Super cool new WindLight First Look Viewer!
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 6:05 PM by: Pastrami Linden
So. I think you’re really gonna like this one. I mean a lot. You know all that jira reporting we’ve asked you to do? You know all those votes you’ve been giving? Well, our cycles of development, QA, and public tracking have synced up, and you’ll find this latest list of bugs squished extra tasty. Have a look!
* VWR-3121: WindLight: Texture Memory slider shows negative values on certain configurations
* VWR-3103: WindLight: Avatar name tags aren’t selectable/clickable
* VWR-3287: WindLight: Tree lighting appears uneven and harsh during certain times
* VWR-3139: WindLight: Shiny is too strong and should be more backward-compatible
* VWR-3130: WINDLIGHT - no interpolation/tweening on llSetPrimitiveParams moving attached objects, possibly unattached as well
* VWR-3258: WindLight: Performance drops and triangle rendering glitches on some ATI cards with VBO on
* VWR-3162 (Believe fixed - please check this one out!): WindLight: Objects, avatars, and water sometimes disappear after zooming camera
* Pop up window for unsupported hardware now comes up
* Sky tessellation (complexity of sky geometry) now editable on a slider in Graphic Preferences
You read right! Better Shiny, fixed trees, potentially big fixes to objects disappearing… This release should usher in the crushing of some of the biggest bugs reported out in the wild. See- we *do* take your suggestions to heart, one bug a time! 
Of important note- PLEASE TEST OUT VWR-3162: WindLight: Objects, avatars, and water sometimes disappear after zooming camera. We’ve think we’ve got it but we need wide testing to ensure it. If you’ve been bitten by this bug in the past, and it’s now fixed for you (or still broken!) report on it here. Many thanks!
See the full list of open WindLight bugs.
As always, keep on doing a great job using, issue tracking/reporting, commenting on the viewer, and especially attending our WindLight office hours. These are at:
- Brampton Linden Stage: 106/166/25
- Tuesdays 8:00am - 9:00am PDT (ongoing)
- Thursdays 1:00pm- 2:00pm PDT (ongoing)
If you miss a session, transcripts are posted here.
Below you’ll find links to important info related to WindLight:
Have a great time lighting your worlds!!
Regards,
Pastrami Linden and the WindLight Team
December 4th, 2007 at 6:15 PM
Yea! Thanks again for makin it better! I know a lot of folks don’t like the bugs new things bring but just look at how far it has come! LOL..Gotta break eggs for omlets! : - )…..I’m goin in!
December 4th, 2007 at 6:17 PM
yesssssssssssss
December 4th, 2007 at 6:18 PM
Almost first! Thanks for the feature updates!
:) 
December 4th, 2007 at 6:19 PM
10 points for the windlight team, squashing bugs left and right
December 4th, 2007 at 6:21 PM
This new update makes a great client even better! (^_^)
Thanks a bunch and keep up the great effort ,,,=^_^=,,,
December 4th, 2007 at 6:29 PM
Glad to hear some of the issues are being sorted out, though better support and bug fixes for the problems on the mac viewers would be handy. Seeing as the mac viewer runs very sluggish in areas with high details even on the lowest settings.
December 4th, 2007 at 6:32 PM
Cool and all, I still don’t see any shadows… when are they coming?
December 4th, 2007 at 6:40 PM
I quickly downloaded it to check on the bug I reported, but it still doesn’t seem fixed for some reason. Am I the only one still having issues with VWR-3130 listed above?
December 4th, 2007 at 6:41 PM
* VWR-3130: WINDLIGHT - no interpolation/tweening on llSetPrimitiveParams moving attached objects, possibly unattached as well
Still not fixed. Prims still snap from start to stop and back
December 4th, 2007 at 6:53 PM
YAY another update LMFAO……. so what have you guys done in the last few days??????????? because FPS and PING is at its highest ever. LAG is horrible.
4 days ago im using the release candidate or the windlight viewer before this new one, and with my fx5200 card I was getting 20fps some places & 40+ fps at “The Palace” SLB boxing area. NOW the last 3 days ping and FPS SUCK !!!! Also fix the client>rendering>types & features to be keep the options you disable after a relog disabled, why cant you add that feature?????? I dont need tree’s or fog or foot shadows.
thanks again for great updates you are doing while we are online, and not taking the game down like you used to and ACTUALLY FIX THINGS AND MAKE THE GAME FASTER AND MORE ENJOYABLE.
December 4th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
I wonder if the nice soft foggy atmospherics of the old viewer, that made a region look big will com back. My regions look tiny in Windlight.
I wonder if the ground patches will be fixed, all my sand had dissapeared leaving badly textured, oversaturated grass.
