WindLight First Look viewer released!
Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 12:54 PM by: Torley Linden
We’ve just released the Second Life WindLight First Look viewer containing brand-new atmospheric rendering — killer skies and kickass environments — for your enjoyment! See our earlier WindLight announcement for more info.
This viewer can be downloaded RIGHT NOW in Windows, Mac, and Linux flavors.
What does “First Look” mean?
“The First Look Viewer is a test version of the Second Life viewer. This viewer connects to the main grid, so that you can test it in your everyday Second Life.”
“First Look” by definition is a “preview”. Some things are bound to be broken; we’re already aware of several bugs that need fixing. With your help, we can identify and reproduce further bugs so we can fix those, too. This also means that the included features are liquidly subject to change! As this is sort of a “sneak peak” of future technology which’ll eventually make it into the main Second Life viewer, we appreciate your help in getting things right.
To emphasize, First Look WindLight runs on the MAIN, LIVE GRID, just like the regular Second Life viewer. This means SERVER-SIDE CHANGES ARE PERMANENT. So if you spend L$ or delete inventory, for example, those changes are not undoable.
Where are the release notes?
You’ll see them upon installing this viewer, and once you’re logged in, use Help menu > Release Notes.
Will I need a more powerful computer to run WindLight?
WindLight doesn’t change our System Recommendations, so if your system meets those, then you should be able to see the newfound beauty in all its glory.
For the technically curious, this means that your graphics card should have DirectX shader model 2 or later support, and drivers that support GLSL. Check your graphics card’s manual or contact the manufacturer if you’re not sure.
And if you don’t meet those requirements, CPU fallback will still allow you to see some of the new enhancements. Regarding “lag” concerns that came up earlier, we don’t anticipate there being a significant performance impact, as some of the calculations are actually more optimized than previously.
So I logged in with First Look WindLight, what now?
Look up!
Quickstart:
- Go to World menu > Sky Settings.
- Next to “Key Frame Presets”, select another preset. Try several so you have a better feel for how it works.
- Then, you’ll want to explore further: click the “?” buttons next to each section to learn what it does, and start dragging sliders at your leisure. Watch the changes take place before your eyes, in realtime!
- Try tweaking settings in the Atmosphere, Lighting, and Clouds tab. The best way to enjoy is by doing, and experiencing.
- If you want to get even more advanced, try clicking the “Day Cycle Editor” button in the upper-right. This is where you setup your own custom animated day cycles, which can include any of the presets and extend over a given duration of time.
- A test day should already be loaded. Push the “Play” button.
Pretty kewl, huh?
This user interface isn’t set in stone and has already gone through several iterations of design… keep reading for how to suggest improvements!
Do you have more detailed documentation for this?
Yes!
Jeremy Linden and our Windward Mark team have put together fab WindLight instructions with helpful screenshots, currently residing on our Second Life Wiki. As First Look WindLight matures and becomes ready for release as part of the normal Second Life viewer, we plan to move this guide to our new Knowledge Base!
Show me more epicness!
These images are composited panoramas taken from raw inworld snapshots. Aside from that, no post-processing has been added.
Can other people see the changes I make?
Not yet — this is localized, or client-side, meaning only you will. In the future, we plan to allow estate owners and managers to change them, as a dramatic evolution of the current dayphase controls found in World menu > Region/Estate > Estate tab.
Can I save my presets?
Yes, with a few important caveats:
- “Save” button saves the whole list, not just the current preset.
- Related, there are inelegant user interface quirks we know about (e.g., you can’t delete presets, alphanumeric sorting is incorrect, etc.).
- Keep in mind we’re working on ways to share presets with other Residents in the future, so the current method of locally saving to an XML file is only temporary.
Ultimately, this experimental section will be overhauled and streamlined in the weeks to come, so please don’t invest too much time in making presets. Our intention here is to give you a quick way to recall personal favorites.
What if I find a bug?
If you discover a WindLight technical feature not working as expected, please use the Issue Tracker and the “WindLight” version to report it. After you’ve read the instructions, do this step-by-step:
- Login at jira.secondlife.com.
- Create a new issue.
- Set “Project” to “Second Life Viewer - VWR”.
- Set “Issue Type” to “Bug”.
- Set “Affects Version/s” to “WindLight” and fill in the appropriate details.
- Scroll to the bottom and click “Create” button.
That’s it! You’ll probably want to bookmark issues you create so you can check them later.
