Environmental Enhancement Project (aka EEP!) Feedback Thread

[Coffee Pancake]

So, !progress then.

[NiranV Dean]

26 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

So, !progress then.

if(!progress == (new_bugs.size() > old_bugs.size()))
{
	return true;
}

 

Edited May 22, 2019 by NiranV Dean

[Kurshie Muromachi]

1 hour ago, NiranV Dean said:

Selecting personal presets is still cumbersome and done via the inventory or an extra inventory list rather than a simple dropdown menu

I'm not a complete fan of the dropdown menu. When you have Windlight creators creating a multitude of presets under their name, you have a bunch of presets named "[MyName] Preset A", etc. It makes a lot more sense to me organizing these named presets into folders. I do think the new setup with EEP does feel a bit much in accessing presets as you're suggesting. It's even worse when you have to select a preset for every time you want to switch to another. I would like to see where you can quickly go through presets (such as cursor keying) much like you can with texture picker window (consider looking at the texture picker implementation). Now, if organization and quickly switching presets before accepting one could be done in a dropdown, then I think I would be ok with that. Otherwise, I'm not sure how it could be achieved. Maybe an expandable/collapsable flyout inventory panel?

Also, would like to see a favorites ⭐ feature added to these presets, but that's more of a nice to have bonus option. The bulleted issues you laid out are certainly more important. Oh, and the favorites thing could implemented for regular inventory usage as well. So people could fave their favorite clothing, objects, etc.

Edited May 22, 2019 by Kurshie Muromachi

[NiranV Dean]

8 minutes ago, Kurshie Muromachi said:

I'm not a complete fan of the dropdown menu. When you have Windlight creators creating a multitude of presets under their name, you have a bunch of presets named "[MyName] Preset A", etc. It makes a lot more sense to me organizing these named presets into folders. I do think the new setup with EEP does feel a bit much in accessing presets as you're suggesting. It's even worse when you have to select a preset for every time you want to switch to another. I would like to see where you can quickly go through presets (such as cursor keying) much like you can with texture picker window (consider looking at the texture picker implementation). Now, if organization and quickly switching presets before accepting one could be done in a dropdown, then I think I would be ok with that. Otherwise, I'm not sure how it could be achieved. Maybe an expandable/collapsable flyout inventory panel?

Also, would like to see a favorites ⭐ feature added to these presets, but that's more of a nice to have bonus option. The bulleted issues you laid out are certainly more important.

I rather prefer the dropdown as it allows me to quickly switch through presets with keys. I was planning to add a favorite and some organization/grouping feature to these dropdowns. Dropping the much faster and more efficient dropdown lists for a slow (and subject to inventory loading), inefficient inventory list that just bogs down your framerate even more just to have folders which could have been added to dropdowns as well is just plain bad, besides both options can co-exist.

"Cursor Keying" how you call it has been a thing for since dropdowns exist:

Recently i also added the ability to hold shift while doing so to instantly switch to that preset without opening the list first.

Edited May 22, 2019 by NiranV Dean

[Kurshie Muromachi]

2 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

I rather prefer the dropdown as it allows me to quickly switch through presets with keys.

It let's you cursor key through them but it doesn't apply a preview of the preset till you hit the enter key. The texture picker allows you to see previews as you cursor each one. With transition time set to 0, you get to see the effect immediately.

5 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

Dropping the much faster and more efficient dropdown lists for a slow (and subject to inventory loading), inefficient inventory list that just bogs down your framerate even more just to have folders which could have been added to dropdowns as well is just plain bad, besides both options can co-exist.

Not sure I understand you. Are you saying that dropdowns can have folder support? If so, I said I was ok with the dropdown if it supported it. I just don't recall dropdowns doing that kind of thing or at least I've never seen it done.

[NiranV Dean]

1 minute ago, Kurshie Muromachi said:

It let's you cursor key through them but it doesn't apply a preview of the preset till you hit the enter key. The texture picker allows you to see previews as you cursor each one. With transition time set to 0, you get to see the effect immediately.