I certainly hope the trees are fixed, my head would ache after 5 minutes of windlight use looking at them, strobing trees was not cool. maybe with this it will be usable by me to start bug testing… until now I could not stay in long enough to create a meaningful Jira
December 4th, 2007 at 6:56 PM
Glad to see this! I love what Windlight promises. For those who got the “* VWR-3258: WindLight: Performance drops and triangle rendering glitches on some ATI cards with VBO on”, I DID find a fix to clear the glitches other than quitting and restarting… Just edit preferences and switch from whatever mode you’re in (high for instance) to medium quality, and back.
December 4th, 2007 at 6:57 PM
Oh, thanks for this new version
It seems to have about the same performance as the previous one (ie. 30-50% of the regular viewer, at ‘recommended’ settings).
What was a rather nasty was finding out that snapshots crash WindLight. Uh-oh. If it weren’t for Grab or SnapZ Pro, I would be unable to get any pictures out of this new version…
December 4th, 2007 at 7:00 PM
My heart keeps skipping, I’m that excited. The previous WL release disappointed me as I was getting the solarized colors normally associated with 8-bit (256-color) displays - I have an ATI X1650 card - hope this one does it right again. Woohoo!
December 4th, 2007 at 7:00 PM
What no fix for attachments in the butt, or halfing of the avie? Really people reported some of these bugs? Lets ask a seriuos questen do you ll workers reat the bugs to see if they are real? Or in better explaination reproduce the bug to figureout if its not user side and not LL UI? Because frankly speaking i can understand some of these bug reports but some i just don`t and can`t believe is UI driven.
December 4th, 2007 at 7:01 PM
Very cool! Now to see if this apparent word alignment issue that cropped up with snapshots in 74642 has been slain:
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/4858/scilandsdec2007tm5.jpg
December 4th, 2007 at 7:02 PM
I Really like the new Shiny … Low is still too high though…
Have you guys ever though of making shiny like transparency where you can go from 1-100 or I suppose 0-100.
It would really make sense and be more customizable… for example if you wanted it look more glossy latex rather than metal… you would want a really low shine.
Thanks!
December 4th, 2007 at 7:05 PM
I can’t wait to see if this also inadvertantly fixes https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3529
December 4th, 2007 at 7:24 PM
Thank You WL Team! VWR-3258 the only bug that keep me from using WL full time
December 4th, 2007 at 7:27 PM
THANK YOU!
Still lovin’ WindLight!
December 4th, 2007 at 7:36 PM
I’m having issues trying to DL the Linux client. I’ll wait a bit and try again - thanks!
December 4th, 2007 at 7:37 PM
I just tried to DL the viewer, but when I clicked the “Download” button, I got the following:
This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
−
AccessDeniedAccess Denied
1F334FD3A9AF6B20
−
r5EQNboeM7cnJWuA7G+7Rv8+q7Yu3rg+HRStPZIcfmOA33ba3IjdGX34akQcBzau
December 4th, 2007 at 7:40 PM
Thank you! You should see some of the photos I am getting now with W/L!
I wuv you SL, LL.
December 4th, 2007 at 7:43 PM
PLEASE TEST OUT VWR-3162: WindLight: Objects, avatars, and water sometimes disappear after zooming camera.
Still not fixed. Prims reappear after disabling Object/Object Occlusion
December 4th, 2007 at 7:47 PM
very nice thanks Lindenlab!
December 4th, 2007 at 7:48 PM
oops it appears the first download was misnumbered as 1.18.6 instead of 1.18.5 as I downloaded it, logged in, logged out, and when I went to relog was told I had to upgrade again - it appears the correct numbered version is now available for download
December 4th, 2007 at 7:49 PM
Ok maybe it’s just me but the version number on the download page is “1.18.5.74965″ and when I downloaded and installed, and ran it, it then said there was a required update which I let install and now my version number is 1.18.5 (74642) and in deed none of the talked about bug fixes seem to be there.
Going to try installing new…
December 4th, 2007 at 7:51 PM
Before I forget:
CPU: AMD (Unknown model) (2009 MHz)
Memory: 2048 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 7950 GT/PCI/SSE2/3DNOW!
OpenGL Version: 2.1.1
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.12_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 749/184266 (0.4%)
Viewer Digest: 95ff6646-33fa-a548-0358-b60653b2ffe9
December 4th, 2007 at 7:59 PM
Ive installed the brand new 1.18.6 windlight viewer, but after login, it tells me that i have to download 1.18.5 :-((
December 4th, 2007 at 8:00 PM
Ok, uninstalling the old one and reinstalling in a new folder worked, and yes the shiney is back. Though… the super shiney was nice IF you wanted a chrome or high gloss effect! Hopefully you guys can find a way of including the old and new shiney modes.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:04 PM
I have installed the update 1.18.6 and got into the game fine, however when i logged out to swap avatars i am now getting a required update pop up saying new required version 1.18.5
Is this just me ?
December 4th, 2007 at 8:07 PM
I know you’re still waiting for the equipment to fix VWR-925 but I’ll test this too. It’s nice to see so many fixes coming even if it’s not yet for the one I care most about. Well done!
