Environmental Enhancement Project (aka EEP!) Feedback Thread

[Marianne McCann]

On 4/22/2019 at 7:28 AM, NiranV Dean said:

Doesn't surprise me my users don't have these issues, no one uses regio-light, everyone just makes their own stuff or uses their presets and edits them.

I'm a no-one.

[Morena Tully]

A friend said it best:  "It's like you had a vandal come in and destroy your painting"   And I'm a no-one too! I always use regional when exploring, because to me, windlight is part of the build. I like seeing it as intended (when a builder bothers.. I know many don't. But the ones who do, it becomes an art form) Unless by regio-light you mean default SL... I mean sun position > estate time

Edited April 24, 2019 by Morena Tully
typo & clarification

[NiranV Dean]

I think i'd use regio-light (estate time) more often if it didn't look like crap everywhere.

[Randy Pole]

The only time I do not use regional lighting is when (to me) it looks awful or I am doing some arty photography. Every other moment I am seeing regional settings as set by the owner. Sadly many people assume that because they use a viewer which allows them to permanently override lighting settings with one they prefer that everyone must do the same. Thankfully that is not the case.

I am throughly enjoying the regional lighting in the EEP enabled viewer and enjoy it as my default SL viewer - yep I am one of those weird people that does not use a third party viewer. Don't be scared of me

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Randy Pole
typo

[NiranV Dean]

1 hour ago, Randy Pole said:

The only time I do not use regional lighting is when (to me) it looks awful or I am doing some arty photography. Every other moment I am seeing regional settings as set by the owner. Sadly many people assume that because they use a viewer which allows them to permanently override lighting settings with one they prefer that everyone must do the same. Thankfully that is not the case.

I am throughly enjoying the regional lighting in the EEP enabled viewer and enjoy it as my default SL viewer - yep I am one of those weird people that does not use a third party viewer. Don't be scared of me

 

I'm curious what the reason is behind thoroughly enjoying anything of the EEP Viewer in its current state.

I have been using Windlight since the beta (because it also added cool post processing glow which was absolutely amazing back then) and i do a lot of photography too but i simply cannot enjoy EEP even a tiny bit. Me as graphics fanatic should be excited to see more cool features to fancy up my pictures, instead i'm disappointed and pissed about pretty much the entirety of EEP, there is currently nothing in EEP except the new UI  widgets that i'd like to use for something i don't know yet (i'll find something). I don't know if its the lackluster improvement, the buggy rendering, the abysmal UI design or the downright spit-in-your-face implementation of marketable inventory objects that make me not even look at EEP with my ass. Everything in EEP seems wasted, there is literally nothing good about EEP, nothing of what EEP does couldn't have been done without massively altering the entire windlight project and breaking it this much, nothing in EEP is a reason to over complicate this entire system. I don't know, really... when a graphics fanatic is more excited about a new UI widget than the entirety of the graphic-focused update something must be wrong.

Whats even more is that you do not seem to be at all concerned about all the problems listed here that i was able to find in mere minutes of starting the Viewer, nor does it look like you noticed them, you didn't yet mention that you encountered any issues at all. I don't want to sound like an *****, which i do anyway but... it appears to me that you have extremely low expectations and/or requirements for any of this. If you truly enjoy the EEP Viewer you also enjoy the new UI to some extend, which begs the question, who would ever enjoy an UI that fills your entire screen and why? I'm really curious.

[Randy Pole]

17 hours ago, NiranV Dean said:

I'm curious what the reason is behind thoroughly enjoying anything of the EEP Viewer in its current state.

*snip*

Ok lets start with parcel settings.

Yes I know that Firestorm has a workaround to use parcel settings by having text in the description field but let's be honest - that's not really a very elegant solution. The solution provided by EEP is far more elegant.

You mention a massive UI that covers the whole screen - well I guess that depends upon what resolution you run at. Also that UI is only needed for when you are setting up the environmental settings - once you have set them up then you apply them from the "My Environments" option that opens a tiny little window.