Not sure I understand you. Are you saying that dropdowns can have folder support? If so, I said I was ok with the dropdown if it supported it. I just don't recall dropdowns doing that kind of thing or at least I've never seen it done.

I'm saying that all of these features you mention could be added to dropdowns and i already planned on adding them some time ago.

[Kurshie Muromachi]

12 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

I'm saying that all of these features you mention could be added to dropdowns and i already planned on adding them some time ago.

Ah excellent then! Glad you added it in. Would've never guessed of the shift key for previewing presets.

Edited May 22, 2019 by Kurshie Muromachi

[NiranV Dean]

Just now, Kurshie Muromachi said:

Ah excellent then! Glad you recently added it in. Would've never guessed of the shift key for previewing presets.

1. Shift only works in my Viewer (Black Dragon).

2. It does not preview, it switches to the next/previous item in the list immediately without opening the menu. It applies instantly.

3. I'm going to add folders/grouping/favorites and previewing some day.

[Marianne McCann]

On 5/19/2019 at 2:15 AM, Coby Foden said:

The default midday light is too harsh, light surfaces are washed out. Even light ground textures are washed out.

Everything old is new again: This was a complaint when Windlight was in beta all those years ago.

Also, avatar appearance under Windlight was a Very Big Deal. SO much so that the facelight was born.

[Coffee Pancake]

.. and the butt light .. and the 6 light source full body projector based 'make latex look good' light

Ok to be fair, we had face lights before windlight. Those were the people who turned into local day stars and inspired the facelight 3000's creation, a true modern staple.

[kiramanell]

On 5/22/2019 at 5:07 PM, NiranV Dean said:

You better go back to the drawing board with this and if this continues i might just decide to implement as many features of EEP as i can in my own Viewer my own way without breaking everything just to show you that what you have done here is questionable, i already started adding additional windlight features with my new water height feature that allows changing the water height locally, something thats really simple but incredibly helpful for photographers and unlike EEP it didn't break everything.

I'm still incredibly pissed.

 

Me, I'm still incredibly worried. 😇 I just want to reiterate my hope, that Linden (and the FS team) tread carefully, and don't just embrace EEP haphazardly. "It's all about the light" bears repeating. Or, to put it in another way, If the lighting is off, then I'm off. That is not some silly rage-quit trip or something, but really just my outloud realization that all my creations/builds (of no value to others, I'm sure, but they matter to me) cannot function without proper windlights; and that, without a means to repair the damage, I would likely just conclude that my days in SL are sadly numbered. I mean, lighting simply affects everything. A home can look cosy and warm with the proper windlight, or appear totally abysmal with a butchered EEP rendition of the same.

So, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, don't implement EEP until it's truly done.

P.S. What manner of genius as you that you are able to write your own viewer?! Me, half of the time. I don't even know what half my existing viewer does. 😄

Edited May 23, 2019 by kiramanell

[Sammy Huntsman]

5 hours ago, kiramanell said:

 

Me, I'm still incredibly worried. 😇 I just want to reiterate my hope, that Linden (and the FS team) tread carefully, and don't just embrace EEP haphazardly. "It's all about the light" bears repeating. Or, to put it in another way, If the lighting is off, then I'm off. That is not some silly rage-quit trip or something, but really just my outload realization that all my creations/builds (of no value to others, I'm sure, but they matter to me) cannot function without proper windlights; and that, without a means to repair the damage, I would likely just conclude that my days in SL are sadly numbered. I mean, lighting simply affects everything. A home can look cosy and warm with the proper windlight, or appear totally abysmal with a butchered EEP rendition of the same.

So, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, don't implement EEP until it's truly done.

P.S. What manner of genius as you that you are able to write your own viewer?! Me, half of the time. I don't even know what half my existing viewer does. 😄

They have implemented things like fitted mesh, and other things. Before it was fully done, they just kinked it out, and tweaked it over time. We are their best testers, as we are on the forefront and do play SL. I would rather see a working one, not a fully done one. 

[NiranV Dean]

3 hours ago, halebore Aeon said:

They have implemented things like fitted mesh, and other things. Before it was fully done, they just kinked it out, and tweaked it over time. We are their best testers, as we are on the forefront and do play SL. I would rather see a working one, not a fully done one. 