Only assign the “WindLight” component to issues that are directly WindLight-related. If you’re not sure, try to reproduce the same scenario in the regular Second Life viewer, and if it still happens, then you can use Tools menu > Bug Reporting > Public Issue Tracker.
We encourage you to use the “Public Issue Tracker” option (instead of “Report Bug”), because we’re moving towards greater visibility of known issues and being more communicative about our work — aggregating that info in the Issue Tracker and openly showing how important it is to our Residents helps us be more responsive.
Also, your fellow Residents will feel better if you report a bug first so they can comment and vote on it. This, among other supporting factors, helps us assess priority. See VWR-896 for an example.
Thanks in advance for helping us help make your Second Life better!
Should I use First Look WindLight’s ”Report Bug” for WindLight-related bugs?
No, please do not.
Again, please use the Issue Tracker, where we have a special “WindLight” component setup for it. Makes it easier for us to find, and that’s important to you, right?
(This option is found in Tools menu > Bug Reporting > Public Issue Tracker.)
How can I give feature feedback about WindLight?
You can also use the Issue Tracker to do this. When creating a new issue, for issue type, choose “New Feature” instead of “Bug”.
In addition to using the Issue Tracker, comments on this post are of course welcome — please keep feedback constructively focused on improving WindLight in Second Life — but due to time constraints, we regrettably aren’t able to reply to it all. We however will read your observations, and take them into consideration as we refine, reply to further questions, and eventually release WindLight for your Second Life’s day-to-day pleasures.
What about an open source First Look WindLight viewer?
We’re hoping we can share this in the coming weeks. No further details yet, but please stay tuned!
Are there going to be future WindLight blog posts?
Yes!
We’ll continue to release new versions with your help, and let you know how things are coming along, all in preparation for WindLight making it into your day-to-day Second Life in the main viewer. We’ll also be watching for beautiful snapshots you take. 
Thanks for reading this far…
The future’s looking bright!
May 29th, 2007 at 12:59 PM
Please say this is a stable environment, no/low lag. Features are nice to have’s, stability is required.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:59 PM
Awesomenezz! Downloading right now (slowly but surely). :3
May 29th, 2007 at 1:00 PM
Downloading right now …. i can’t wait to see this , I have been excited since the news first leaked about this project
Good luck LL … this is one feature i would like to see working asap
May 29th, 2007 at 1:01 PM
Woohoo, hopefully I can finally make rooms that are dark and aren’t affected by daylight. If not, at least it looks pretty darn spiffeh!
Now if only my account would login . . =P
May 29th, 2007 at 1:02 PM
“This means ALL CHANGES ARE PERMANENT. So if you spend L$ or delete inventory, for example, those changes are undoable.”
I think perhaps you mean they AREN’T undoable?
May 29th, 2007 at 1:05 PM
Wow, this is awesome!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:09 PM
@Sean: I, uh, undid that, realized it was too much trouble to say “unundoable”. Thanks for spotting it, Brad Linden did too!
If you’re taking hawt awesome screenshots with First Look WindLight, feel free to post links here, I am gonna share ‘em with my esteemed collagues.
We are so excited!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:12 PM
Ouch torley … this DL is … mega slow ?
Feel free to remove this … i just wanted you to know this is VEEEEERRRRRYYYY SLOW !
May 29th, 2007 at 1:14 PM
looks good. looks like its new skymaps but still a change for the better. just wanted to get my word in before the blog trolls get here >_> cant wait for voice.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:14 PM
Will this put back all the performance improvements that came with the original first look and have now been removed in the newest and laggiest ever client?
May 29th, 2007 at 1:15 PM
@Lost: Pardon! We’re aware of slow downloads right now from a variety of geographical locations, 20-30 KB/sec seems to be the case. We’re investigating.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:19 PM
This is a great improvement. Nice work!
First Look rules
May 29th, 2007 at 1:19 PM
Going kinda slow but I’m downloading right now! Can we just go about SL normally in this viewer? If it’s nice maybe I’d switch to this one until it’s integrated on the normal one.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:21 PM
I can’t believe it o.O
After jumping in joy about 40 times in Foobar Salad (Katharine Berry’s sim, TG) I’m downloading it. Not that anyone was wondering :p , but I thought I’d mention that it’s not taking too long to download on my side, actually.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:21 PM
Hmm, at default settings it looks…. “smoggy”. THe fog distance ratio doesn;t affect the new system everything is evenloped in a lumenexcent haze, meanting that EVERYTHING has changed colorto a slighyly bluish/purplish color.