You also mention marketable objects for EEP - yes you can create environmental settings and then share, sell or give them away. However that does not mean people will suddenly create environments and hold you to ransom in order that you can obtain them. Every current windlight setting can be imported so you have hundreds of them out there free to import at the moment. I seriously doubt anyone is going to make a big business out of selling EEP settings.

The most important thing about EEP is I think progress. It ties together the client, parcel, sim and server without the need for workarounds and hacks in clients. All clients will see the same thing (assuming they adopt support of EEP). It is as much a step forward as windlight was when it was introduced - I'm sure you can remember there were many of them who complained and said windlight itself was not needed and caused problems.

Is it perfect - of course not. Is it better - in my opinion yes.

[Linnrenate Crosby]

2 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

....All clients will see the same thing (assuming they adopt support of EEP).....

Yeah and that's a B I G assuming, and still you will have different environment settings (water and sky changes) flash through your viewer as you fly through regions, and this will be seen more on mainland no doubt.

[Aida Lundquist]

3 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

Ok lets start with parcel settings.

You speak right out of my heart Randy! Sure, we have to learn something new. But I remember back when most people complained about mesh. Now most of them use mesh bodies and heads too and never want to step back. How loud was the complaint about bento. We dont need it they yelled! Today we dont want to miss it. In one year 99% of the users like the EEP. So why shall we renounce an improvement to satisfy 1% of the users? They tell they go elsewhere because SL is broken but you see them writing in the EEP forum every day. I think Linden did already a great work if one wants to learn how to use it. And I'm sure it gets much more improved over time but it needs the help from people to get the input to improve it. On Firestorm a lot got better against the previous EEP beta already. 

[Sammy Huntsman]

12 minutes ago, Aida Lundquist said:

You speak right out of my heart Randy! Sure, we have to learn something new. But I remember back when most people complained about mesh. Now most of them use mesh bodies and heads too and never want to step back. How loud was the complaint about bento. We dont need it they yelled! Today we dont want to miss it. In one year 99% of the users like the EEP. So why shall we renounce an improvement to satisfy 1% of the users? They tell they go elsewhere because SL is broken but you see them writing in the EEP forum every day. I think Linden did already a great work if one wants to learn how to use it. And I'm sure it gets much more improved over time but it needs the help from people to get the input to improve it. On Firestorm a lot got better against the previous EEP beta already. 

People will always find things to complain about SL. That is just the nature of the beast, I for one am actually excited for this whole new lighting system. And can't wait until it's rolled out fully.

[Linnrenate Crosby]

Not sure that this is related to the EEP code, but i've never seen this before (and i hate to file jira) so posting it here:

1. Rez a cube

2. Set it 99 hollow

3. Add a normal map (also called bump map) texture to all the faces

Observe that LI are now 3, Toggle the prim to convex hull land then back to prim. Observe that the LI are now back to 1

As i said i have never seen this problem before EEP was rolled out on the grid, so hopefully it's a bug in the code and someone more Jira friendly than me will file this in the correct place

[NiranV Dean]

1 hour ago, Linnrenate Crosby said:

Not sure that this is related to the EEP code, but i've never seen this before (and i hate to file jira) so posting it here:

1. Rez a cube

2. Set it 99 hollow

3. Add a normal map (also called bump map) texture to all the faces

Observe that LI are now 3, Toggle the prim to convex hull land then back to prim. Observe that the LI are now back to 1

As i said i have never seen this problem before EEP was rolled out on the grid, so hopefully it's a bug in the code and someone more Jira friendly than me will file this in the correct place

That's intended behavior and is old, i reported that long ago. The moment you add any of the "advanced features" such as materials you activate the new Ll calculation.

6 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

Ok lets start with parcel settings.

Yes I know that Firestorm has a workaround to use parcel settings by having text in the description field but let's be honest - that's not really a very elegant solution. The solution provided by EEP is far more elegant.

You mention a massive UI that covers the whole screen - well I guess that depends upon what resolution you run at. Also that UI is only needed for when you are setting up the environmental settings - once you have set them up then you apply them from the "My Environments" option that opens a tiny little window.

You also mention marketable objects for EEP - yes you can create environmental settings and then share, sell or give them away. However that does not mean people will suddenly create environments and hold you to ransom in order that you can obtain them. Every current windlight setting can be imported so you have hundreds of them out there free to import at the moment. I seriously doubt anyone is going to make a big business out of selling EEP settings.

