New updated enviroments

[namssab1nad Piers]

Well, Linden Lab has managed to screw things up again.  They seem to be really good at it.  From a photographer standpoint what they have done is make it harder to really get great landscape shots by removing alot of the preset windlights.  What they have replaced it with is a very poor substitute.  So Linden Lab, tell me why I should stay premium since you insist on screwing things up all the time. You have proven this over and over.  Thanks for nothing.

[Silent Mistwalker]

Firestorm and other 3rd party viewers (TPVs) have extensive Windlight presets that are "independent" of LL. I don't think any of the the TPVs have any plans for removing any of the Windlight presets in their viewers. To my knowledge the two best viewers for photography are Niran's Black Dragon and Firestorm. While Black Dragon is probably the better of the two I would recommend Firestorm as they have a more extensive support system in several languages. That and Niran isn't exactly easy to deal with. Not dissing Niran. Just stating an observation made over many years.

 

ETA: I don't even use EEP. I still use the preset Windlights in Firestorm and will continue to do so. 

ETA2: A couple of links you might find useful/helpful:

Firestorm 6.4.5 Beta: EEP and Camera Presets – Inara Pey: Living in a Modem World

Tutorial: Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) – Inara Pey: Living in a Modem World

Edited December 10, 2020 by Silent Mistwalker

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, namssab1nad Piers said:

Well, Linden Lab has managed to screw things up again.  They seem to be really good at it.  From a photographer standpoint what they have done is make it harder to really get great landscape shots by removing alot of the preset windlights.  What they have replaced it with is a very poor substitute.  So Linden Lab, tell me why I should stay premium since you insist on screwing things up all the time. You have proven this over and over.  Thanks for nothing.

Are you talking about the newest firestorm viewer?  LL has had their EEP version out for awhile.  I haven't downloaded the new firestorm yet and I'm not looking forward to it.

[Qie Niangao]

9 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I don't think any of the the TPVs have any plans for removing any of the Windlight presets in their viewers.

Is that true of the Firestorm EEP-for-real release? I assume that's what prompted the thread, but I'm pretty useless here because I always avoided Windlight (and have been having a great time with EEP).

In case it's useful, Inara Pey's blog post about the new EEP Firestorm reminds us that there's a whole mechanism for converting old timey Windlight settings to corresponding EEP replacements (more or less?), for which she produced a tutorial long ago.

Speaking of having a great time with EEP: in celebration of Firestorm finally going live with the updated EEP release, I found a few cryo chambers and other spots that really need the seated avatar to temporarily view the world with a whole new lighting ("sky") Environment, corresponding to their situation. It's pretty immersive, I gotta say. (Scripters: llReplaceAgentEnvironment... needs Experience permissions, of course.)

[Silent Mistwalker]

23 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Is that true of the Firestorm EEP-for-real release? I assume that's what prompted the thread, but I'm pretty useless here because I always avoided Windlight (and have been having a great time with EEP).

In case it's useful, Inara Pey's blog post about the new EEP Firestorm reminds us that there's a whole mechanism for converting old timey Windlight settings to corresponding EEP replacements (more or less?), for which she produced a tutorial long ago.

Speaking of having a great time with EEP: in celebration of Firestorm finally going live with the updated EEP release, I found a few cryo chambers and other spots that really need the seated avatar to temporarily view the world with a whole new lighting ("sky") Environment, corresponding to their situation. It's pretty immersive, I gotta say. (Scripters: llReplaceAgentEnvironment... needs Experience permissions, of course.)

Um yeah both of the links I posted are to Inara's blog. Maybe they'll get the hint. lol 

[Laurel Aurelia]

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Firestorm-Default-Sky-Windlights/20088838

Tommy was super generous and exported the Firestorm windlights and put them up here on MP. So not gone, but they will exist as a physical thing in your inventory now.

[Chic Aeon]

So are you guys saying that the just out today FS viewer has the option to work the same way as the before using WINDLIGHT  instead of EEP and that there is a choice?   That seems to be a NO from the OP but other comments have me confused.  

