Facelights and Shadow Rendering

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

I have noticed some people using incredibly intense facelights, since I started using shadow rendering. The normal lighting of a scene is a little different, a little brighter by maybe half a stop, in photographic terms, but facelights are are grossly over bright, at least three stops, burning out colour out to 10m distance in some cases. It seems that the old OpenGL limit on the number of light sources rendered may have gone, but that doesn't explain why just these light sources are so bright when shadow rendering is on.

Does anyone know what is going on? I struggle with finding things in the JIRA system: is there an entry which covers this?

There is a work around, an option in the Advanced/Developer menus to switch off attached lights, but that would also affect stuff like the lamp on a Miner's helmet (which would probably be affected by the problem as well).

[Nia Frostypaws]

Hi WolfBaginski. Under deferred rendering (aka 'Lights and Shadows'), there is really no limit on the amount of lights that can be rendered in the scene. A friend of mine and I did a test and we managed to get a whole 11,000 lights rendering until our frame rates simply nose dived.

The reason behind facelights looking brighter is not just because of the unlimited light limit, but the light rendering is generally more realistic (it's per pixel instead of per vertex). Lights under deferred rendering also easily stack on top of one another, which is why some face lights look ridiculously bright.

Unfortunately, the only way to get rid of them is either turn off attached lights as you've mentioned, or mute the person (if they don't kindly remove them, that is).

Hope this helps!

[Seven Overdrive]

I too have noticed this issue since recently being able to finally turn on shadows.  Blinding facelights have always been an issue, but have become more noticeable with the addition of shadows for me.  When I encounter someone using the sun for a facelight, I will ask them about it, and you would be amazed at how many of them don't even have local lights turned on.   

Usually a snapshot showing them how washed out they look is enough to convince them to remove it.  If that doesn't work then I just derender them.

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

I've done a little research, and it also looks as though facelights are badly designed. They don't, for instance. need to light everything within 10 metres, and at full brightness. If you're standing in a pool of light, 9it's bad design

An Example of Photo Studio Lighting

The basic sun in SL isn't a good setup, especially at Midday. But you can get some good lighting with a couple of lights 

I'm told that the look of AV faces is why some people want to see the glow option on AVs, I think we'd get better results if the virtual sun was at 60 degrees above the southern horizon at noon, rather than exactly overhead, because glow is so easy to abuse.

 

 

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Turn off attached lights. Develop->Rendering->Render Attached Lights

Regardless of that, people using facelights are inconsiderate (I'm putting it polite).

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

Yeah, that works.

Well-hidden, isn't it.

The same problem seems to afflict a lot of "scenery" lighting. Switch on Shadows, and half the room is burnt out by the lights. I spent a while re-working a horrible facelight into something that looked good. Good facelights are possible, but the results depend on the onlloker's viewer.

 

 

[Seven Overdrive]

I use a facelight, but it is very subtle and I see no difference with shadows on or off.  Multiple light sources in the same area are definitely more intense with shadows on though.  

[Coby Foden]

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Jenni Darkwatch wrote:

Turn off attached lights. Develop->Rendering->Render Attached Lights.

Regardless of that, people using facelights are inconsiderate (I'm putting it polite).

---

Yes, there is that setting. Turning off attached lights is not so good solution. Why? If I turn them off so that I cannot see them it creates a problem. How do I know if somebody standing near me is wearing sun bright facelight? Their facelight will burn my textures too to all those people who have not turned attached lights off in their viewer.  I don't want that. I want to appear naturally lit by the environment lighting to everybody, not lit by some silly excessively bright facelight.

When I keep the attached lights feature on in my viewer then I can see if a sun wearer is near me and I can move further away from the burning light.

Facelight wearers are really very inconsiderate. We don't need facelights in RL, why should we need them in SL, I wonder? Environmental lighting varies in both worlds. Sometimes it flatters our appearance, sometimes not. That's natural, facelights are not.

Enough said..

[Sharie Criss]

People use facelights because the SL avatar mesh is so horrible. The sharp lines cause horrendous shadowing and whatnot that face lights "fix." Some of those mesh issues can be mitigated to a certain extent by playing with the shape sliders, but - it's not a viable solution for many. That said, I can't stand facelights and have a welcome message at my landing point asking people to disable or remove them as they "destroy the carefully created local lighting." Some facelights are worse than others - some are very subtle, close to the avatar's face at a very low intensity and those aren't so much of a problem. It's the facelights with 10 or so lights arrayed around the avatar all at max that are just horrible.

[Eve Greymoon]

Wolf ctrl+alt+t to see invisible and find the facelight attachement floating around the avatar.  Then right click the object and derender it.  Or just skip that highlight invisible objects step and right click and derender the whole avatar.  That's what I do with offensively bright facelights. 

[Paul Hexem]

Another problem is a lot of creators in SL are running toasters with monitors connected to them, so they don't have the graphics turned up high enough to see the mess they're creating.

Some don't even have lights enabled at all.

[SappaDallagio]

I agree Wolf. Some builds are so dark... nearly absolute... that I resort to carrying around the default library "Torch!" just so I can see where I'm going. Now, if I were to turn off the attached lights viewer feature to avoid the blinding facelights, I'd also be turning off my Torch!. Then again, in a build that is so dark, perhaps befriending someone with a ring of intense facelights might not be so bad...