December 4th, 2007 at 8:11 PM
I really need to buy a new computer that has a card that supports this I am so jel! hehe!
December 4th, 2007 at 8:17 PM
Same problem with the update.
Downloaded ‘Second_Life_1-18-6-74965_WindLight_Setup.exe’. Startup splashscreen shows this version lower right.
When logging in, I’m told to download 1-18-5-74695 (which fails btw).
I did just download and run the new Havok Beta if that helps.
I didn’t uninstal the onl Windlight either, so maybe thats my problem.
Thanks:)
December 4th, 2007 at 8:17 PM
Hmm actually the new shiney seems a bit “dull” and a tad “cloudy” in comparison to the main client. HOWEVER, I think it is an improvement over all, maybe a little too far in the opposite direction.
For a lot of things this effect is really needed and the lowest level of the main cliet shiney was too glossy. I’d keep this as a “Glossy: Dull” effect if you are planning on adding new modes! It’s pretty nice. Good “plastic” effect.
December 4th, 2007 at 8:18 PM
Tried to compile previous WL first look - missing the file llrendertarget.cpp! Before i bother downloading this one - did you fix that problem, and include all needed source files for building?
December 4th, 2007 at 8:32 PM
This is looking gorgeous! But my main worry is avator lighting. I use a facelight in the current client to avoid shadows. It stops me from looking like a primate. I conducted tests in Windlight without it. Character Lighting is superb except from 10:30am to 6:40pm and 9:10pm to 3.50am during which time I turn into chimp girl..kisses Sky
December 4th, 2007 at 8:34 PM
@35 — this is what I worry about…
Too many people complain that something is ‘too new’ essentially, an appropriate dialback might be 10%, but what usually ends up happening is it is tossed completely or dialed back by 50% or more.
In the face of broad ‘complaints’, one has to be careful - honestly if every ‘complaint’ was listened to, we’d just end up where we were -before- windlight.
This stuff is going to take some getting used to, and if folks aren’t open to that, it’ll never progress. And SL’s graphics really need to progress.
Keeping things the same is not a good idea… This will cause a bigger ’shock to the system’ and a greater hill to climb when something like materials are actually added. If we get over this hump now, then there’ll be less of a delta later.
** Frankly, the new tree changes look horrible. ** What happens now: When a tree isn’t in full detail, it just isn’t environmentally lit. In a sunset, you get a “dark forest” appearance now. Every tree is a dark silhouette.
This is not an improvement. It’s just nerfing. Now, trees that aren’t in full detail are simply “opted out” of the environment. What’s up with that? Yeah, we have low detail trees. Yeah, they’re gonna react funny to the environment. Is the solution really just “turning off” their reaction to the environment?
I hope this change doesn’t stay. It looks horrible, and really discongruous. Forests in sunset are now nothing but a bunch of dark blobs. Even turning tree detail up now just makes them “Snap in and out” of reacting to the environtment and not.
A -lot- more alarming than it was before. At noon, the opposite happens: they just are fullbright.
Is this really what everyone wanted?
December 4th, 2007 at 8:36 PM
TT_TT it still crashes on logging, and after a long thread of swearing, my now sad Imac and I eagarly await the next Windlight Update, i remember when it didnt crash, and it was soo beautifull..0.0 soon….
Oh, and sry Imac ^^
December 4th, 2007 at 8:37 PM
New version… always same bad bad performances using mac os leopard tho..
December 4th, 2007 at 8:51 PM
They say they’re going to add materials, and when they do that shiny will just be a special case of that.
My DSL is unhappy with the required downloads. What happen, released 1.18.6 prematurely in windlight?
December 4th, 2007 at 8:52 PM
Thanks for nothing
You still haven’t done one damn thing to fix the Mac crashing, dont hurt yourself patting yourselves on the back. YEs now it doesnt crash as soon as I log in. It only crashes if I actually want to do anything. You guys suck. If this is the pefromsance when WL goes live you can kiss my account goodbye. Who gives a crap about trees and water when if you try t do anything with them you crash. Get your Freakin prioritues straight and start supporting your customers who are on MAc.
Kiss My A__
December 4th, 2007 at 9:06 PM
I am still not seeing shiny reflections on prim.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:11 PM
i never thought i’d be one of these people bitching about linden labs’ priorities in an ‘unrelated’ blog article but:
FIX THE F’N TP BUG YOU INTRODUCED RECENTLY IN WHICH FAILED TPS LAND IN THE “UNKNOWN” REGION AND _DISCONNECT_ BEFORE YOU SPEND TIME ON THIS FLUFF!!! i am paying $100/m for _this_?!