Playing around with te plethora of controls helps /some/ but… frankly the lighting model seems much less natural than before and I haven;t be an able to get rid of the copious amount amount of color change on everything yet.
I can see some “really dramatic” lighting and atmospheric possibilities but I am wondering of normal and non intrusive lighting is possible anymore? Will continue playing with it…
May 29th, 2007 at 1:22 PM
Torley,
Some of us who’ve managed to get it downloaded and installed are getting errors that the installer is corrupted or the installed-software itself is corrupted afterward. All three people I know who’ve finished installing it are getting various errors when they try to run the new viewer.
Just a head’s up.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:26 PM
I LOVE THIS!!!1111111111
Ok, who do I have to talk to, and what do I have to do, to get LSL control of weather params so they can be altered temporarily by sim residents and visitors???
I would be your fanboy forevah *wants BAD!*
May 29th, 2007 at 1:28 PM
nooooooooooo! is the installer not compatible with vista? it keeps saying that it is corrupted and/or incomplete. after seeing those pictures,i want to download the first look veiwer soooo much!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:28 PM
that was quick… from anouncement to release to first look….
hopefully it will download completly
cheers
May 29th, 2007 at 1:28 PM
WHOO! Whoopee! The Smiley’s now going to use this everyday just like the older one that had VBO ^.^ No matter how laggy it gets!
-Smiles.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:30 PM
I can’t even download - Must be my location (Israel). I’ll just wait for it to, “go-away”.
-Smiles.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:32 PM
Looking through the presets, the “Default” sems to be one of the worst, I think that needs to be tweaked to provide as close to “normal” lighting conditions as possible. 12pm seems close, I’d go for that as the default over what is now the default. Though avatars seem very very dark. Adjusting gamma so that avs look good makes evrything else blown out. ANd when everything else looks good, avs look dark.
Nighttime lighting looks best, a lot of the day lighting just massivly filters all the textures with color shifts and lowered contrast reduction that are too severe.
Though it’s nice to be able to go extreme, I think we may be lacking a bit of subtly here as well.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:33 PM
This is exciting! I was hoping for voice today, but I can keep hopping on the beta to get my fix. As an estate owner with a very particular vision the future of windlight is making me *very* happy!
Thanks, guys! LOTS of great new features!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:34 PM
Speed problems fixed I believe - 85-90kb/s is pretty high for someone in Israel.
-Smiles.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:35 PM
I think these atmospheric effects will be an excellent improvement to the in-world experience, but is it really necessary at this time??
Please, DEAR GOD PLEASE! fix the existing problems first before compounding more bugs onto SL! You guys already have your work cut out for yourselves!
SL is already a fantastic game. What are you trying to prove by adding so much candy with such a lack of regard for QoS? It’s practically insulting to those of us who pay you to be able to play this game when a huge amount of time is spent just dealing with bugs.
Who is asking for more features, compared to who is asking for bugs to be fixed? I love to try new ideas too and it can be hard to resist. There is a motto in the programming trade, you guys SHOULD know.. “make it work, THEN make it better”. If you dont’ know that one already, you really ought to learn it.
I suggest you pay more heed to the requests made by the recent Open Letter or you will find it is going to become a more and more frequent event. That negative publicity will outwieght any positive publicity created by these constant ‘improvements’.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:36 PM
This is unbelievable. Everyone needs to download it. o.o
May 29th, 2007 at 1:37 PM
Can’t wait to see it! Flickr will be full with images tonight!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:39 PM
Ohhh!! Now I can’t wait to get home and dl this !! Finally a graphics upgrade!! WEWT!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:39 PM
Hmm mine says it’s corrupted and won’t let me install…
May 29th, 2007 at 1:41 PM
Looks cool! But I bet this will be lag/crash tastic!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:45 PM
Also a corrupted one
No luck today…
May 29th, 2007 at 1:54 PM
Wow, simply and truly awesome, TOTALLY REALISTIC!
Nice job!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:55 PM
Torley,
With regards to downloads, has LL looked into possibly adding a torrent distribution?
