or something I need to fix with my pc but I've been a little bit more laggy and more like the original sl. Speaking of the original viewer, I can't even get it to run. It says I need to update my drivers. I've done this. I then went back to the drivers I had before it told me to update. It still doesn't work, windlight does thankfully.
4. I like the frequent updates. It means they are paying attention and fixing the problems. I read a post earlier where someone didn't like this but it's one of those personal things. I'm actually hoping the next one will hurry up and come out to see the new changes. I never used to look at bug fixes or changes with SL or any game I played. I do now. I do it while I dl so it doesn't seem so bad having to dl the client each time.

I could go on and on about WL and I talk about it constantly but I will say that no it is not perfect and probably never will be just like the original SL. At least right now they are trying, and giving us some new content. That isn't something most residents would never use. I never noticed a lot of the fixes and stuff that SL used to do before. They didn't effect me.

Before I continue with this, I could go on forever, I will stop. I have to say thank you!! It has gotten me interested in sl again and excited about sl's future. But....tell me how to stop the freezing and non responding that I had with the original one or find a fix!

Side note:If you know of any sims or sites like the Mermaid Diaries (I've been to most of the sims she posted about) I would love to know about them. I have been trying to find places in sl that I believe are beautiful or interesting or weird or whatever and taking pictures. Eventually I would actually like to open a shop and sell these (probably not for much) to let others get a little glimpse of these sims that they may never have otherwise heard of. Residents out there are really creative and I applaud all the good work. Keep it up!

Why is my friend list always waiting? i have not had friend list in the past 2 weeks, although it is present on the regular sl, please help my friends think ill of me for not saying hello. xoxox

First....avatars don't look horrible in windlight.... at least not when it's running properly.....a few settings may need to be adjusted...but over all.... textures and skins look just fine. Wearing a face light helps with some of the harsher shadows that can appear at certain times of day.....but really....I keep reading these complaints and I have to assume something about the settings is off....cause windlight is beautiful.

http://flickr.com/photos/rythmnmuse/ I have tons of pics in flickr to prove it.... and tho I sometimes do editing to adjust softness....many pics are untouched, and the avatars look great.

Second...about the friends list....mine hangs up like that every time I clear my cache...so I just log in...wait for my inventory to load fully.... then re-log. This solves the friends list glitch every time.

/totally agree here.

The Windlight Viewer is making any avatar-skin I see (including my own of course) dull, washed out and lifeless. No amount of 'face-lighting' prims help this condition. The skin values remain pale in hue, sickly and weak... where as the same conditions with any of the normal SL viewers currently in-use are lively, 'stand-outish' and complimentary in both physical health and skintone.

Bottom line... Windlight for lit avatars is a visible disaster here. And knowing that its so sickly... it will most likely be the very viewer they will adopt for wide-spread use in SL.

I've heard that a lot of times when avatars look weird in Windlight it's because Avatar Impostors is turned on. If you go to Edit -> Preferences -> Graphics on the left hand corner of the window there's a section titled Avatar Rendering. The first box beneath that is 'Avatar Impostors'. Uncheck this, Apply the change and see if that helps?

That would not be the case. Avatar Imposters are for rendering other avatars at a distance. Well, the idea is to DE-render them and show them as objects so your system doesn't bog down trying to render them as fully 3D avatars. But the WL Lighting problem is a totally separate problem onto itself. It is with close up fully-rendered mobiles. And it has to do with lighting, reflection, skin-textures and the like. The current SL viewers are much better at these details. Advocates say that the WL developers are trying to impose more 'real-world' lighting rules. But in the case of a 3D avatar... real isn't necessarily 'better.' And this is why their current direction for skin and clothing of an avatar... is falling well-short of the mark. And making it a real PAIN for Skin and Clothing makers in-game.

Is the windlight specific viewer obsolete now due to v1.19.1 RC being released?

FYI, v1.19.1 contains Windlight.

The Windlight-concentric viewer will not need to suddenly become 'obsolete' now that a Release Candidate is sporting it, because Windlight is still a work in progress and they can use that viewer to test specific new code before commiting everything to the Live Viewer.

But yes, this is a Milestone. Windlight is no longer "in the background for the brave ones." We are now seeing them move it (and all its current bugs) out into the Mainstream. Now EVERY Land Parcel and SIM border will remind us of watching, "Gilligan's Island" on retro-TV. Water, water everywhere.

What is this "water everywhere" thing about Windlight? It's popped up in a couple threads now and I'm confused. The only time I see water is when I'm in it or near a beach or river. I'm is confuseded? (@_@)

I don't like Windlight in RC viewer. I prefered when Windlight used Firstlook viewer.

Many are saying (and I agree) that Windlight isn't extending the boundries of textures (or land) beyond the specified Draw Distance. It just completely stops at the boundry. It is leaving anything beyond that point as completely 'non-rezzed' and invisible for the Viewer. Since WATER is the only Ground constant that is permanently rezzed and visible in the game regardless of coordination points (Water to the horizon and below... Sky above the horizon) that is all they are seeing in the viewer. No land, fog or details beyond into the next Sim.

Hence the statement that with the current Windlight (and now RC1) every Land Parcel appears as an Island unto itself. And in many cases with the lack of draw distances... a very small island.