Baked shadows

[Paul Hexem]

Why do so many merchants put baked shadows/shadow prims on their products, and brag about it (something tells me it's ripped from a website where shadows have to be baked on, but we won't get into that).

I mean, nothing's worse than looking at a  build at sunrise and seeing the correct shadows on one side, and sunset shadows on the other. It looks stupid, and nowhere near worth what creators charge for it.

Worse, they get offended if you ask if they offer a version without baked shadows.

[Pamela Galli]

I add a shadow under everything because not everyone can turn shadows on. However, everyone can unlink the shadow prim or turn the shadow transparent. 

 

If you think "nothing's worse" than this, I am afraid you are in for a very big surprise.

[Sassy Romano]

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Gadget Portal wrote:

Why do so many merchants put baked shadows/shadow prims on their products, and brag about it (something tells me it's ripped from a website where shadows have to be baked on, but we won't get into that).

I mean, nothing's worse than looking at a  build at sunrise and seeing the correct shadows on one side, and sunset shadows on the other. It looks stupid, and nowhere near worth what creators charge for it.

---

I agree with Pamela, it's because so few have shadows enabled.  Same will happen with materials since it requires advanced lighting to be enabled and it's not even an option until the graphics setting between mid and high.

So I suspect that we'll still have high poly mesh and baked details simply because low poly mesh + normals is only going to look good enough for people with higher spec machines with advanced lighting on.  Turn it off and pop goes the normal map and you're now wearing a low poly lump.  I could be wrong but we'll see.

[Paul Hexem]

Well, your case is slightly different- being able to unlink it is significant. Then it works for high and low graphics settings. That's smart.

It's the ones where there's no options (for example, no mod so it can't be unlinked) that are the problem.

[Paul Hexem]

I'm already seeing objects being offered with both options. Materials and non-materials. And that said, materials detail is much, much different than a gigantic shadow that defies the sun in the sky, and shows up in the middle of the night.

[Sassy Romano]

Ok, if you're just referring to a shadow floor prim then yes, I assumed you were referring to baked shadows on things like clothing and furniture, ambient occlusion and such like or more complex shadows.

 

[Paul Hexem]

Yeah, I don't mean clothes or highlighting type shadows. I'm talking about floor shadows. I saw a mesh house the other day- there were thick shadows being cast on the floor from the window frames... No matter what you did with the sun or the lights. Middle of the night, dark out, with interior lights on, and you're looking at rays of artificial sun and shadows cast by them. Baked into the texture. The creator's suggestion? "Turn off your day cycle and just leave it on sunset."

[LepreKhaun]

Some months ago I found an all mesh store on the MP with five-star reviews about the "exquisite and realistic textures" used. Being a careful consumer, I went to their inworld shop and found their product line to be every bit of that. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that they had their sim sun locked into position to display these "in the best light".

 

It now sits in my inventory, an expensive (several k L$), beautiful but broken clock. You know, one that tells the correct time twice a day.

[Pamela Galli]

---

LepreKhaun wrote:

Some months ago I found an all mesh store on the MP with five-star reviews about the "exquisite and realistic textures" used. Being a careful consumer, I went to their inworld shop and found their product line to be every bit of that. Unfortunately, I failed to notice that they had their sim sun locked into position to display these "in the best light".

 

It now sits in my inventory, an expensive (several k L$), beautiful but broken clock. You know, one that tells the correct time twice a day.

---

I don't get what the problem is with a sim being sun locked. Why would that render an exquisite mesh useless?

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I don't get it. 

DId they advertise it as having baked textures and it didn't? 

Otherwise you could have used your personal controls to 'unlock' the sun and check it out under different light conditions if that was important to you.

 

[Amethyst Jetaime]

I have to agree with you about baked textures. 

Even before shadows was available as an option, baked textures only show the build at one time of day.  They always have looked strange to me at other times of day and even stranger at night.  What was intended to add realism, only was realistic one time per day.

I do put shadow prims under furnishings I make but, like Pam, I make the prims mod and so they can be removed.  I look forward to the day when I won't even have to do that anymore.

[Sassy Romano]

---

Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

I do put shadow prims under furnishings I make but, like Pam, I make the prims mod and so they can be removed.  I look forward to the day when I won't even have to do that anymore.