The most important thing about EEP is I think progress. It ties together the client, parcel, sim and server without the need for workarounds and hacks in clients. All clients will see the same thing (assuming they adopt support of EEP). It is as much a step forward as windlight was when it was introduced - I'm sure you can remember there were many of them who complained and said windlight itself was not needed and caused problems.

Is it perfect - of course not. Is it better - in my opinion yes.

Correct me if i'm wrong but i don't remember EEP adding parcel lighting, only height-based presets. FS will keep its hacky Parcel lighting as far as i heard. Whirly?

It's save to assume that an UI is massive it features only a few sliders (hardly more than before) and covers half my screen on a standard 1920x1080 resolution. These windows roughly waste 800 pixels in each direction. While they are only needed while "setting up" how are you going to set things up and see what you are trying to set up if the whole screen is covered by the UI? Do you want to move the window out of the screen or minimize the windows all the time?

That's exactly what i'm concerned about, people WILL hold you ransom to get their windlights, that's exactly what i'm complaining about in this new system, LL gave them the tools to do so and we all know what people will do if you give them tools to do stupid. People sell shapes too even though shapes can be created by anyone at any time in mere minutes, yet they make them no mod and basically hold you ransom with it. EEP will just do this again, people will create no mod environments and force you to buy them to be able to edit and save them for later (given they are mod to begin with), the only other option is creating a new preset from scratch. I want to be able to quickly edit windlights i'm seeing and i want to be able to save my changes if i so desire, that's how lots of cool windlights get made, this new system doesn't allow us to anymore.

EEP doesn't pull anything closer together than everything was already, worst case we split everything even more. We are just getting a few more features, some of which are logical improvements (such as decoupling the moon), changing the texture of the moon (just like clouds) and some other are things we already had (24 hour daycycles which could have been extended to 72 hours easily).

I honestly fail to see how it is better. They hand you a sweet bonbon while holding a knife in the other hand behind their back, for every improvement they added something that totally destroys it again.

3 hours ago, Aida Lundquist said:

You speak right out of my heart Randy! Sure, we have to learn something new. But I remember back when most people complained about mesh. Now most of them use mesh bodies and heads too and never want to step back. How loud was the complaint about bento. We dont need it they yelled! Today we dont want to miss it. In one year 99% of the users like the EEP. So why shall we renounce an improvement to satisfy 1% of the users? They tell they go elsewhere because SL is broken but you see them writing in the EEP forum every day. I think Linden did already a great work if one wants to learn how to use it. And I'm sure it gets much more improved over time but it needs the help from people to get the input to improve it. On Firestorm a lot got better against the previous EEP beta already. 

I don't know what's up with this "learning something new". EEP works exactly the same as Windlight when it comes to actually tuning the windlight, you move sliders around, except a few additions they are all the same, there is nothing new to learn. The new UI doesn't need to be learned, it's quite straight forward, straight forward unnecessarily big and clunky compared to the old.

2 hours ago, halebore Aeon said:

People will always find things to complain about SL. That is just the nature of the beast, I for one am actually excited for this whole new lighting system. And can't wait until it's rolled out fully.

You're right, people will always find things to complain but i'm not one who complained about Bento or Mesh or Materials or Fitted Mesh or any of these new cool things, because they were truly cool and fine basically without exceptions, there were no strings attached to them unlike with EEP, people who truly complained about those for other reasons than "its broken" simply didn't know what they are working with because they are resistant to change. This is however something entirely different, i'm not complaining that EEP is bad because its different, i'm complaining because i have legitimate reason to be highly concerned about basically everything that EEP means for us. That's something completely new, i have always been bashing LL for when they do something badly again, everyone does that because its deserved but i have never been truly concerned about a project like i am now. I'm highly worried and you should too.

[Randy Pole]

2 hours ago, NiranV Dean said:

Correct me if i'm wrong but i don't remember EEP adding parcel lighting, only height-based presets. FS will keep its hacky Parcel lighting as far as i heard. Whirly?