There are two ways to do this, one being simply post a torrent and seed, while the community will help seed and share as well. Secondly, add a “Bare-bones” torrent function to the client itself and while someone is attached to the grid they can share the latest (version they are using) with the community. Have it be an opt-in feature (Would you like to allow others to download the client from you?) that is minimal throughput, say 5K/s. 5K/s * 10,000 users = a significant amount of bandwidth if 30 connections can be made to download at once.
Just a thought for the future. This could be applied to both SL “Prime” as well as First Look & Beta clients. (However fastest and least-bandwidth intensive would still be introducing patches that can upgrade the last current version. (Simple 1 for 1 patches not something that can patch the last 5 versions even.)
May 29th, 2007 at 1:55 PM
[...] I need a more powerful computer to run WindLight? (more…
[...]
May 29th, 2007 at 1:57 PM
I got it working, but it looks ugly for me.. I tried changing the settings and nothing is helping.. I dont see any clouds and night time makes everything very white.
Ew, hope you guys can fix this
And yea, I have the latest drivers and meet all of the system requirements
May 29th, 2007 at 1:59 PM
Wow, I´ve seen the sky for 20 secs, then crashed!
May 29th, 2007 at 1:59 PM
So I’ve created a setting for “SL Normal” that gets somewhat close to the original noon lighting model. Saved it. Is there some way of sharing these setings with someone? I have not found the settings saved in an easy to find easy to copy in an email type location. Where are they stored exactly? and how?
Also, looking at the timeline, it’s nice to be able to set a cycle, but what about random events? Should be able to set multiple settings per time with a random chance of each happening or something? Might be foggy one day, clear the next? That woud simulate real weather nicely.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:59 PM
It downloaded for me in less than 30 secs(I have 4MB connection) and it rocks!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Nice to see everything moving forward as linden planned. All the while losing even more inventory to some unexplained void area not understood by linden or the 6.8 million current user base. Wow, prettier graphics, nicer skies, flexible controlls, voice, and an inventory shrinking every time it gets touched. I think if Linden had to pay everyone back for the lost inventory items, you would see a decline in this madness. So far, I see no mention of fixed issues. All I am seeing is the willingness to advance regardless of what the user base asks for. I’ve yet to retrieve even one lost item since signing up.
Maybe the future looks brighter for Linden, but no matter what is posted, the open letters, etc.., the vast majority looks to the blog to see a fix for inventory loss amongst the numerous other issues plaguing SL and have yet to experience it. Going on a year now with no fix.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:03 PM
Aarh.. on *my* computer, what has a Intel 905 graphics chipset, the clouds don’t appear!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:04 PM
The no Textures in edit mod bug is still there. But the sky looks fantastic.
um… wait.. I’m a builder. May I have my textures please?
All semi-kidding “waaa-fix-it” aside, nice
May 29th, 2007 at 2:05 PM
Windows client located at:
http://www.newoddity.com/Second_Life/Second%20Life%201-16-0-62469%20(FIRSTLOOKWINDLIGHT)%20Setup.exe
It is capped at 50kb/s. Sorry… But it can help handle the load.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:05 PM
An alternative download link for Windows (fast server):
http://dimitriolewis.com/Second%20Life%201-16-0-62469%20(FIRSTLOOKWINDLIGHT)%20Setup.exe
May 29th, 2007 at 2:06 PM
uups…
at least with original settings completly unusable…
looks very very ugly, no texture loading…
sukking more power than my fastest computer has - that is running the main client very very smooth…
?!?
May 29th, 2007 at 2:07 PM
ok I have to admit I would like you to fix problems more then add features but THIS is worth any problems it causes all I can say is WOW what an improvement.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:09 PM
Working shockingly well and smoothly for me!
Vista P4 3.07GHz system + Dell widescreen and a 6800 card here.
ESPECIALLY love the cloud sliders and the distance / altitude sliders on the atmospheric effects, and the ‘add key’ settings on the day cycle.
THIS ROCKS HARD!!!!
Scary how much better this is - And lag? what lag? No lag from it at all that I can see - in fact, might be less than the old cloud system?
A very Happy Desmond whose only concern is that others don’t see what I am seeing right now.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:10 PM
[...] Mehr dazu im offiziellen Second Life Blog. [...]
May 29th, 2007 at 2:11 PM
[...] Will I need a more powerful computer to run WindLight? (more…
[...]
May 29th, 2007 at 2:12 PM
crashes and crashes hard on Vista with a Radeon 1600. I hope this wont be released as a mandatory update anytime soon!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:13 PM
Taking me forever to llogin
just says “Logging in” and its been like almost 5 minutes and it wont come up!