---

Just a thought, the sim time can be retrieved and the angle of the object, via script, you could move the shadow about on that shadow prim

(It might still look artificial but would be fun to try)

[Pamela Galli]

I usually just bake AO onto things, and will probably always do that. Once in a while I will add a bit of shadow but not anything that would conflict with SL shadows. I will probably always put a little shadow directly under everything, just to give a bit of AO effect.

[Nacy Nightfire]

I think alot of folks who texure their houses with  built-in dramatic shadowing expect you to view it as a piece of art  that takes precedence over the customer's preferences relating to how the sun to rises and set.  A bit pretentious, imo.

I don't believe you are correct, however, in suspecting that the presence of dramatic shadowing in a mesh signals  that the houses (or objects) are ripped.  It's a lot of fun to bake dramatic shadows and I think many creators just get a bit carried away with it. It's like too much ambient occlusion.  It gets overdone and  it  won't be appreciated by customers who see their houses as something they enjoy personalizing.

I think its a good rule to never use baked in shadows and highlights for anything that will be exterior to a house.  And for inside texturing of a house , dramatic baked shadows should be sold as an option  with   non-directional ao "shadowing being standard.  

Bear in mind my opinion is free for the asking and worth every penny.

[Paul Hexem]

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Amethyst Jetaime wrote:

I have to agree with you about baked textures. 

Even before shadows was available as an option, baked textures only show the build at one time of day.  They always have looked strange to me at other times of day and even stranger at night.  What was intended to add realism, only was realistic one time per day.

I do put shadow prims under furnishings I make but, like Pam, I make the prims mod and so they can be removed.  I look forward to the day when I won't even have to do that anymore.

---

Bingo. It's like a broken clock that's only right twice a day. Worthless for otherwise.

[Poenald Palen]

It looks better, they don't wish to serve the market that enables shadows so much primarly because they themselves don't see shadows and the primary reason...someone else did it, made money and now they want to as well.

One thing we can ALL do is move the sun! If you think it looks silly, they surely would laugh and say "move the sun!" and if you don't wish to they just shrug.

Not responding to someone asking to GIVE them money and possibly also indicating a product feature thay might lead to more sales? Well, SL is a bit slow and you quickly find there is little money.

Which is why there are few shadow scripts, which became easier now link based changes can be done from on script.

There are some, I have seen a shadow script that uses a dark prim, obviously transparent would help the illusion and makign mesh shapes and modifying the script to work with them AND putting on a nice shoftened texture makes it all the more fun.

Yes, not many people do this...but then again why are you here complaining when you could be working on a tutorial, script set (of course sellable for some L$) and arranging to hold classes to get users up to speed on how they to can have fancy looking MOVING shadows in thier product so their items will surpass these simple one (of course a few looks at the prices make them see they are spending wisely on your class and scripts!) and...well, AH you see why they don't want to do the work. It doesn't pay enough.

Not enough money. This explains so much in life, so much in SL especially lol.

WHy. Not enough money. Not enough tojustify doing the changes you wanted, not enough to afford the graphics card that means they would be able to check it against the SL shadows and add balance, not enough time to learn programming and make a method and not enough earnings to justify a full product after learning this is possible.

You can tell where the sun is in SL, the rest is geometry....another reason why you see many things in life the way they are.

They hate math. Not enough money. I hate math. Add to that something about good and evil being you and some other, us and them, one political party or another (depsite the fact there are like 20 parties, they tell you you waste a vote if you don't support one or the other AND you are basically good or evil and they are good) so...yeah, simple stuff really.

I have to leave. I don't have enough money and must go earn some, I wouldn't mind working on some math though but I don'[t have enough money and evil people would just steal my work OR rip it to make more money as a whore in SL, ironically while laying on thier backs beside a shadow using the system I made in a ripped sky box they give to someone who said to them "I don't have enough money" and then they said, "how much do you have" and they said "I don't know how many real dollars I need for that many linden dollars, I hate math" and then they got into talking about how "evil" SL merchants are, they beleive stuff about making money for stuff they don't deserve and they know someone who is not like them, a good person....a person who actaully steals stuff, right?