It's save to assume that an UI is massive it features only a few sliders (hardly more than before) and covers half my screen on a standard 1920x1080 resolution. These windows roughly waste 800 pixels in each direction. While they are only needed while "setting up" how are you going to set things up and see what you are trying to set up if the whole screen is covered by the UI? Do you want to move the window out of the screen or minimize the windows all the time?

That's exactly what i'm concerned about, people WILL hold you ransom to get their windlights, that's exactly what i'm complaining about in this new system, LL gave them the tools to do so and we all know what people will do if you give them tools to do stupid. People sell shapes too even though shapes can be created by anyone at any time in mere minutes, yet they make them no mod and basically hold you ransom with it. EEP will just do this again, people will create no mod environments and force you to buy them to be able to edit and save them for later (given they are mod to begin with), the only other option is creating a new preset from scratch. I want to be able to quickly edit windlights i'm seeing and i want to be able to save my changes if i so desire, that's how lots of cool windlights get made, this new system doesn't allow us to anymore.

EEP doesn't pull anything closer together than everything was already, worst case we split everything even more. We are just getting a few more features, some of which are logical improvements (such as decoupling the moon), changing the texture of the moon (just like clouds) and some other are things we already had (24 hour daycycles which could have been extended to 72 hours easily).

I honestly fail to see how it is better. They hand you a sweet bonbon while holding a knife in the other hand behind their back, for every improvement they added something that totally destroys it again.

Option to set parcel environment settings within the EEP viewer.

 

[Rider Linden]

9 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

You mention a massive UI that covers the whole screen - well I guess that depends upon what resolution you run at. Also that UI is only needed for when you are setting up the environmental settings - once you have set them up then you apply them from the "My Environments" option that opens a tiny little window.

I am aware that the UI is large and takes up much of the screen when it is being used.  My personal inclination is towards controls that are easily seen and targeted at a glance. I was also aiming for "familiarity"; keep the layout as similar to the legacy Windlight UI as possible to lower the learning curve. 

I fully expect (and encourage) any TPV developers to refine the UI to their own tastes and the tastes of their users.  Firestorm, I believe, did this with their Phototools rewrite of the Windlight UI. 

 

9 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

You also mention marketable objects for EEP - yes you can create environmental settings and then share, sell or give them away. However that does not mean people will suddenly create environments and hold you to ransom in order that you can obtain them. Every current windlight setting can be imported so you have hundreds of them out there free to import at the moment. I seriously doubt anyone is going to make a big business out of selling EEP settings.

I am very curious to see how the marketplace shakes out.  Even before EEP, there were a couple of vendors on the marketplace selling skies and cloud textures. 

 

9 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

Is it perfect - of course not. Is it better - in my opinion yes.

Thank you, we try... 

[NiranV Dean]

2 hours ago, Rider Linden said:

I am aware that the UI is large and takes up much of the screen when it is being used.  My personal inclination is towards controls that are easily seen and targeted at a glance. I was also aiming for "familiarity"; keep the layout as similar to the legacy Windlight UI as possible to lower the learning curve. 

I fully expect (and encourage) any TPV developers to refine the UI to their own tastes and the tastes of their users.  Firestorm, I believe, did this with their Phototools rewrite of the Windlight UI. 

 

I am very curious to see how the marketplace shakes out.  Even before EEP, there were a couple of vendors on the marketplace selling skies and cloud textures. 

 

Thank you, we try... 

The UI is not exactly close (or anywhere near) the legacy windlight UI. Besides it doesn't explain why they are so huge and waste so much space when not necessary.

You shouldn't expect us to get the UI in a decent working condition, we do this because we must, not because we want to. It would be much better, for everyone, if we had a good UI to start with, it would reduce the work on us to clean up behind you and would also bring all viewers closer together in its layouts, which in turn means less headaches for everyone when changing viewers or trying to help people with different viewers. Not to mention i wouldn't have to go on a crusade every time. You really need someone to work on the UI and only the UI, someone who's job is nothing but going through the entire UI, cleaning up the code, fixing things, simplifying logic, adding QoL, making sure everything is consistent and nice.