 

And yes you can import windlights INTO EEP and it is fairly simple (although no longer works EXACTLY the way the official instruction state :D)  BUT not all Windlight skies convert well (or even at all really). Some you can "tweak" within EEP to get them closer to the original and others are completely wrong. I have a recent post in the EEP thread showing that issue and as far as I know no one ever came up with a fix.  

 

Also I have some new EEP skies (I made the Places skies oh so long ago so these are also called PLACES) and people can pick them up here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Moon Beach/211/108/2511  ON THE WALL. FREE.

 

 

 

 

[Seicher Rae]

This whole thing is confusing. I run Firestorm for day-to-day. I STILL want to mess with the WL if I'm just running around.  My controls are 18 ways and sideways messed up now for what I want to do. I use Black Dragon for photos and haven't taken any pix in a while, so I don't know what's going on there. I have rarely used the LL viewer, only when I had to for one-off reasons. I refuse to use it regularly. I don't like it the few times I've used it.

I posted a "pet peeve" comment on EEP in the peeve thread.

So far, hate it hate it hate it.

I spent quite a while, over years, getting proficient with setting up my WL, my clouds, my water, anything I wanted to mess with. Now? Effed up. Even keeping the same WL with EEP? They are totally different WLs viewed with EEP. If they even work at all, as Chic says above.

I do NOT WANT TO SPEND HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS LEARNING HOW TO SET MY G.DAMN CAMERA UP AGAIN TYVM LL!

/me has full blow pout attack, stamps foot and pretends like someone cares

Edited December 10, 2020 by Seicher Rae

[Rowan Amore]

26 minutes ago, Seicher Rae said:

This whole thing is confusing. I run Firestorm for day-to-day. I STILL want to mess with the WL if I'm just running around.  My controls are 18 ways and sideways messed up now for what I want to do. I use Black Dragon for photos and haven't taken any pix in a while, so I don't know what's going on there. I have rarely used the LL viewer, only when I had to for one-off reasons. I refuse to use it regularly. I don't like it the few times I've used it.

I posted a "pet peeve" comment on EEP in the peeve thread.

So far, hate it hate it hate it.

I spent quite a while, over years, getting proficient with setting up my WL, my clouds, my water, anything I wanted to mess with. Now? Effed up. Even keeping the same WL with EEP? They are totally different WLs viewed with EEP. If they even work at all, as Chic says above.

I do NOT WANT TO SPEND HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS LEARNING HOW TO SET MY G.DAMN CAMERA UP AGAIN TYVM LL!

/me has full blow pout attack, stamps foot and pretends like someone cares

I'd love to know who asked for this s*itstorm.  It sure wasn't anyone I know.  LL could have worked on their viewer to implement things from firestorm instead of features that NO ONE ASKED FOR.

[Jackson Redstar]

Hmm well I played with the beta when it was out it was 'OK' I make a new WL for every wedding, event, video, etc  if do so I prob have 150+ my own custom WL - and at least as the beta goes - none worked on EEP. And A/B testing seemed to show a consentient 5-7 FPS drop between EEP viewer and non EEP viewer as well - so I suppose Ill hold off longs as I can till I 'have' to upgrade

[Rowan Amore]

16 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

Hmm well I played with the beta when it was out it was 'OK' I make a new WL for every wedding, event, video, etc  if do so I prob have 150+ my own custom WL - and at least as the beta goes - none worked on EEP. And A/B testing seemed to show a consentient 5-7 FPS drop between EEP viewer and non EEP viewer as well - so I suppose Ill hold off longs as I can till I 'have' to upgrade

And the thing is for me, I don't see an upside to this "improvement".  How exactly does it make anything better or easier?  It seems from what I've been reading, it makes things slower and more difficult.  Way to go LL.

[Jackson Redstar]

10 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

And the thing is for me, I don't see an upside to this "improvement".  How exactly does it make anything better or easier?  It seems from what I've been reading, it makes things slower and more difficult.  Way to go LL.