I am guessing this is what people are getting at, but I don't really have much to do with this. I think it is sad people spend money on stuff that is ripped, I make very little in life and don't steal and virutal whore (or real for that matter, heck doubt I could make much lol)  and the whole death before dishonor thing is funny stuff to laugh about, but I bet it hurts like hell to starve or get mugged violently in the ghetto so it is hard for me to blame some for the life they lead and I leave that up to some higher power, or at least themselves to try not to hurt themselves in the process of helpign themselves and more importantly not hurt others. People don't understand how poor some creators are, pc's are many times surplus stuff and some people do know math, don't see a dead computer at the side of the road as "evil" headache and will take a screw driver to that sucker and fix it! Blender is free, mesh makers are not all rich evil swines trying to starve everyonoe by forcing to buy mesh and leave poor starving internet voice chat whores without gas money so they can play bingo you know! I really am not speaking about people specifically, but the bingo bit reminds me of the people with "no money" I have heard about locally, they gamble as if it is enterprise. Even investment in sklils doesn't pay off, you can bake soem stupid shadows into something because it is all the GPU power you have and laern all this BS and make hardly anything. people in CG at game companies complain about working conditions, salary jobs and you are expected to stay up all day and night to push for deadlines and you get almos bullied into it because you have to be a "team player" and fit in.

Then don't get me started on war and women getting thier breasts beaten by mothers trying to avoid thier daughters getting raped because Allah says women are evil...they must have voted for the wrong politicians and didn't have enough money to afford to learn how to do math, which no one wants to do anyway because they hate it.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

Whoever the merchant was they missed a trick not taking your feedback

I have done baked shadows (there are people who wanted them) but also I either add a texture pack so they can switch it to none, or have scripted them on and off so people can switch them on/off, offered two versions ones with soft shadows and one with baked in light maps etc - and they are always mod/copy/designed in a way so people can fiddle and even retexture etc  on mesh and so on and so on.

Merchants/Customers evolve.   Right now a lot more people want just the soft shadows than the hard baked in ones so that's what I am doing.  People's kit to seems to be generally upgrading but there is a still a core on old machines who can't use shadows who love the format.  

The other day a customer told me they hate MLP and gave me reasons why - I switched back to Perfect Sitter and people were delighted even with less poses.   

Listening to your customer is key always.

[Paul Hexem]

---

Poenald Palen wrote:

It looks better, they don't wish to serve the market that enables shadows so much primarly because they themselves don't see shadows and the primary reason...someone else did it, made money and now they want to as well.

One thing we can ALL do is move the sun! If you think it looks silly, they surely would laugh and say "move the sun!" and if you don't wish to they just shrug.

Not responding to someone asking to GIVE them money and possibly also indicating a product feature thay might lead to more sales? Well, SL is a bit slow and you quickly find there is little money.

Which is why there are few shadow scripts, which became easier now link based changes can be done from on script.

There are some, I have seen a shadow script that uses a dark prim, obviously transparent would help the illusion and makign mesh shapes and modifying the script to work with them AND putting on a nice shoftened texture makes it all the more fun.

Yes, not many people do this...but then again why are you here complaining when you could be working on a tutorial, script set (of course sellable for some L$) and arranging to hold classes to get users up to speed on how they to can have fancy looking MOVING shadows in thier product so their items will surpass these simple one (of course a few looks at the prices make them see they are spending wisely on your class and scripts!) and...well, AH you see why they don't want to do the work. It doesn't pay enough.

Not enough money. This explains so much in life, so much in SL especially lol.

WHy. Not enough money. Not enough tojustify doing the changes you wanted, not enough to afford the graphics card that means they would be able to check it against the SL shadows and add balance, not enough time to learn programming and make a method and not enough earnings to justify a full product after learning this is possible.

You can tell where the sun is in SL, the rest is geometry....another reason why you see many things in life the way they are.

They hate math. Not enough money. I hate math. Add to that something about good and evil being you and some other, us and them, one political party or another (depsite the fact there are like 20 parties, they tell you you waste a vote if you don't support one or the other AND you are basically good or evil and they are good) so...yeah, simple stuff really.