Not sure if its my PC or not
Geforce 8880gts 640mb
windows vista ultimate
4gb of ram
May 29th, 2007 at 2:16 PM
Please make sure reproducible crashes and other nasty bugs are reported on our Issue Tracker with as complete details as you can provide, so we can track them effectively and help make a smoother experience for you! (See blog post for details.) I already filed one bug:
» https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-896
If you want to accompany me for live chat about First Look WindLight, come inworld and join the “First Look” group. There’s a bug preventing some words from being searched, so go to Search > Groups tab, and search for “exchanging”; you can join it. I’m in the group IM right now.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:20 PM
This is Hogwash. The place i built is only max 16fps in the sky with this viewer.
With the main viewer 38-45fps.
This dose in fact dramatically decrease the performance.
Oh and the local is in the sky… So the whole system looks like utter failure…
I have spent weeks on this build to make it as Client lag free as possible. And this throws away all that hard work and planning!
Oh and VBO enabling / Disabling crashes viewer.
I will wright proper bug reports.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:22 PM
Oh wow, the pure awesomeness! And I haven’t downloaded it yet! XD
Must have!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:23 PM
Oh lastly, frame rate hit seems to vary run by run but is about 20% up to 50% on a quite high-end system. Hopefully that will be mitigated throughout the FL devleopment.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:26 PM
well…
there is no spefic bug - 3 computer running the main cleint smooth… all can install and start the firstlook… log in… after that: a mess
i.e.:
click a “paid” dialog comming up takes:
- move the mouse over the button
- wait 3-10 secons
- klick
- wait 5-10 seconds, blue dialog box disapears
so i can say:
it starts
runs
can close it
i can´t tget further due to performance issues… waht to report ?!?
IM-chat… sure…
but i can count incomming letters…
my own aren´t that “fast”… type a line, wait 5-15 sekonds, hit return, wait some seconds –> new line
textures not realy loading, or so slow (i would guess), that it may take 30-60 minutes if you don´t move.
so basicly: but it in beta… its not even preview on typical european hardware. i wan´t think about the hardware we find (as a IT consultant) in major companys.
no way…
to bad…
cheers
Ralf
May 29th, 2007 at 2:26 PM
Wireframe mode is totally dying with this on
May 29th, 2007 at 2:27 PM
NO RIPPLE WATER ? .. or is it just me ?
This rocks … after just a few minz i come up with this ..
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v129/maddad68/ghost.jpg?t=1180472987
Noticed the my multi gadget seems to emmit a transparent looking red texture .. allso may just be me .
So far so good … this is a great new feature
May 29th, 2007 at 2:28 PM
My System:
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (Unknown model) (3058 MHz)
Memory: 2047 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista (Build 6000)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 7800 GS/AGP/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.1
I cant see any clud… i only see the SKY and the Sun… nothing more…
May 29th, 2007 at 2:34 PM
I’ve put some pictures up on snapzilla, loving the new skies.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:34 PM
Uhm… Where is the moon?
BRING BACK THE MOON!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:37 PM
Ok, WindLight means pretty skies… if you’re standing on the ground. Fly up only a short distance and you encounter the flat cloud surface at around 750m. Fly above that and the sky suddenly turns a featureless black.
If it remains like that, it ruins skyboxes (up to 768m), aircraft (up to 4096m), and skydiving (any altitude).
PLEASE change this before putting WindLight into the regular SL client!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:37 PM
One word!! AWESOME!!!!!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:39 PM
Yes - very nice.
Any chance of a blog about the major bug introduced with 1.16 which not only causes loss of an object on take but also results in the prim count not being released until the sim is rebooted?
Or even better fixing it as quickly as you have brought out this new feature?
May 29th, 2007 at 2:39 PM
Unable to log on using the first look.
Getting “Unable to connect to version manager” error.
Maybe should test a bit more rigorously first.
Nice try though. Keep at it.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:39 PM
As an SL skydiver, this is deeply worrying. the Sky totally cuts of at 768m, and anything above that just looks crap.
If this gets onto main in its current state, it will *kill* Second Life skydiving and alot of aviation.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:46 PM
It’s good to know a lot of feedback we’re seeing corresponds with what we anticipated and do plan to put back in the future, and severely improve. They, of course, include Wrestling and Cubey’s concerns — I’ve seen ideas tossed around for moonphases, multiple celestial bodies, etc., and you shouldn’t be able to fly out into the bleak blackness beyond the skydome.
