Ditch the Facelight

[Malanya]

Yes I agree people will take things out of context on every forum and some do enjoy being the forum police, like the gems that are always correcting people's spelling and grammar. No one should apologize for their opnion, just an attack. You don't need to explain yourself, it is what it is and surely not the end of either world. I am sorry my post came accross the wrong way, I was trying to joke. We should take things lightly if it's not malicious and be able to respect both sides. BTW LOL I did notice a month ago that some outfit I was wearing had a facelight that lite up my sim and I was laughing as I could not believe how bright it was. While I neither care if people wear them or not and I have and still do at times when taking photos, I think if people were more open to constructive critism people in general would be more educated and happier sl or rl. If I can learn from someone else I find that to be of value as long as it was not presented mean. Just laugh at it all and don't regret.

[Storm Clarence]

This is my first really big facelight thread.  

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

Wait a minute... let me get this straight...

Pussycat equates people who wear facelights to griefers and Griffin is somehow being oversensitive for pointing out the ridiculousness of that assertion?  Give me a break.

Calling someone a griefer implies nefarious intent and, while it doesn't surprise me that Pussycat would take such a radical stance, it boggles my mind that anyone else, with half a brain, would support such a contentious, hyperbolic statement.

...Dres

---

No, you haven't quite got it straight.

What

Pussycat actually said

, in context, was:

---

There's some serious debate here over whether or not a person wearing facelights disrupts the lighting for others around them.

- If that is the case, then it is essentially a form of griefing. Mild as most may not be aware they are doing this to others.

---

Griffen took this to apply to him, for no good reason that I can understand, since clearly his facelights are so subdued that they can't possibly be disrupting other people's lighting.

I just wish that more people would show the good sense in adjusting their facelights so as not be obtrusive and disruptive that Griffin has shown in adjusting is.

---

I fail to see how reading it in context, which I had previously done anyway, makes it any less contentious and hyperbolic a statement.  And besides... it applies to people who wear facelights + Griffin wears facelights = it applies to Griffin... am I missing something?

...Dres

[Penny Patton]

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

I fail to see how reading it in context, which I had previously done anyway, makes it any less contentious and hyperbolic a statement.  And besides... it applies to people who wear facelights + Griffin wears facelights = it applies to Griffin... am I missing something?

...Dres

---

 

I'm going to quote a post I made earlier to try and clear this up.

 

---

Penny Patton wrote:

 I'll use pictures to see if that helps.

This;

 

Is not the same as this;

---

 If someone shows up in a sim with a dozen noselamps hanging off their avatar, a bright white glare washing out the entire area around them, breaking any local lighting created for the environment I can easily see someone equating that to griefing. It's just as disruptive, if not moreso. as if the person was wearing a particle spammer flooding my screen with Mario.

 

 

 Actually, I'll take the Mario spam. It's cute at least!

 

 Of course someone wearing a glaringly bright multi-source nose lamp is not the same thing as someone wearing a subdued, single light which is barely visibile.

 

 Hey, people like to wear particle emitters for things like teleporters and bling, are you now trying to argue that someone with a small particle effect on a piece of jewlery is exactly the same, identical, to flooding a sim with pornographic images? Because that is what you are saying when you equate obnoxiously bright, multi-source noselamps with a single, simple and subdued light source.

 

 People really need to have some context and a sense of scale before they get all bent out of shape over comments that don't even apply to them.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

---

Innula Zenovka wrote:

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

Wait a minute... let me get this straight...

Pussycat equates people who wear facelights to griefers and Griffin is somehow being oversensitive for pointing out the ridiculousness of that assertion?  Give me a break.

Calling someone a griefer implies nefarious intent and, while it doesn't surprise me that Pussycat would take such a radical stance, it boggles my mind that anyone else, with half a brain, would support such a contentious, hyperbolic statement.

...Dres

---

No, you haven't quite got it straight.

What

Pussycat actually said

, in context, was:

---

There's some serious debate here over whether or not a person wearing facelights disrupts the lighting for others around them.

- If that is the case, then it is essentially a form of griefing. Mild as most may not be aware they are doing this to others.