December 4th, 2007 at 9:13 PM
In windlight the world is very dark compared to the old secondlife.. When not facing the sun in sunset and sunrise avatars are almost black, covered in shadow, making their skin and clothes hardly visible, and when facing the sun they are very yellowish/orange. In noon, the shadows have a very high contrast too, so theres no setting in which avatars really look normal anymore. The effect of wearing a skin or textured clothing and textures on houses and furniture are mostly gone with the windlight viewer. The light effect is so heavy it overrides the effect textures give on objects, making all objects in SL look virtually all the same, well textured or not. The effect of textures was what made objects look nice, realistic.. now that effect is undone.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:15 PM
Well, I tried this, and it provides an even poorer image than the last release, and far below the standard viewer, on my dual ATI Radeon x1950 in crossfire mode. Now, as I walk, I have random triangles covering portions of my screen. And the lighting effects make my av look terrible. I have filed a bug report for this with screen shot.
Sorry, but I really don’t need this. I need to stop crashing, I need the SL infrastructure to work properly. Fix the important issues, and stop wasting time on this fluff until those are addressed.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:23 PM
I’m using the new windlight client and OMG it is gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!
December 4th, 2007 at 9:25 PM
The first time I logged in after installing 1.18.6 it let me in. But VWR-3258 didn’t go away. I still have the same symptoms on my Radeon 1650 that extremely annoyed reports on his crossfire 1950 pair.
On trying to log in again, I too was told I HAD to “upgrade” to 1.8.5.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:28 PM
Dangit, I just ran into the same thing. Tried clearing the browser cache and cookies which didn’t help (thought it might).
Obviously some confusion between the version numbers 1.18.6.74965 (which is what the viewer says it is) and 1.18.5.74965 (which is what the login server expects). One damn digit… Argh!
December 4th, 2007 at 9:36 PM
Ah
The download link has been refreshed to reflect the correct version number… Re-downloading and re-installing. ^_^
Everyone else being told to “upgrade” to 1.18.5, just download the WindLight viewer again, they fixed the version number
December 4th, 2007 at 9:38 PM
OK, even the new “low” shiny still seems too shiny for marine mammals.
They need more levels of shiny, really. And to make “reflective” a separate attribute.
Maybe make the current shininess levels map to levels 3, 5, and 7 on a new 10-level shininess scale.
December 4th, 2007 at 9:45 PM
@39 - Ohaku, can you please tell me which Imac, exactly, you have (including GPU?) We’re starting a round of Mac bug fixes (crashes, slowdown, etc.) and I want this info.
Thanks!
December 4th, 2007 at 9:45 PM
So far so good. My ATI card has not yet made those vertex triangle explosions anymore. Thank you very much for working on that bug. One odd thing in Windlight though is that at 500 meters in the sky, I can see what appears to be the ocean touching the sky horizon. This looks silly; I don’t think I should see anything but sky up there. Here is what I am seeing.
http://i6.tinypic.com/6yfghtj.jpg
Also, my avatar looks too ’shadowy’ in the face while the Environmental Settings are set to noon. This is my favorite time of day setting, and it has consistently looked bad (as far as avatars) since I started using Windlight. Here is what my avatar looks like at noon.
http://i18.tinypic.com/73b7d60.jpg
December 4th, 2007 at 9:46 PM
So. Did the on-going and multiple-thread issue marked as a ’show-stopper’ on the jira get fixed in this release, the one where the client locks up anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds at the slightest camera angle adjustment, the one that with my vote had gotten 114 votes so far on just that one proposition? I don’t see it listed above…
*sigh*
I don’t need ‘prettier’, I need ‘workable’. Here’s hoping. *fires up the new Windlight client*
December 4th, 2007 at 9:48 PM
@53 - just out of curiosity- do you *really* think this looks bad? Now, yes, I’m going to be doing lots of tweaking to light levels. But try to imagine for a sec what a real person standing in the sun at midday would look like- wouldn’t it be more like this than the previous “always bright everywhere” look?
Just playing devil’s advocate here
December 4th, 2007 at 9:52 PM
Well Pastrami, I would like a face light to work just so my face doesn’t have shadows on it. Honestly I’ve never seen anyone look that shadowy in broad daylight, lol. The regular & Candidate viewers have dark avatars too, but it is not that bad, and I can change it with the face lights. No matter what I do with facelights in Windlight, I cannot light up my face.
That’s all I want. I heard there is another setting I can adjust to fix it for now on my side, do you know what that is?
December 4th, 2007 at 10:04 PM
What a coincidence! I just finished hooking up a new RL light toy so I could rock out with light while listening to SL musicians, then logged on to see Windlight is available! Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!
I’m uneasy about what ya’ll are saying about facelight though cus Roxi don’t leave the house without her facelight.
Oh well, with every upgrade, I always go for it, so here we go!