I have to leave. I don't have enough money and must go earn some, I wouldn't mind working on some math though but I don'[t have enough money and evil people would just steal my work OR rip it to make more money as a whore in SL, ironically while laying on thier backs beside a shadow using the system I made in a ripped sky box they give to someone who said to them "I don't have enough money" and then they said, "how much do you have" and they said "I don't know how many real dollars I need for that many linden dollars, I hate math" and then they got into talking about how "evil" SL merchants are, they beleive stuff about making money for stuff they don't deserve and they know someone who is not like them, a good person....a person who actaully steals stuff, right?

I am guessing this is what people are getting at, but I don't really have much to do with this. I think it is sad people spend money on stuff that is ripped, I make very little in life and don't steal and virutal whore (or real for that matter, heck doubt I could make much lol)  and the whole death before dishonor thing is funny stuff to laugh about, but I bet it hurts like hell to starve or get mugged violently in the ghetto so it is hard for me to blame some for the life they lead and I leave that up to some higher power, or at least themselves to try not to hurt themselves in the process of helpign themselves and more importantly not hurt others. People don't understand how poor some creators are, pc's are many times surplus stuff and some people do know math, don't see a dead computer at the side of the road as "evil" headache and will take a screw driver to that sucker and fix it! Blender is free, mesh makers are not all rich evil swines trying to starve everyonoe by forcing to buy mesh and leave poor starving internet voice chat whores without gas money so they can play bingo you know! I really am not speaking about people specifically, but the bingo bit reminds me of the people with "no money" I have heard about locally, they gamble as if it is enterprise. Even investment in sklils doesn't pay off, you can bake soem stupid shadows into something because it is all the GPU power you have and laern all this BS and make hardly anything. people in CG at game companies complain about working conditions, salary jobs and you are expected to stay up all day and night to push for deadlines and you get almos bullied into it because you have to be a "team player" and fit in.

Then don't get me started on war and women getting thier breasts beaten by mothers trying to avoid thier daughters getting raped because Allah says women are evil...they must have voted for the wrong politicians and didn't have enough money to afford to learn how to do math, which no one wants to do anyway because they hate it.

---

WTF? 

[Poenald Palen]

lol, yeah, the world has problems...bigger than shadows baked in.

Simple answer: It looks bad to you but it looks better than non shaded stuff and they figure you move the sun to match it if you wish for more realism. Simple really.

Plus, someone could script up something better. There has even been a script that moved a dark color prim around with the suns position, making it look like a sqaure hard shadow! Obvouisly, texture it and modify the code a bit for size and so on and you end up with shadows that work with the sun and work for everyone!

But, why hasn't anyone done that? The answer lies in why many will not make a unbaked shadow version, not enough time, they don't want to do the brain work (primarily math or programming a nifty script that helps them batch bake textures and even maybe a LSL script to texture with thos batch baked textures) and basically not enough money in it for those who can do it.
 

But, after all this is a world in which we live with things we don't like, stuff we don't want to see or hear about. There are bigger problems, as mentioned earlier on you yourself may be able to program or create this sytem of shadows, make a few simple ones that work with many objects (chairs are roughly similar to several looks so make really soft shadows and it becomes sort of beleivable enough) but...yeah, you either a) don't see enough money in it b) can't see the point, it is a bunch of math and programming or c)....you know I can't remember the other one....basically there are more important things though. Life goes one, even with the horrors of shadows baked in and also atrocious activities against other humans by animals who deem themselves preempting trouble....like superman with a hot pocker burning loas lanes face because she may get raped....maybe he could circumcise her instead though, they could always put a camera shot that doesn't show nudity huh? Yeah, that is thier stance. Messed up stuff, way worse then the shadows issue. So, perspective...now you may feel less upset over baked in shadows?

The post is simply a set of solutions, answers and so on. I beleive this is what most posts contain, if one where to include the actual language it may be much meaner. Like "Who cares :rolleyes: there are worse things, just buy something else or make your own if you don't like it" and maybe a sig of some terrible thing that needs to be solved, maybe something funny or crazy instead...so, yeah something like that there to.

Essentially it was the ultimate post. Ultimate as being almost all inclusive of forums responses, but I didn't godwin or do the personallities completly and did do my best to be actually helpful while beinig very wierd. Forums are both helpful and weird, though this one not so weird.

