Arilynn

Rhonda, that was a joking response to what Joshua said. I have never seen a facelight that looks like the pic I posted. The worse facelights look like small nuclear explosions and not creepy flashlight carrying serial kilers. Actually, I think few serial killers probably walk around with flashlights under their chins as it makes it too easy for the police to identify them, so I guess the entire post was a joke.

Carter-Madhu

I may be making it more complicated; but I think I just have different goals than you do. Installing one set of settings and selecting them from the list is simple; yes. But I don't want the environment to look the same all the time, and the simple solution forces that. Otherwise I'll have to either tinker with the settings myself or go find more presets I like and dig through that multiple-layered, non-intuitive interface every time I want to change between them. Putting on my nice, mellow, non-intrusive facelight at any time of day is much easier.

I'm also not complaining about having the options; I'm simply disputing the notion that windlight settings are a simple solution to the problem that some people try to solve with facelights. For the average user, putting on a facelight to make their avatar look the way they want at any time of day is easier and simpler than finding the environment editor and either tinkering with a multitude of settings or finding a preset and figuring out how to install it. Windlight settings are wonderful to have; they can make the environment truly breathtaking and they may indeed address some of the issues that people use facelights to address. But as simple and readily adoptable a solution as facelights, for most users? No way.

__________________

Rhonda Huntress

Oh, I know. It just made a good springboard to show what can be done. Besides, it is just the topic of argument discussion of the moment.

If people can tell you have a facelight on, you're doing it wrong. It should be just enough to knock the shadows off your eyes and that blasted hole in the chest that comes with the avatar mesh. If is looks like a spotlight or changes the color of your skin it's too bright and probably the wrong color.

Rhonda Huntress

I don't walk around in RL dressed like a robot either.

Carter-Madhu

We're talking about SL, not RL. In SL I enjoy the fact that my avatar can look her best all the time, not just when she's posing for animal crackers.

Arilynn

Thanks. I don't think anyone will argue that a properly done facelight looks bad to the user. The issue to me is whether it looks good to those around you using different settings and whether it negatively affects the surrounding lighting scheme. Personally, I don't find facelights to be a major issue in my SL; they are more of an irritation and source of amusement. But I can understand why they are strongly disliked.

Rhonda Huntress

It would be cool if we could adjust graphic setting through a script. That way I could give a face light to all those people wearing miniture suns that turned up the gamma on their end and left the rest of us see the world as it is suposed to be.

Ann Launay

Fair enough. My SL is pretty av-centric, so I'm perfectly happy to keep the same setting 90% of the time. I change it infrequently, so perusing the list of options when I occasionally want a different effect is no hardship.

If you have particular settings you like, you can just set up the day cycle editor to run through them automatically....only one 'tinker' session per installation necessary. I have mine set so it's always Caliah-time, but you can change the cycle to whatever you like and never have to touch the environmental editor again.

Like I said, I have no issue with discrete facelights, I just find WL easier and more suited to my needs since I upgraded my graphics card and started using Caliah's settings. And, hey, I got an attachment point back too! Bonus.

__________________

Carter-Madhu

This sounds cool, I may have to play with it. I'm definitely going to try the preset you recommend as well - even though I like my facelight I do still play with windlight settings from time to time when I remember to do so. (There's still no way to get the viewer to remember your environmental settings from session to session, though, is there?)

I change the time of day all the time, depending upon what I am doing. Building or shopping - usually midday so I can see. Watching fireworks or hanging in a moody club - midnight. Rowing my rowboat around New Toulouse - sunset. Dancing with my girl at Madhu's Cafe - sunrise. And so on.

I'm definitely open to the idea of finding a half-dozen or so nice windlight presets that could replace each of these settings that I typically use, and I appreciate the guidance on where to look for those and how to make them more convenient to use.

I'm still not gonna ditch my facelight though.

Katelynne Shippe

Caliah's settings explain this too, it's possible to do within Advanced Sky - Day Cycle Editor - Save Test Day. That way it won't revert back to the default next session, and you can set up (to nine, I think) personal settings to cycle through.

Lucifer Baphomet

You can set as many as you want by adding additional keyframes

__________________

Rhonda Huntress

Glasses and lashes and piercings ... they do add up rather quickly.