December 4th, 2007 at 10:08 PM
Yay \o/… I download the fixed new Windlight (fixed version # that is), and * VWR-3130: WINDLIGHT - no interpolation/tweening on llSetPrimitiveParams moving attached objects, possibly unattached as well * WORKS! Yay
Will have to see if * VWR-3162 (Believe fixed - please check this one out!): WindLight: Objects, avatars, and water sometimes disappear after zooming camera * is completely fixed
December 4th, 2007 at 10:12 PM
Seems to be working well here - 10.5.1, 1.67GHz PBG4, 128MB 9700 Mobility. No significant issues noticed on Prim Hearts rides or at a friend’s home. Screenshots are working fine again for me. I’ll check out the lighting properly tomorrow.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:16 PM
To show the difference in the avatars shadows in windlight and the normal viewer, ive made pictures from 4 directions in the sunset setting in the normal viewer and in windlight to compare them.
In windlight, in 3 from the 4 directions, the avatars are covered in darkness and the other one is very orange. Don’t get me wrong, I love the effect on the skies, but I think the shadows on avatars and objects are a bit overdone! Well just see for yourself:
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj239/windlighttest/windlight_avatar_shadowing.jpg?t=1196835147
December 4th, 2007 at 10:21 PM
Pastrami, I think that “realistic” isn’t the approach you should be going for. Not until the avatar model has been improved a lot, and there’s some way of tweaking the contrast levels for prims… right now it’s screaming for the airbrush of the old lighting system.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:29 PM
2000/XP ?
What about Vista?
December 4th, 2007 at 10:40 PM
Water shaders/effects still not working vista/ATi, reopened vwr-3134, although it said resolved it’s not.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:40 PM
Appreciate the work LL. Though. I’d love it if you’d found a way to turn off the ‘Make faces look ugly’ lighting. I do so love walking at the beach now though hehe
December 4th, 2007 at 10:42 PM
If you feel the shadows on the faces and avatars are a bit overdone too, you can leave your vote on JIRA. Its very easy to vote, click login, login with your avatar name and on the left bottom click the word VOTE for this issue
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3634
December 4th, 2007 at 10:45 PM
I know this was going to happen, again LL as failed to test Bug reports. reproducing bug tht are inside the client is vry very important. look at all these cpmplients. I do understand this is a beta live release. But that doesnt forgive not to fix older bugs and these ASSumed wrongly about lighting reflections and shades. here we go again with “BUT BUT the lighting is wrong on my $1200.00 plasm screen monitor!” Fret the thought its someone high end monitor and not their lack of understand the limitations of the UI can do. Priceless but yet again tell us LL doesnt have the man power to correct problems. I love wind light but the problem is too many false bugs are being assumed without first testing them or completely finishing the testing. I keep testing windlight because i love it. But frankly speaking ( I sure hope it to removed like it was early this year )I hightly doubt well see a release of this client anytime soon.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:49 PM
I liked the clickable name tags…
December 4th, 2007 at 10:53 PM
Also.. The objects still dissapear underwater.
December 4th, 2007 at 10:54 PM
Gaybot, I don’t know what you mean-you look fine(?) Check out Mimi’s picts, now THAT is shadowy. I haven’t tried Windlight yet cause I thought there were problems with MACs (aren’t we always the last for bug fixes LOL) but I’ve been dying to. I also have an iMac - I’ll download this 1st look viewer tomorrow( goin’ to bed now) and see if I have trouble logging in… I don’t mind shadows in RL but I’ve become accustomed to light shining in my face in SL… hides all my newbie skin “blemishes” heheh
December 4th, 2007 at 11:03 PM
@53, @55, @61 —
Pastrami, I hope you don’t do too much tweaking of light levels… The goal here isn’t for it to look exactly like the old SL… as Torley said, folks are going to have to get used to new dynamic range and actual specularity and lighting falloff now.
The way it used to be, your avatar was uniformly lit no matter what. Textures were used to *compensate* for this *shortcoming* in the lighting system.
The solution isn’t flattening everything. Otherwise, the lighting model will never go forward.
@69 - I agree, he looks fine here; not ‘auto-lit’ like in the flat old shading/lighting system, but now the lighting is actually interacting with the environment.
I keep on repeating this: IF PEOPLE DON’T LIKE THE ENVIRONMENTAL LIGHTING AND SHADING, you can TURN OFF BASIC SHADERS OR ENVIRONMENTAL SHADERS.
Please do not force the rest of us to sit in the old drab SL when there are new possibilities with this rendering and lighting model.
The goal here isn’t to make it look “exactly the same as it used to with a better sky”. It’s to light everying more properly. People’s features cast shadows on themselves in the real world. In acute noon lighting, peopel do not glow.
Maybe the avatar mesh needs to be dialed up in detail, but that is a -separate- issue.
Please try turning off the shader options if you don’t like it, versus forcing the world into the old low-contrast, unshaded, self-lit way.
I can tell a few lighting tweaks have been made in this version. (Saturation seems to be up a bit?) Really I think the avatar meshes look BETTER shaded than they used to.