What can I say, if I tried haiku's it may be more successful? Nah, people don't get enough info so this one has more info in it. Something from a few perspectives, not all. I missed a whole bunch of stuff, I can't jsut flow the whole net you know, this is hard to do and sometimes takes an hour or two! I rewrite sometimes 2-3 or more times, my fingers blast out 500+ easily, then sometimes again and again, I even have made posts that must have been 1000 words, and went back and doubled up on that with another one. I type fast, read a lot and have mental issues that make it easy for me to type lots....and lots....and lots. I type several thousand words a week.

Usually people post 'WTF?' due to lack of explanation, so I provided one. I am not saying it is true, but reading the post it does include a few perspectives all slanted with one tone of a strangly not funny, yet funny nature. Your response is actually the correct one, they are sometimes disorienting at some point, which is slightly intended by only by allance of hitting a post button, but sometimes I am not aware of everything I have typed.

So, since I pull the answers from a generated set of...characters? Not really developed that much really, just functions programmed in by reading and breaking down (very quickly, no time for something akin to analysis because this ruins the real speed at which people read forums) what happensn or is said. My mind pulls some out, sometimes several different types and then basically makes posts, they also many times flow from one initial thought to another and this aids in coherance.

I can't say this is a good description, it may not be. I can't say it is what happens each time, because I know it doesn't. But, despite my lack of a will to seek through my previous posts and figure out what was happening I will simply leave this post as is. I may reach several thousands words and contain a few hundred words of quotes that show what I am saying. But what is the point really, I then trigger a tl:dr response from all, not just a few. My posts are not really intended to be read though, but if they trigger a response from all then only curious enough people go back or realise they are being thwarted in understanding and take to it and read it all. There is little point in reading all of my posts, so there is a decision thath I don't wish to make, a decision concerning editing and length. I thus don't decide and let it fly based on nothing but a gut feeling and if I feel like deleting or editiing out of boredom. I sometimes have other things to do, and I have wasted time here I feel....but maybe not. I am not sure the previous sentence is grammatically correct. I don't care. I feel less like typing, the requirements of a normal post length woud be exceeded and I see no point. So I teminate the post now

[Paul Hexem]

---

Poenald Palen wrote:

lol, yeah, the world has problems...bigger than shadows baked in.

Simple answer: It looks bad to you but it looks better than non shaded stuff and they figure you move the sun to match it if you wish for more realism. Simple really.

Plus, someone could script up something better. There has even been a script that moved a dark color prim around with the suns position, making it look like a sqaure hard shadow! Obvouisly, texture it and modify the code a bit for size and so on and you end up with shadows that work with the sun and work for everyone!

But, why hasn't anyone done that? The answer lies in why many will not make a unbaked shadow version, not enough time, they don't want to do the brain work (primarily math or programming a nifty script that helps them batch bake textures and even maybe a LSL script to texture with thos batch baked textures) and basically not enough money in it for those who can do it.

 

But, after all this is a world in which we live with things we don't like, stuff we don't want to see or hear about. There are bigger problems, as mentioned earlier on you yourself may be able to program or create this sytem of shadows, make a few simple ones that work with many objects (chairs are roughly similar to several looks so make really soft shadows and it becomes sort of beleivable enough) but...yeah, you either a) don't see enough money in it b) can't see the point, it is a bunch of math and programming or c)....you know I can't remember the other one....basically there are more important things though. Life goes one, even with the horrors of shadows baked in and also atrocious activities against other humans by animals who deem themselves preempting trouble....like superman with a hot pocker burning loas lanes face because she may get raped....maybe he could circumcise her instead though, they could always put a camera shot that doesn't show nudity huh? Yeah, that is thier stance. Messed up stuff, way worse then the shadows issue. So, perspective...now you may feel less upset over baked in shadows?

The post is simply a set of solutions, answers and so on. I beleive this is what most posts contain, if one where to include the actual language it may be much meaner. Like "Who cares :rolleyes: there are worse things, just buy something else or make your own if you don't like it" and maybe a sig of some terrible thing that needs to be solved, maybe something funny or crazy instead...so, yeah something like that there to.

Essentially it was the ultimate post. Ultimate as being almost all inclusive of forums responses, but I didn't godwin or do the personallities completly and did do my best to be actually helpful while beinig very wierd. Forums are both helpful and weird, though this one not so weird.