It is neither working nor fully done, that's the point here.

[Nathan Zetkin]

It was much better in the previous release, so somehow they folded in maybe old broken code that was fixed once or decided to start over. But this release is not usable in any way. Those who think they can just fix everything will be greatly disappointed when the issues are resolved. Because they will have to do it again. So I won't use this release. I can't stand the lighting and if I were to adjust everything then I would just have to revert it back. I don't know who is responsible for this fiasco or if anyone cares. The EEPs project should be reverted and say goodbye to this horrible mess forever. No competent engineer would ever release something so borked up.

[Conifer Dada]

I've now gone back to the standard viewer and can confirm that artificial lighting is so much better than on the EEP one.  I found the settings folder is still in my inventory and my settings are still there but with orange question marks instead of the blue rectangular symbols!  Not surprisingly, they don't work.

As I said, the EEP viewer came to me as routine update when I opened my viewer.  I'm glad I had it to play around with and I'm sure it will be great when it's finalised but for now I'm back with the standard viewer.

[Katarin Kiergarten]

On 4/6/2019 at 6:04 PM, CoffeeDujour said:

Alpha overlay textures, typically on mesh body parts (so tats, lips, makeup) are illuminated full bright.

Regular projector lights do this, they have always done this, this is not new to EEP.

Just came here to concur with this. Since I like to have nice lighting in my environments, I've played with projector lighting a lot in the last year or two and this has always been a frustrating issue. It does happen in the current Firestorm release, without question, and has in previous releases as well. It's basically impossible to have both nice projector lighting that is dominant in a scene *and* a mesh head with any alpha-blended layers (and body, mesh nipples are fun for this as well—it's only plausible if you pretend you're at a rave) that looks normal. Strands of hair that are alpha blended will also do this, so you end up looking like you painted yourself with fluorescent colors that would glow under a RL blacklight. So you get to pick looking normal or enhancing your physical environment, but not both. That EEP has made this worse is not surprising, but this is an old bug. It still needs a fix. Perhaps the EEP enhancement of the bug will be enough inspiration, but I'm surprised more people aren't seeing this regularly. I've even resorted to wearing a very subtle facelight to override the problem on a more consistent basis, which of course has its own downsides, but at least I feel less like a dayglo raccoon in the meantime and can still have a scene that is lit more naturally than what used to be possible.

On a related note, I've noticed that a direct hit from projector lighting also makes mesh bodies glow as if they're lit from the inside. It does this to other mesh objects as well. This isn't always obvious, but it happens reliably.

[Katarin Kiergarten]

On 5/22/2019 at 9:40 PM, kiramanell said:

 

Me, I'm still incredibly worried. 😇 I just want to reiterate my hope, that Linden (and the FS team) tread carefully, and don't just embrace EEP haphazardly. "It's all about the light" bears repeating. Or, to put it in another way, If the lighting is off, then I'm off. That is not some silly rage-quit trip or something, but really just my outloud realization that all my creations/builds (of no value to others, I'm sure, but they matter to me) cannot function without proper windlights; and that, without a means to repair the damage, I would likely just conclude that my days in SL are sadly numbered. I mean, lighting simply affects everything. A home can look cosy and warm with the proper windlight, or appear totally abysmal with a butchered EEP rendition of the same.

So, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, don't implement EEP until it's truly done.

I've been stalled for six months on a project I started late last year, because the light is absolutely crucial to the success of the project, and LL proceeded to make working around EEP issues impossible by bungling Windlight as well in multiple ways. I can't do anything to proceed with this until all of this is sorted out and predictable again. So this is more than a minor issue, and I'm baffled that LL think people can actually create quality environments in SL to any meaningful degree while the light is malfunctioning and the future of how it will work is in doubt. And clearly I'm not the only one who is enduring this. 