I think folks just need to give this a chance, now that we have -actual- lighting, versus having to rely on ‘pre-baked’ shadow textures.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:23 PM
Shakeshead FPS are a nightmare!
December 4th, 2007 at 11:26 PM
Hi;
My frustration grows!
Dear lindens… don’t you think it is time to support the
NVIDIA 8800GT ?
I bought that gc last week and this really great and absolutly fast hardware(60 fps and more, wow) seems not to be capable to show water reflections. Nor can i change the water color. In fact i can’t do anything with water! its always rendered as crapy dark blue and almoust fully transparent “idea of how water maybe could look like”
I saw more remarks like this on the web. well it is not clear, whether the drivers are incapable, or the SL integration breaks something. …
So this morning my heart jumped when i saw a windlight update is out. Yeah, i immediatley tried it out. But nothing changed for me ;-(
maybe others who own an 8800GT do not suffer from this problem ? so what did YOU do then ? (i’m on xp sp-2, asus M2N-E, bios 1202)
December 4th, 2007 at 11:31 PM
After I changed my graphics settings to “high” the new shiny was really very pretty (when set to med it had a sort of plastic like look), the best shiny I’ve seen so far in SL
Only my computer can’t really handle “high” for any longer than a couple of minutes, but I hope I won’t stay on this computer forever.
The trees are a lot better too in my opinion than they were in the previous version - well that is for the Linden trees, plants and trees that are made by content creators still don’t look that great, but my overall first impression was that they are on the right track with this windlight thing, even if my computer really seems to struggle badly with it at the moment when the pretty stuff is enabled
December 4th, 2007 at 11:34 PM
Michi, textures arent just used to compensate for the lack of shadows, they also show the difference between materials, wood, leather, fabric, metal etc.. show if a material reflects a more shiny or more diffuse light, and to add details that wouldn’t be possible just with the shape alone. (most shapes are still very primitive in secondlife, expecially due to the prim limits)
With the high contrast no matter if its wood, leather, fabric or anything else, all will look the same - a bit flat, just shape, no difference in material.
As far as the facial shadows are concerned, I think they make avatars uglier. In secondlife, most people want to look pretty, just take a look around. Most men are handsome and muscular models, most women look like superpretty size 36 photo models, everyone looks young and fresh and handsome. People who try to look realistic are sparse. There are hardly any old, overweight or balding avatars or people with imperfections. People are not in secondlife to live a realistic life, or to look realistic, most people like to live their deam lives here. So why not keep them to look pretty? I believe thats what most people want, they want to be pretty more than beeing realistic. If I wanted things to look and be exactly like in real life, I would be in real life, and not playing this game.
In real life there are shadows on people, but not as intensive as in windlight. I am not against improving things, but in windlight the shadows are fare heavier than in real life, and make avatars from 3 of the four angles covered in all shadow. Improvement is good, but the way it is now, compared to the rest, the shadows are too much.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:34 PM
Gamers and graphics specialist use excellent graphic cards, but many many many normal people (including businessmen
use onboard graphic or laptops. These machines are often equipped with intel GM graphic card or similar.
The ancient version of windlight (few months ago) worked with an intel GM graphic card. I had access to atmospheric advanced settings.
I can’t anymore. No advanced settings for water and no atmospheric. Many people are penalized as I am by the high end technical choice you doing.
Well. maybe someday you will ask us for a mainframe or a super calculator to be able to run secondlife:)
December 4th, 2007 at 11:37 PM
Hmmm. Later I perform a second connect session, I get a box to say I must upgrade/download xxx.74965 although that is already what I run the first time! Second time, I select not to run SL after the install, first time I did. Second login attempt after reinstall of same version is ok… But no statistic bar that I normally show.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:47 PM
Michi: the new lighting makes prim avatars look like hell. Prims don’t blend into each other any more, even with sculpted prims. I’d have thought that this would be a problem for you, and just about everyone you know… it certainly does for me. Until they provide the tools to allow you to specify the level of contrast and shading and how much colors should be washed out, they need to change the shading.
Change it back exactly the way it was? I don’t know. I kind of like the *overall* feel of the more dynamic lighting. But it needs to accommodate the avatars that currently exist until we have the tools to make avatars that don’t turn into Michelin Men when you shine a sunlamp on them.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:57 PM
It use to be on sl testers they did a range graphic card types test. But now the lindens are getting away with testing a range of low to higher graphic cards. We had problems in the but nothing like now. If you don`t have a middle high graphic card you more then out of luck.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:57 PM
(Very sorry to post a 2nd time…) Said I was going to bed but was just to darn curious! Downloaded Windlight and everything is gorgeous - don’t hate me
I set it to noon and wore my facelight. Honestly, I didn’t see any difference with my avatar. When I took the facelight off, though - I couldn’t see an outline of my jaw, ie: I couldn’t see where my neck ended and my face began-weird. Also, without my facelight, I seemed to have a peach-fuzz mustache. I’m a girl so, not pretty… Everything looked fine, just more vivid. My 3 Lag lights were green so I went to the Avilion sim(LOL) where I found 22 other avatars and the 1st light(client?) was yellow. The only thing was I had to “force quit”, maybe nothing to do with windlight. Thanx
December 5th, 2007 at 12:17 AM
Hi! The environment is beautiful, but all avatars are very ugly. I hope that can be fixed. It is all sooooooo very dark. And I tried all sliders, it cannot be lightened up. Even when using lights, it doesn’t show.