You sharing this with us helps reinforce their importance!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:48 PM
Hey that sounds great, and its right on my birthday too!
I hope it works well for SL.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:49 PM
Great? how is that going to bring back all my items that refuse to rez from inventory? The way I keep loosing stuff to the “object is missing from database” bug, soon all I’ll be able to do in SL is to look at the “new sky”.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:51 PM
This is incredibly cool! I did notice that lighting effects seem to not be working and I had to once again turn on the full bright lag beast. Some particle effects seem borked too but all in all this is a wonderful feature!! Can’t wait to make a full spectrum of unusual skies for Gypsy!
May 29th, 2007 at 2:55 PM
Crashing about every 20seconds to 1 minute on my ATI Radeon x700. Bit laggier as well.
Seems to mostly happen if I try to look at the ocean.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:57 PM
‘Enable Vertex Shaders’ must be turn on.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:00 PM
Very moody, this can change completely the way we feel in different places. I still think that it’s a bit like RGB’ing the monitor settings, i was imagining it more like the Bryce sky thingy. The unrezzed zones sometimes go a little weird, but the clouds are great and those particular settings like fog and colorful ambiences are way up there. very refreshing
thank you. can’t wait for that cloud shadow thing.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:01 PM
Some hawt awesome pictures of windlight:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/themanknownasdavep/520563608/
May 29th, 2007 at 3:01 PM
i just went and crashed on login didnt see anything .. and i have a 7k USD computer and it wont even play it
May 29th, 2007 at 3:01 PM
@1: this IS going to be unstable for the moment. It’s a First Look viewer, and it’s offered for those of us who are willing to accept some instability (and downloads of frequent updates) to get an early taste of a new Second Life feature and to help make Second Life better. If you’re not ready to accept some level of difficulty, stay with the standard viewer for now.
@25: no existing developers are being taken off bug fixing to do this. LL went and hired a whole team of new programmers — a company that has been working on this for the past couple of years. There would be no point to trying to reassign those people to fixing bugs in the existing code base; it’s not where their expertise is, and they would just quit anyway.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:03 PM
Torley said: “…you shouldn’t be able to fly out into the bleak blackness beyond the skydome.”
I hope by this you mean that the sky won’t turn black above that height, and not that you’ll block travel above 768 meters.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:04 PM
well i think its a step up from that crappy blue > black > orage > blue sky we had before i mean now it looks sorta real.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:04 PM
My .0004 cents: everything here seems to work fine (I’m on Mac, almost brand new, but yeah). No real bugs I’ve noticed. I do have ripple water, moving clouds and normal performance.
And, by the way, the first pics (after Torley’s, of course :p) are on Flickr already.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:06 PM
Unusable for me, days and night cycles switch random without reason, no clouds beeing rendered, light is total off. Filed the issues at Jira. Same errors on both Linux (Ubuntu Engy) and Windows XP Professionel on GeForce 6800 GT with most recent drivers.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:07 PM
Holy Cow that’s a sharp difference! Very nice effects. When the viewer first fired up it had Vertex Shaders off (default?) and that prevented my seeing any of the sky effects. I didn’t notice any increase in lag and my ram wasn’t siphoning away any faster so it’s a definite plus so far. This is fun, I really like the Ghost setting.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:08 PM
I’m really looking foward to this update(a first =P)!
However, you really need to fix your game up. The asset server is still slow, and things are still randomly dissapearing from people’s inventory. The updates are nice, but there’s also something we pay for called “maintenance”.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:09 PM
sky, very cool, lighting…mm, not so great. also, on My Mac Pro, any animated textures bring the framerates to dialup days…
May 29th, 2007 at 3:11 PM
If you have a laptop with a card that dosen’t support 2.0 will it work? I can’t update my driver because its a laptop.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
Drat! I can’t get it to run on my new Vista machine, in Administrator or not….
May 29th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
just want to say…
O M F G
this is absolutely awesome ! ty so much for this feature !