The difference with marketed items pre-EEP is that those items, specifically you mentioned "cloud textures" are textures, as such they are proper content, unlike skies, the sold skies usually come with these textures because they were made with them in mind. Selling the textures is something entirely different than selling the skies. Anyone with common sense would never pay for skies when they can make them themselves.

[Coby Foden]

16 hours ago, Rider Linden said:

I am very curious to see how the marketplace shakes out.  Even before EEP, there were a couple of vendors on the marketplace selling skies and cloud textures.

I cannot see myself ever buying environment settings. Personally I feel that making environment settings a marketable asset was a big mistake.

[Linnrenate Crosby]

How do i stop following this topic as i find it less and less interesting

[Love Zhaoying]

Just now, Linnrenate Crosby said:

How do i stop following this topic as i find it less and less interesting

Click on “Following” at the bottom of the page, then click the “unfollow” button at the bottom.

[Linnrenate Crosby]

i find no such thing https://gyazo.com/b7bc6a1dc6a054d7c4ee82bf2fd872b2

[Love Zhaoying]

Sorry, it’s there on mobile. Alternatively, I think you can find it through your profile.

[Aida Lundquist]

It is at the top right. Click on Following there you can unfollow then

 

 

Edited April 27, 2019 by Aida Lundquist

[sandi Mexicola]

7 hours ago, Linnrenate Crosby said:

i find no such thing https://gyazo.com/b7bc6a1dc6a054d7c4ee82bf2fd872b2

If you are on a computer, try looking at the top of the page on the right. 

[dstauffsl2]

The EEP roll out is a disaster. Pure and simple.

[Whirly Fizzle]

Class given by Rider Linden on EEP

 

[kiramanell]

On 4/26/2019 at 4:32 PM, NiranV Dean said:

That's exactly what i'm concerned about, people WILL hold you ransom to get their windlights, that's exactly what i'm complaining about in this new system, LL gave them the tools to do so and we all know what people will do if you give them tools to do stupid. People sell shapes too even though shapes can be created by anyone at any time in mere minutes, yet they make them no mod and basically hold you ransom with it. EEP will just do this again, people will create no mod environments and force you to buy them to be able to edit and save them for later (given they are mod to begin with), the only other option is creating a new preset from scratch. I want to be able to quickly edit windlights i'm seeing and i want to be able to save my changes if i so desire, that's how lots of cool windlights get made, this new system doesn't allow us to anymore.

 

The only monumentally destructive thing I can see happen, is if the FS team stopped supporting their windlight system (via land descriptions). Or when region owners were to disallow windlight parcel-overrides (and you had to buy custom ones from them). The latter, while theoretically possible, is not something I foresee happening en masse, as ppl would just jump ship equally massively, and find a different Landlord (in fact, 'unlocked windlight parcels' would then become a market thing; so, absolutely not to the advantage of Landlords trying to lock you in like that).

Edited April 29, 2019 by kiramanell

[kiramanell]

4 hours ago, dstauffsl2 said:

The EEP roll out is a disaster. Pure and simple.

 

It really still does need some work, yes.

@Rider Linden Let's start with the most egregious (and most obvious) error so far: you can no longer 'Apply' a windlight setting to a region (via the regular method). That's pretty sloppy, tbh, as you'd think something so basic was tested before pushing everything online.

Also, the Import function downright sucks. Which is to say, I'm not sure what the guy has been smoking who implemented it, but what gets imported, more often than not, doesn't even remotely look like the windlight I chose. Not even close. As an art teacher of mine once said "It's always about the light." And he was right. Or, to quote a legacy movie, 'Close is a lingerie shop without a front window.' Aka, either you get it right, or the windlight import was utter fail. Like on my own region. I had set 'Alien Sky' (from FS, iirc). When I logged in, though, the other day, my region was set to a weirdly numbered, weirdly looking windlight (presumably your failed attempt at conversion of the original 'Alien Sky' windlight. And I can't even apply the correct one any more.

I do see a lot of potential for EEP, though. Especially the idea that even visitors to my sim with LL viewers (ugh) can still see the windlight I intended, is a thought I find greatly appealing. But yeah, it still does need quite a bit of work.