---

Griffen took this to apply to him, for no good reason that I can understand, since clearly his facelights are so subdued that they can't possibly be disrupting other people's lighting.

I just wish that more people would show the good sense in adjusting their facelights so as not be obtrusive and disruptive that Griffin has shown in adjusting is.

---

I fail to see how reading it in context, which I had previously done anyway, makes it any less contentious and hyperbolic a statement.  And besides... it applies to people who wear facelights + Griffin wears facelights = it applies to Griffin... am I missing something?

...Dres

---

 Do you think that Griffin's subdued facelight could possibly be disruptive of other people's lighting and view?   I don't, so I don't see how Pussycat's remarks could be taken as applying to him.

It's against the law, in my country, to play music so loud that it causes a nuisance to your neighbours.   That doesn't make it illegal to play music, though.    Only if you crank the volume up so much that it disturbs other people.   I get the impression, though, that some people here will read that and think "Oh, good heavens, Innula thinks anyone who listens to music is a criminal".

[Griffin Ceawlin]

It's apparent to me that no matter how subdued my attached lighting, there are some who will still see me as a griefer. As I said, there was no "if" in Pussycat's first "facelight user = griefer" statement.

SL only renders the 3 (or 6?) nearest light sources. So when you wear a facelight, you screw up lighting for anyone near you. Its essentially a -mild- form of griefing. Mild only because most people doing it don't know they are causing this impact to local lighting.

Even if I'm not a griefer, I'm vain, selfish and possibly destructive to the community.

Over-sensitive? I don't know. Am I?

[Griffin Ceawlin]

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

Some posters here are quite happy to make a solid black-white answer on Facelights: the whole thread is filled with people saying NO, NOT EVER, NOT IN MY SL. To my eyes, that's the attitude that Griffin's fighting.

---

Thank you! That's exactly the attitude that I'm fighting. I'm not defending the use of facelights to grief (and yes, I know they can be used to grief) nor am I defending or excusing the use of overly bright ones. Unfortunately, there are those who, because they have decided that they don't like facelights, nobody should use them. Ever.

[Griffin Ceawlin]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

While I would never call someone who wears a Facelight a 'griefer,' yes, they do cause me grief In World.  Lot's of it.  So am I supposed to never say anything at all?  Is it wrong of me to ask another resident if they are aware of the problems their Facelight is causing other people?  Do I not have an equal right to be able to enjoy a venue with out it washing out my enjoyment of the World?  Where and how do we find the balance?

---

No, it is absolutely your right to point out to people that their facelights are causing issues for you. I've done it myself. I'll TP someone over to wherever I am and it's as if they've gone supernova. Usually they're not even aware of how bright it is and are happy to comply.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Griffin Ceawlin wrote:

It's apparent to me that no matter how subdued my attached lighting, there are some who will still see me as a griefer. As I said, there was no "if" in Pussycat's first "facelight user = griefer" statement.

SL only renders the 3 (or 6?) nearest light sources. So when you wear a facelight, you screw up lighting for anyone near you.

Its essentially a -mild- form of griefing

. Mild

only

because most people doing it don't know they are causing this impact to local lighting.

Even if I'm not a griefer, I'm vain, selfish and possibly destructive to the community.

Over-sensitive? I don't know. Am I?

---

I didn't take Pussycat's comments that way, I have to say.  

I guess the only person who can say what she meant is Pussycat herself, but all I can say is that, when I used to wear my facelights -- which I had on what seem to be similar settings to yours -- I wouldn't have taken her remarks as suggesting she thought I was a griefer, because -- since I understand reasonably well how local lights work, or worked before we had deferred rendering ("Lighting and Shadow"), which is where the 6 light sources (plus sun and moon) comes in -- I knew what settings I was using, and what their effects were,  and, in consequence, knew that there was no possibility of my facelights interferring with anything very much unless I was right next to somebody or right next to a very delicate lighting effect.

So if anyone had told me my facelights were causing problems I would have been sceptical in the extreme and wouldn't have given the matter much thought.