Avatars are really very very awful……ugly…. yuuukkkk
December 5th, 2007 at 12:19 AM
I don’t know where i should begin or end, so i’ll give a general statement:
The new WindLight Viewer is worse as the former version. Now i get round about 10-15 FPS less as in the former version. Water animation looks with 20FPS like as 5FPS (real comic style), in the former version it wasn’t. Sky rendering was in the former version also much better.
Ive used the WindLight Viewer because SL runs faster for me. Now i’m on the same framerate like the regular viewer (10-15FPS, more 10 then 15). This kills my fun.
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (Unknown model) (3207 MHz)
Memory: 1536 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 7600 GT/AGP/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.1
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.12_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 0/17558 (0.0%)
Viewer Digest: e1d191d1-0f4d-065a-3565-53fbb9937365
December 5th, 2007 at 12:33 AM
downloaded this latest windlight, tested it with different settings. it seems much better to look at but same as before, i can’t see anything when under water… reason i want to be under water is i am building a shipwreck for an event , idea being lots of free items will be places in old crates ect and scattered around and inside the wreck for people to find.. anyhoo as well as this we have some awesome fish and coral ect around the island.. i can’t see any of it using windlight and have tried various settings.. and my graphics card has the latest drivers as you can see below.
Name NVIDIA GeForce 6200
PNP Device ID PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0221&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_A1\4&3525EC23&0&0008
Adapter Type GeForce 6200, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter Description NVIDIA GeForce 6200
Adapter RAM 256.00 MB (268,435,456 bytes)
Installed Drivers nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version 6.14.11.6375
INF File oem8.inf (nv4_NV3x section)
Color Planes 1
Color Table Entries 4294967296
Resolution 1024 x 768 x 85 hertz
Bits/Pixel 32
Memory Address 0xD7000000-0xD7FFFFFF
Memory Address 0xE0000000-0xEFFFFFFF
Memory Address 0xD6000000-0xD7FFFFFF
IRQ Channel IRQ 11
I/O Port 0×000003B0-0×000003BB
I/O Port 0×000003C0-0×000003DF
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF
Driver c:\windows\system32\drivers\nv4_mini.sys (6.14.11.6375, 6.54 MB (6,854,464 bytes), 04/10/2007 18:14)
December 5th, 2007 at 12:39 AM
hahaha - typical LL - if the packet loss, and bandwidth are almost always red, just remove the display for them and throw a stupid search there. and why don’t you just fill the screen with that contacts window - go ahead and remove the graphics entirely, that would at least help the HORRIBLE LAGG - wind light - yea right!!!
meanwhile we can’t TP without crashing,
NOT impressed at all
December 5th, 2007 at 12:48 AM
I will grant you that the new lighting looks more “real”. However, I think we should be given the *option* for it not to look “real” on us, and not just to ourselves by tweaking or turning off the environmental shaders, but to everybody, or the vast majority of everybody at least. For example, I have anime-style skins in my store, and a big part of the effect is the ability to put a face lamp on and only be shadowed by the skin, making the nose appear very minimal. With shadows all over the face, the smooth, cartoonish look is completely destroyed. At least give us the ability to opt out of being covered in shadows. Please? -_-;
December 5th, 2007 at 12:50 AM
Thanks for all the hard work! It’s really nice seeing so many community concerns addressed so promptly!
The new shiny looks better in terms of backwards compatibility(I wasn’t totally happy with the way my black shiny goggles turned blue in mid-day), but I actually did like the shiny levels in that it’d be nice to have them available.
I’d really love to have a 10-level shininess option, as Argent suggested. Or possibly a 0.00 - 1.00 scaler, if that’s doable. It seems like if you can change the shininess like this between builds, it shouldn’t be overly difficult to just give us access to a variety of shininess levels; old and new alike.
Thanks again! Much love for the Windlight team! <3
December 5th, 2007 at 12:54 AM
Wow, packet loss is LL’s fault? Gosh, I should have been blaming them for all those years I worked for an ISP and packet loss was such a huge problem for so many of our customers… Oh, it was before LL existed, damn.
/snark
Seriously, that is totally why I quit customer service. Couldn’t take it always being my fault when some cruddy bit of copper wire out there in no man’s land hosed up everyone’s day. ^_^ There are a lot of reasons for crap connections. I’d bet dollars to donuts very little of it is LL’s fault.