Just a drawback my side, it makes all local lights off
( NVIDIA 7600GS 512 latest driver- linux mandiva spring 2007 )
Some friend told me its the same for him, ATI 9600 - windows
May 29th, 2007 at 3:15 PM
ok i have testet it a bit:
looks great!
but the performance (fps) goes down pretty much…
in the actual version i had all graphics settings enabled (vertex shaders ect… and all sliders maxed) and had 30-32 fps in my test scene.
in the firstlook viewer i had with the same settings pretty stable 22 fps…
thats a big hit and the test scene was pretty simple with few objects.
when i switched off the vertex shader it ran with 27 fps and looked worse than the actual viewer without windlight (no sky at all).
so please work on the performance issues LL! for me an update would mean worse performance and worse look. a big downgrade. and i think many residents have less powerfull computers than me.
cpu athlon @ 2 gig
ati x1600 pro 256mb
1 gig ram
win xp
May 29th, 2007 at 3:16 PM
[...] ついに、Second Life Viewerの次世代版「WindLight」がFirstLook版としてリリースされました [...]
May 29th, 2007 at 3:17 PM
i have take 2 screenshot using this new system its pretty funny XD and give a beautiful view around
May 29th, 2007 at 3:20 PM
Looks awesome and for a change is lag-free. However, LL really should stop covering up their ‘horrible’ “maintenance” with updates and actually fix something rather than constantly coming out with something new thats also partly broken(although this update is unique and didn’t break anything. =)).
May 29th, 2007 at 3:21 PM
Will it work at all with a laptop with GL1.4?
May 29th, 2007 at 3:23 PM
Awesome, really awesome!!!
I love it, just awesome!
It makes some scenes so real with the new lighting, just awesome.
ps: Did I mention it is awesome?
May 29th, 2007 at 3:23 PM
just got it now and played with some settings and the onlything i can say is:
OMFGWOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
but…. can we have a reset button to reset pre-defined settings (like pirate) so we don`t have to log and have it reset to what it was with a button pritty please?
May 29th, 2007 at 3:23 PM
The effects look cool. But settings are very complicated. Hope there are some simple defaults. Just a request. Alot of people have particle effects that depend on a DARK night sky. I sell particle effects that depend on darkness. In the past it has been very simple to set MIDNIGHT to see these effects. PLEASE make sure there is still a simple option to see good particle, lighted texture, and other lighting effects that people have spent alot of time and money to create and purchase.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:25 PM
Re: bugs vs. features, I hope you all read the last section of the first WindLight post. Just to let you know!
Fixed bugs, on our Issue Tracker, are broadly viewable.
May 29th, 2007 at 3:28 PM
I have to say btw, when setting it so that everything is completely black,
hardware lights don’t lit the area, I think it would be cool to have
the ability to make total dark sims with hardware lights to lit stuff.
Could make an excellent creppy sim that way….I guess.
And ye, reset button like nr. 79 said.
Oh and, sometimes the water effect seems to get messed up?
May 29th, 2007 at 3:29 PM
Is wonderful!!! The light effect is cool. Just a few small issues, like: objects with bright don’t look right, and light from objects is not visible at night. The rest is wonderful!
May 29th, 2007 at 3:32 PM
the clouds and sky are beautiful… pity all metal objects have gone grey and i crashed the first time i rezzed an object …. ah well.. little bit more work required methinks
May 29th, 2007 at 3:36 PM
Getting all of 1 frame per second making this pretty much useless no matter how pretty it might look if I ever got to see anything.
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (Unknown model) (3014 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 8800 GTS/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.1
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.10_0000000000)
May 29th, 2007 at 3:36 PM
um i kinda knoticed the sun looks backwards on some of these like the sun sets, they tend to set in the east side not the west side…
May 29th, 2007 at 3:40 PM
OK OK OK! Thanks so much for the feedback thus far. =^_^=
Re: shiny looking dull, known issue.
So’s several crashing ones: crashing on Edit Land, toggling VBO, and possibly at login.
Massive framerate hits are highly undesirable, make sure you report those with your system config @ http://jira.secondlife.com To get your system info while logged in Help menu > About Second Life, copy and paste that. It also helps to turn on Client menu (Ctrl-Alt-D) > Consoles > Fast Timers and attach a screenshot to your reported issue.
Please remember to set Affects Version/s = WindLight so we can find it easily! If you’re confused at all, this is what an issue should look like:
» https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-896
We’ll let this valuable feedback of yours gel and compile further known issues in another promised blog update as THE SAGA OF WINDLIGHT IN SECOND LIFE CONTINUES!
Thanks to each and everyone of you who’ve taken the time to try it out so far.