However, I know -- because it's (almost literally) blindingly obvious -- that a lot of people have no idea at all what their lights look like to other people, and can never -- probably because they don't know to -- have used Show Light Radius for Selection to see what their lights actually are doing.   

In a way, I don't blame people for it.  I don't regard builders, for example, who make candles that throw out as much light as an arc lamp as griefers, just incompetent, and they have far less excuse.

 

[Coby Foden]

Something like this is natural - a visible light source lighting up the surroundings.
It would look natural in SL too.  It would be ok.

On the other hand, an invisible light source lighting up the avatar, nearby other avatars, objects, ground, is not natural.
It just looks weird, out of place.

[Syo Emerald]

Then we all need to carry some lamps and candles around with us, nearly all the time. Most clubs, buildings and locations doesn't over any kind of natural light. And just be honest: Human avatars look ugly as hell without some light, cause of the clumsy way the faces are made. You have unnatural shadows there and the light gives it a much smoother look.

And I think thats the main issue, cause I haven't seen a furry with facelight yet and don't need to use one for my own furry avatar, cause her face looks smooth in every lightsetting.

[Penny Patton]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

Then we all need to carry some lamps and candles around with us, nearly all the time. Most clubs, buildings and locations doesn't over any kind of natural light. And just be honest: Human avatars look ugly as hell without some light, cause of the clumsy way the faces are made. You have unnatural shadows there and the light gives it a much smoother look.

And I think thats the main issue, cause I haven't seen a furry with facelight yet and don't need to use one for my own furry avatar, cause her face looks smooth in every lightsetting.

---

 

Honestly, noselamps tend to make people look worse, not better. I'd recommend altering your windlight settings before donning an invisible light source.

 

 Tho it's true, most places in SL do have terrible lighting, or no lighting at all. Lighting and sound design are two of the most overlooked parts of environment building in SL.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

Then we all need to carry some lamps and candles around with us, nearly all the time. Most clubs, buildings and locations doesn't over any kind of natural light. And just be honest: Human avatars look ugly as hell without some light, cause of the clumsy way the faces are made. You have unnatural shadows there and the light gives it a much smoother look.

And I think thats the main issue, cause I haven't seen a furry with facelight yet and don't need to use one for my own furry avatar, cause her face looks smooth in every lightsetting.

---

That was the case a few years ago, when I started, before Windlight.   But now there's absolutely no way of predicting what any particular user is going to see.   They may see 6 local light sources (plus the sun and moon) or they may see as many as are in view distance, depending on whether they've got Lighting and Shadows turned on or not.   They may see the default SL lighting setting for the time of day, or they may see whatever the sim owner has set as the sim default, or they may see the scene as rendered through any one of the dozens of different Windlight settings that come with most viewers (either as a single unchanging lighting environment or as replacements for the regular time of day settings).   They might or might not see attached lights, depending on whether they've set their viewer to see them.

Facelights were a reasonable enough solution four or five years ago.   Now, however, there's absolutely no way to control how you or other people look to anyone other than yourself, in your own viewer.   And certainly some facelights look great in some windlight settings and hideous in others (because of what they do to your face, not because of what they do to the environment).   

To my mind, it's best now to accept that your avatar isn't necessarily going to look the way you want it to anyone but you,  that you can normally achieve the look you want far more easily by adjusting your Windlight settings than with a facelight, and only using facelights for specialist purposes like photography.

 

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

Something like this is natural -

a visible light source

lighting up the surroundings.

It would look natural in SL too.  It would be ok.

 

On the other hand,

an invisible light source

lighting up the avatar, nearby other avatars, objects, ground, is not natural.

It just looks weird, out of place.

---

The juxtaposition of these two pics, along with your evaluation of what looks "natural" and what looks weird, is laughable.  SL is not RL.  While it would not be natural to see someone with an invisible light surrounding them or suddenly appearing out of thin air or talking without moving their lips or suddenly changing clothes like Superman or taking off and flying around, also like Superman, or being three inches tall or being 80 feet tall, etc. etc. in RL, in SL, it most certainly is.