Kudos to the Lindens for providing a consistently improving product. WindLight rocks my virtual world! Can’t wait for more fixes and improvements.
December 5th, 2007 at 1:07 AM
Great job on getting this release out and taking care of the bugs! The object occlusion issue seems to be resolved; havent noticed any glaring bugs other then some issues of disappearing particles.
Did notice an issue of particles now leading the generating object if the object is moving and the FOLLOW* attributes are used, compared to particle effects in the regular client. (Particles are client side) Posted in JIRA.
For everyone else,
I strongly recommend learning how to use the jira.secondlife.com website. If you experience an issue:
1. Search for the issue on JIRA first.
2. If you locate it, vote for it; this can add priority to major issues.
3. If you cannot find it, Create an issue ticket where others can vote for it.
4. Make sure to be as technical as possible when creating issues or commenting on existing ones as this can help speed up the bug fix/hunt process for the Lindens.
Being non technical or generally complaining can slow things up as they have to (and they do!) sift through every person’s response to recreate the problems and do what they have to do to resolve them.
JIRA.SECONDLIFE.COM — USE IT!
December 5th, 2007 at 1:38 AM
I’ve seen a MASSIVE memory leak in the Linux viewer, I mean like more than 1GB used in 10 minutes and slow response do to swap use on a box with 2GB system memory. I’m normally OK with LL slow response on problems, but this is a major problem on the release client (one Google search found a guy with 3GB system and SL using 1.5GB) and in this case it’s just 10 times worse.
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+
Memory: 2014 MB
OS Version: Linux 2.6.23.8-63.fc8 #1 SMP Wed Nov 21 17:56:40 EST 2007 x86_64
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 7800 GT/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.1 NVIDIA 100.14.19
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.12_0000000000)
December 5th, 2007 at 1:40 AM
Great tweakage so far, glad I didnt miss the boat this time around.., again!
What about more local lights? I like to use an attachment to give better lighting and reduce those dark shadows people get. But it’s a problem when more than several avatars have face lamps *and* the scene has it’s own light emitting prims… areas/avatars go dark when they should be emitting light because of the local light (6?) limitation.
December 5th, 2007 at 1:54 AM
I tested the first (new) windlight release and thought it was a reason. I haven’t tested it again since
Thats not anything wrong with it. Its just my main beefy rig is packed up in a corner at the moment.
I’m looking forward to when I can set it up and test it again. Unfortunatly my laptop doesn’t do windlight well, I have to have it in low setting (which does look just like normal SL but duller and a few normal effects turned off too) However I’m fully aware. “Better Graphics needs better hardware) and I for one don’t mind getting the better hardware. Considering PC’s with very good hardware can be obtained for £700 here, I don’t see problem
(Though I built my main rig, kinda like building lego now days)
I like the new lighting, inperticular. and I for one don’t mind the avatar shadows. Its exactly what I’d expect in real-life. Just people forget in real-life there eyes don’t really notice shadows as they adjust to the lower light levels in sunsets and such a like. I’m sure if in real life you went and sat out in a meadow with a red sun on the horizon, the side of you facing the sun would look orange, and the side not, would look very dark.
Anywho. yes I look forward to testing this again in a few weeks when I can set my rig up again. Keep up the good work Windlight Team!
December 5th, 2007 at 1:55 AM
You’re all complaining about the lighting, yet adding to the misery with those facelights. I think facelights make avies look fugly in the old viewer, with any setting but noon. They destroy local lighting effects in buildings at night, too. I think it’s horrible when someone comes along carrying their own 10m light bubble, lighting up things that shouldn’t be well lit in castles or pyramids.
I agree that environmental avatar lighting needs a lot of work, in Windlight, but, on the other hand, I’m all for changing the viewer so that the “light” feature cannot be used / will not be honored in attachments! No more fugly “flashlight-under-chin-shining-upwards” facelights, that would be progress!
December 5th, 2007 at 2:37 AM
I agree with what Maegen Parvenu @ 84 said. Shadows on avatar faces look ugly. Lighting on faces looks best if it’s the same lighting all over without defined shadows. That’s why face lights are popular. Sure, Melanie @ 91, if a face light was under the chin shining upwards that would look bad, but I have never seen a face light like that; it would be dumb. If you want to do away with face lights then some change has to be made to prevent faces from reacting to the environment in the normal way (with those ugly shadows). Preferably a setting you can adjust for how everyone sees your own avatar, not for how you see others.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:45 AM
When will be the source code available? There’s still only the old release from few weeks ago on the source downloads page.
December 5th, 2007 at 2:53 AM
Could someone from Linden Lab please phone my work IT department and tell them I have to have a graphics card update please? Thanks!
December 5th, 2007 at 2:56 AM
@86 so the blame is our connections right? :/ yea right! frankly speaking there are more bugs in windlight then are in you might think. The loss of FPS is UI side not connection.