Caliah's settings are too bright for me. Everything is washed out on my screen. I had a setting at one time that worked well but I do not remember where I got them. I have always liked the day/night cycle and the different places that are perpetually set in their time for ambiance so I have been waiting for windlight settings covering the full time spectrum to come out. So far, all I have seen are just a one time setting you lock in and leave it.

If I could find a full set that I could replace one time and not have to worry about it, I would use them. I could work with the sliders and make my own time specific settings but by the time I got it to look right, the new RC would be stable and all my work would be superfluous.

Mochi

I usually have my settings set on all the time to Ana Lutetia's settings (similar to Caliah's) because I'm always building and like to see everything in light without the presence of shadows. However, when I do feel the need to prance around in the dark and still look good, I really recommend my friend Danny Nolan's neutral ligthing. It's a bunch of presets set to different times of the day so that you can still retain that perfect smooth face while the day cycles around you.

I took some quick shots of the different times below. Excuse the crappiness since I was doing this in a rush:

Pictures taken on HIGH, with Atmospheric Shaders ON, and NO Facelight



Link: http://www.woohaweb.com/secondlife/neutrallighting.zip

You can edit your cycle editor and fill in the appropriate time slots with the time presets so they always are there or you can be like me and just drop down and pick a time that you want to be in for awhile.

Also, if someone is wearing a facelight that bothers me, I usually keep my Atmospheric shaders OFF unless I want to take pictures of some really scenic sim where everything looks better with it ON.

Mochi

Oh in addition. I've noticed that with Caliah's/Ana's WL settings, if your graphics is set on HIGH or above and you have atmospheric shaders ON, everything seems too washed out.

Ran Garrigus

Just to answer the earlier question someone had, I'm a guy and I use a face light most of the time. Possibly the reason male skins seem to do better than female skins is that male skins tend to have more texture and in fact some of the top skins have baked some level of shading onto them.

I do take it off when I'm in builds where someone's clearly got a particular lighting scheme in mind. I also keep it pretty tame, low-radius, so even with the Caliah Lyon settings it isn't nuclear.

Mochi,

Scene Gamma. I think Caliah's setting came with a rather high gamma suggestion, but if you lower it you can approximate non-atmospheric shader lighting pretty well.

__________________

• Old Fashioned -- Occasional SL fashion reviews.

Solanghe Sarlo

Ha! ^5 Rhonda.

Cris, we need a Touche' button.

__________________

Lewis Luminos

I never bother to use a facelight. If I'm taking photographs I use Windlight settings to make it look good.

__________________
-- Just Add Ginger -- -- Plurk -- -- last.fm -- -- flickr --

Lianne Marten

In the place I help moderate in SL, I get to tell people to take their facelights* off and/or ban them if they don't.

It's my favorite part of the job. I love it even more when people get all indignant about it.


*If the radius is shining the light on surrounding surfaces

__________________


I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that even though I do not know you, even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you... I love you. With all my heart, I love you.

-Valerie

Joshua Nightshade

Uh huh. And my point is given that a scene has six lights to use, period, if you're around six other avatars who "want to look the best all the time" too at all costs, not only are you all going to look ridiculous, but you ruin the ambiance of the the sim itself too.

I won't even bother with local lights on my sim anymore to try and set a mood because it only takes one facelight to ruin it. That's extremely selfish to me.

Mourna Biziou

__________________

Miriel Enfield

This is rather harsher than I would have phrased it, but yeah. People talk about how facelights are ugly and look like nuclear explosions, but I don't really care about that. How you look is your own business. But I do think it's rude to ruin a build's lighting scheme for others.

I wish build lights (and particles, for that matter -- I'd love to include more particles in my builds, but I can't) were given priority over attached ones when rendering.

Lianne Marten

I think facelights look terrible no matter what their settings are. Even in the posed photoshoots, I can't help but think that without the facelight it would look even nicer. They're just stupid.

Carter-Madhu

If I notice that my facelight is making local lights in the build flicker on and off - which, incidentally, rarely happens, because of its very small radius - I take it off. I'm not an asshole, and my facelight isn't ugly. It still seems to me that the problem here is not a problem with facelights - it's a problem with badly designed facelights used by people who are inconsiderate and/or don't know any better. Any tool can be abused or misused.

foehn Breed

Notice how the guys totally glossed over how and why they don't need facelights? We have ways to make you talk!

__________________
The futures holidays are for me

Eboni Khan

Your face lights ruin my prim feet and toes. Get a decent graphics card and use windlight. Thanks.

__________________