If, at any point, SL would suddenly be forced to have to look just like RL, I'd go find somewhere else to play.  I mean, come on... how boring would that be? :matte-motes-big-grin-squint:

...Dres

[Baloo Uriza]

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

---

Coby Foden wrote:

Something like this is natural -

a visible light source

lighting up the surroundings.

It would look natural in SL too.  It would be ok.

 

On the other hand,

an invisible light source

lighting up the avatar, nearby other avatars, objects, ground, is not natural.

It just looks weird, out of place.

---

The juxtaposition of these two pics, along with your evaluation of what looks "natural" and what looks weird, is laughable.  SL is not RL.

---

Why throw out the prototype when keeping it goes a long way towards suspension of disbelief and immersiveness?

[Charolotte Caxton]

One of the groups I belong to put out a free gift yesterday. As so often happens, there were several avatars at the landing spot when I arrived. Everything was so bright that I wondered what Windlight setting I had forgot to set back to default.

Well, of course, it was 6 lights surrounding a ten foot tall woman. 

I derendered attached lights and everything went back to normal.

I had been waiting for her to get her gift and go, I even considered talking to her about it, but she was so huge I was scared.

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Baloo Uriza wrote:

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

The juxtaposition of these two pics, along with your evaluation of what looks "natural" and what looks weird, is laughable.  SL is not RL.

---

Why throw out the prototype when keeping it goes a long way towards suspension of disbelief and immersiveness?

---

I'm not advocating throwing out anything... you are.  If you lack the imagination to appreciate such things that you can only find in SL, that's your problem... not mine.

...Dres

[Innula Zenovka]

---

Dresden Ceriano wrote:

---

Coby Foden wrote:

Something like this is natural -

a visible light source

lighting up the surroundings.

It would look natural in SL too.  It would be ok.

 

On the other hand,

an invisible light source

lighting up the avatar, nearby other avatars, objects, ground, is not natural.

It just looks weird, out of place.

---

The juxtaposition of these two pics, along with your evaluation of what looks "natural" and what looks weird, is laughable.  SL is not RL.  While it would not be natural to see someone with an invisible light surrounding them or suddenly appearing out of thin air or talking without moving their lips or suddenly changing clothes like Superman or taking off and flying around, also like Superman, or being three inches tall or being 80 feet tall, etc. etc. in RL, in SL, it most certainly is.

If, at any point, SL would suddenly be forced to have to look just like RL, I'd go find somewhere else to play.  I mean, come on... how boring would that be? :matte-motes-big-grin-squint:

...Dres

---

I'd find that argument rather more persuasive if I thought the glowing woman in the second picture actually intended to look that way.    In my experience of experimenting with lighting effects, with an alt logged in at the same time, very bright face lights like that don't look anything near as bright to the person wearing them as they do to everyone else

And also, of course, that line of argument ignores the fact that, while we can be pretty much whatever we want to be in SL, there's a time and a place for everything.   I have a wonderful giant brass steampunk avatar, which floats about 20 meters off the ground and throws out clouds of smoke, but I wouldn't use it to go shopping or to clubs.

[Baloo Uriza]

So, "up yours, I'm selfish" is your answer to everything?  Nice attitude.

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Penny Patton wrote:

Honestly, noselamps tend to make people look worse, not better. I'd recommend altering your windlight settings before donning an invisible light source.

---

This first sentence is completely disingenuous.  Lighting just doesn't effect avatar mesh the way it would a human face... certain lighting conditions bring out the worst in an avatar's face, no matter how great your skin is.  The problem with altering your windlight settings is that, often, a specific windlight setting can add a great deal of atmosphere to a location.  I'd like to be able to enjoy that atmosphere without having to look like a monster while I'm there, especially if I wanna take a pic of my avatar in such a setting... which happens often.

I'm all for educating people as to the best possible etiquette for face light usage, but statements such as this are just counterproductive.  I'd be much more inclined to point people toward using a less intrusive face light than none at all or just telling them to play with settings of which they probably have little knowledge.

...Dres

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Baloo Uriza wrote:

So, "up yours, I'm selfish" is your answer to everything?  Nice attitude.