[Morena Tully]

I'm just dropping in because I thought of something after repairing the light on my sim for the umpteenth time since this started (seriously, every single restart it's different again, and it's annoying) But as I watched the fluffy clouds cross the sun, I wondered if it's even possible in the future for clouds to cast shadows.. because.. that would be the ultimate in awesome. I'm guessing that would be impossible.  But for now, I'll just be happy for things to not be taking me 2-3 hours weekly to attempt to repair. And it never looks the same no matter what.

[Katarin Kiergarten]

2 hours ago, Morena Tully said:

I'm just dropping in because I thought of something after repairing the light on my sim for the umpteenth time since this started (seriously, every single restart it's different again, and it's annoying) But as I watched the fluffy clouds cross the sun, I wondered if it's even possible in the future for clouds to cast shadows.. because.. that would be the ultimate in awesome. I'm guessing that would be impossible.  But for now, I'll just be happy for things to not be taking me 2-3 hours weekly to attempt to repair. And it never looks the same no matter what.

I'd almost be willing to forgive the LL-imposed, costly construction delays on my project if cloud shadows—and everything else working properly again—was one of the new features once everything is sorted out. 

Almost.

[Livio Korobase]

In SL, windlight is not tied to wind, so clouds can go in the opposite direction of wind. Bit rudimental, with EEP coming.

 

Edited June 3, 2019 by Livio Korobase

[Penny Patton]

I haven't heard anything in a while, and it wasn't mentioned at all in the last content creation meeting, is EEP on hold while the Lab looks for a new graphics developer, or is there still progress being made?

[Chic Aeon]

27 minutes ago, Penny Patton said:

I haven't heard anything in a while, and it wasn't mentioned at all in the last content creation meeting, is EEP on hold while the Lab looks for a new graphics developer, or is there still progress being made?

You can check the current status at Inara's blog.   

Graham Linden working on shaders --- Rider Linden away from EEP working on simulator and scripts performance.

 

[Miller Thor]

The update 19.06.11.528038 released yesterday for Magnum RC (Fixing for BUG-226815 [EEP]) is unfortunately only a weak compromise, because it still lacks the correct representation of EEP settings in the current release viewer. The representation of clouds, fog is very mangeaft and does not correspond to the actual setting, or in a 24-hour setting lacks the correct representation of the night hours continue to be calculated after the old 4-hour cycle and are therefore displayed completely wrong. Better you clean up the last bugs in the EEP viewer and bring EEP as fast as possible in the release. So you save the embarrassment of other useless compromises to those who are too good to use the test viewer to satisfy.

[NiranV Dean]

12 hours ago, Miller Thor said:

The update 19.06.11.528038 released yesterday for Magnum RC (Fixing for BUG-226815 [EEP]) is unfortunately only a weak compromise, because it still lacks the correct representation of EEP settings in the current release viewer. The representation of clouds, fog is very mangeaft and does not correspond to the actual setting, or in a 24-hour setting lacks the correct representation of the night hours continue to be calculated after the old 4-hour cycle and are therefore displayed completely wrong. Better you clean up the last bugs in the EEP viewer and bring EEP as fast as possible in the release. So you save the embarrassment of other useless compromises to those who are too good to use the test viewer to satisfy.

A: Please stop using custom colors for your text, there are people here (like me) with the dark theme active, it becomes black on black. Just leave it default and it will automatically color itself to fit whatever theme someone is using.

B: EEP is still far away from being usable, i could bet that if i were to test the latest release my master list of bugs would still be untouched (best case) or in worst case would be even bigger now. They better not "rush" this and they better not "clean up the last bugs and bring EEP as fast as possible" because in its current status EEP is more broken than Deferred Rendering was when it was a secret testing branch which basically crashed every hour or so... actually Deferred Rendering was pretty bugfree besides the crashing back then... but you get my point. Not sure if you've seen my list ~ i highly doubt you did ~ because its long and they will spend a few more months fixing just the worst of them. EEP is not going to be released anytime soon if they want to release something thats not fundamentally broken.

[Rider Linden]

15 hours ago, NiranV Dean said:

B: EEP is still far away from being usable, i could bet that if i were to test the latest release my master list of bugs would still be untouched (best case) or in worst case would be even bigger now. 

Have you filed bugs in JIRA for your master list?