What can I say, if I tried haiku's it may be more successful? Nah, people don't get enough info so this one has more info in it. Something from a few perspectives, not all. I missed a whole bunch of stuff, I can't jsut flow the whole net you know, this is hard to do and sometimes takes an hour or two! I rewrite sometimes 2-3 or more times, my fingers blast out 500+ easily, then sometimes again and again, I even have made posts that must have been 1000 words, and went back and doubled up on that with another one. I type fast, read a lot and have mental issues that make it easy for me to type lots....and lots....and lots. I type several thousand words a week.

Usually people post 'WTF?' due to lack of explanation, so I provided one. I am not saying it is true, but reading the post it does include a few perspectives all slanted with one tone of a strangly not funny, yet funny nature. Your response is actually the correct one, they are sometimes disorienting at some point, which is slightly intended by only by allance of hitting a post button, but sometimes I am not aware of everything I have typed.

So, since I pull the answers from a generated set of...characters? Not really developed that much really, just functions programmed in by reading and breaking down (very quickly, no time for something akin to analysis because this ruins the real speed at which people read forums) what happensn or is said. My mind pulls some out, sometimes several different types and then basically makes posts, they also many times flow from one initial thought to another and this aids in coherance.

I can't say this is a good description, it may not be. I can't say it is what happens each time, because I know it doesn't. But, despite my lack of a will to seek through my previous posts and figure out what was happening I will simply leave this post as is. I may reach several thousands words and contain a few hundred words of quotes that show what I am saying. But what is the point really, I then trigger a tl:dr response from all, not just a few. My posts are not really intended to be read though, but if they trigger a response from all then only curious enough people go back or realise they are being thwarted in understanding and take to it and read it all. There is little point in reading all of my posts, so there is a decision thath I don't wish to make, a decision concerning editing and length. I thus don't decide and let it fly based on nothing but a gut feeling and if I feel like deleting or editiing out of boredom. I sometimes have other things to do, and I have wasted time here I feel....but maybe not. I am not sure the previous sentence is grammatically correct. I don't care. I feel less like typing, the requirements of a normal post length woud be exceeded and I see no point. So I teminate the post now

---

... 

TL;DR

[Poenald Palen]

HUGE leap in realism compared to flat boring textures, if done alright. Yes, I agre when it adds no realism but hints at it enough and do agree it can be done better.

But, aren't there more important things like women being abused around the world? More important of an issue, really. Is this all the issues you see for merchants to handle today? Sadly, I to am caught up in the same weird pondering after seeing the title...so...

Uh...ok...back to the weird shadows stuff...

MOVEING WITH THE TIME OF DAY...why not!? WHY has no one done it?

Well, YOU can move the sun, right in the SL viewer. so people see no need?

BUT, WHY no MOVING shadows?

Short answer is 'Thermodynamics'

Ok, then. The next shortest answer is...

1. To much code, programmers are in short supply (that also do art and are willing to create batch rendering script) to produce multiple times of the day (like 10 or something). They have so many years and so much money and all this is explained by thermodynamics.

2. LAG, once again explained by thermodynamics. BUT, you can code it only to change the shadows when someone logs in, right. So, not a big big issue, they just click a button and it syncs and waits for them to leave and shuts down waitign for the click again!

3. No one has made one, so there are no kits and people don't want to spend the time (thermodymics and death happenign and time and money being based on finite stuff to deal with finite stuff....energy and time)

4. HEY, YOU can make one? But you didn't yet? Right? Because of thermodynamics (great excuse if hte spouse asks why you didn't do something....thermodynamics and reasoning didn't allow you to!)

 

BUT, the shadows at the times of day thing has been done before, one person made a simple example script.

I also remember it was done by someone else as well, a long time ago. Mayeb nwn.blogs.com has the article, or some other SL blog or website. I am almost sure someone did this. Not so hard to do a few times a day, sort of general.

Easy enough script to make to.

[Lokifluff Clarity]

Poenald... if you are not stoned... then I am enamoured with you and admire your ability to convey a stream of consciousness through your keyboard in tangent with your mind, without too much editing of a self censoring kind.  This is something many writers can only dream of.  If you are stoned however, I am kinda gutted as it feels like someone is just blathering at me.