---

You obviously have very little understanding of the English language or you're just a contentious ass.

...Dres

[Dresden Ceriano]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

The juxtaposition of these two pics, along with your evaluation of what looks "natural" and what looks weird, is laughable.  SL is not RL.  While it would not be natural to see someone with an invisible light surrounding them or suddenly appearing out of thin air or talking without moving their lips or suddenly changing clothes like Superman or taking off and flying around, also like Superman, or being three inches tall or being 80 feet tall, etc. etc. in RL, in SL, it most certainly is.

If, at any point, SL would suddenly be forced to have to look just like RL, I'd go find somewhere else to play.  I mean, come on... how boring would that be? :matte-motes-big-grin-squint:

...Dres

---

I'd find that argument rather more persuasive if I thought the glowing woman in the second picture actually intended to look that way.    In my experience of experimenting with lighting effects, with an alt logged in at the same time, very bright face lights like that don't look anything near as bright to the person wearing them as they do to everyone else

And also, of course, that line of argument ignores the fact that, while we can be pretty much whatever we want to be in SL, there's a time and a place for everything.   I have a wonderful giant brass steampunk avatar, which floats about 20 meters off the ground and throws out clouds of smoke, but I wouldn't use it to go shopping or to clubs.

---

This has nothing to do with my statement.  I'm not advocating the wearing of invisible super troopers, but merely pointing out that face lights are part of the SL experience and should be expected... why everyone is so up in arms about this, I can't understand.

...Dres

[Syo Emerald]

So you want to say I can't see when my avatar looks horrible and when she looks normal?

I have made so many experiances, looked at so many different avatar designs....its always any human face that fails with its look when no lights are around. Using a tiny little source of light gets that problem away....but no, you say its quite better to work through a huge menu to figure this damn windlight stuff out.....and this whole process for every region again and again and again......

I can't influence how others will see me, but as long as I look beautiful I'm happy.

[Penny Patton]

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Dresden Ceriano wrote:

This first sentence is completely disingenuous.  

---

 

No, it's really not. First of all, most people don't set up their facelights to get that subdued reduction of face shadows they are hoping for, instead getting the flaring washed out look that disrupts the scene for everyone. Second, even when they do manage a more subdued look it looks out of place and unnatural, breaking immersion and disbelief. In other words, it looks bad.

 

 Second of all, yes certain windlight settings can add to the atmosphere of a location, so does lighting. So wearing a light around can add or detract from a scene depending (which is another reason attachments like lanterns and flashlights can be good in the proper environment for them while invisible light sources pretty much always detract). 

 Meanwhile, yes it's possible to maintain a sense of atmospher while altering the windlight settings to decrease the shadows on one's avatar. Many third party viewers come with such settings standard now.

 In addition, regarding photos, those are a use case where attached lighting for the purpose of composing an image are very suitable. The idea is to make the lighting look natural enough in relation to the background, while allowing the viewer of the image to easily assume the light sources are a part of the environment or offscreen. There are people who get paid to do this in real life. This illusion is broken if the viewer can see you freeling moving about the environment with no visible light source, which sets of alarms in the back of the viewer's mind, breaking immersion.

[Penny Patton]

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Syo Emerald wrote:

...but no, you say its quite better to work through a huge menu to figure this damn windlight stuff out.....and this whole process for every region again and again and again.......

---

Somehow I'm extremely skeptical that you use a unique windlight setting for every region you go to. Also, since you say you're not familiar with the windlight control panel, you are able to create a windlight setting and save it, using it again later simply by selecting the preset from a list.

But, no, I'm not even saying everyone should need to create their own custom windlight settings. The default windlight settings are seriously crap. They make SL look awful and they make the SL avatar look awful. Ideally, LL would provide better windlight settings, including better defaults since the defaults are what most people stick to all the time.

In a perfect world, LL would have improved the SL avatar mesh years ago. It's a poorly made model and this issue is just one of many that stems from that problem.

 

 In the meantime, I'm merely suggesting that altering your windlight settings can help get rid of those mesh imperfections better than a facelight, without disrupting the experience of anyone else.