I do see a slight upside, from how I use it anyways. Let say I set a sky for an event I am shooting - i can then easily pass the object to the photographer, for instance. That might be the only upside I see for me right now. But then again, I never need to do that now anyways, so... lol

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Jackson Redstar said:

I do see a slight upside, from how I use it anyways. Let say I set a sky for an event I am shooting - i can then easily pass the object to the photographer, for instance. That might be the only upside I see for me right now. But then again, I never need to do that now anyways, so... lol

If a friend and I are shooting the same thing, we usually just tell the other what WL we're using.  That was enough for me to be honest.  I rarely use region WL unless it was a specific place that mentioned best seen in such and such WL.  Otherwise, I ran the same one everywhere.  

Edited December 10, 2020 by RowanMinx

[Marianne Little]

It will be so many new EEP items in my inventory. I don't like that, my inventory is big enough as it is! Boy, am I am glad I can get the Firestorm settings for free, and without the work. I can't think about the time he spent on this.

4 hours ago, Laurel Aurelia said:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Firestorm-Default-Sky-Windlights/20088838

Tommy was super generous and exported the Firestorm windlights and put them up here on MP. So not gone, but they will exist as a physical thing in your inventory now.

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

I like EEP. I've been using it for a while now in Black Dragon and, really, it's not that difficult, or even that much different from Windlight. All of the old controls are there, with the addition of a few new ones. I've also converted old FS WLs to EEP in Black Dragon -- it's really not difficult to do. And while I haven't entirely worked my way around FS's implementation (which looks very different from the interface in BD), there are elements I quite like, such as the drag-and-drop sun and moon position (which now works in three dimensions rather than just two).

For most of us, it's true, EEP is just going to seem like another thing to learn. But for those building immersive environments in-world, experiences, and things like that, this will be VERY useful. The fact that it now exists as a shareable object in inventory has real potential to be useful.

Eventually, I think we'll all gain from this, even if it seems annoying at the moment.

[Jackson Redstar]

3 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

So are you guys saying that the just out today FS viewer has the option to work the same way as the before using WINDLIGHT  instead of EEP and that there is a choice?   That seems to be a NO from the OP but other comments have me confused.  

 

And yes you can import windlights INTO EEP and it is fairly simple (although no longer works EXACTLY the way the official instruction state :D)  BUT not all Windlight skies convert well (or even at all really). Some you can "tweak" within EEP to get them closer to the original and others are completely wrong. I have a recent post in the EEP thread showing that issue and as far as I know no one ever came up with a fix.  

 

Also I have some new EEP skies (I made the Places skies oh so long ago so these are also called PLACES) and people can pick them up here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Moon Beach/211/108/2511  ON THE WALL. FREE.

 

 

 

 

Where can one find the 'official' instructions to import WL into EPP?

[Stevie Davros]

I have a lot of old WL settings files that I have imported into EEP and most of them required tweaking, some required extensive tweaking to look similar.  Time consuming but not the end of the world.

[Jackson Redstar]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I like EEP. I've been using it for a while now in Black Dragon and, really, it's not that difficult, or even that much different from Windlight. All of the old controls are there, with the addition of a few new ones. I've also converted old FS WLs to EEP in Black Dragon -- it's really not difficult to do. And while I haven't entirely worked my way around FS's implementation (which looks very different from the interface in BD), there are elements I quite like, such as the drag-and-drop sun and moon position (which now works in three dimensions rather than just two).

For most of us, it's true, EEP is just going to seem like another thing to learn. But for those building immersive environments in-world, experiences, and things like that, this will be VERY useful. The fact that it now exists as a shareable object in inventory has real potential to be useful.

Eventually, I think we'll all gain from this, even if it seems annoying at the moment.

From what I seen its not that different than the old WL. Kinda wonder the primary reason for the change is to make the environments a sellable asset now lol

[steeljane42]

I thought it would be bad and didn't even bother with FS beta from a while ago, now I did. My usual "home button" spot at my own region (no variables there, such as new things or extra avatars) has ~40 less fps. 65 instead of ~100 on pre-eep. Purely because of the water (no, new setting does nothing, only completely disabling water in rendering types fixes it). Now I understand that FS team was feeling pressure from LL, being most used viewer and all, and being so late to release "new LL shiny" essentially leaving big portion of users without it for so long, but releasing it in current state... bleh. How can plain water in one region eat 40fps on relatively decent GTX1080 and OCed 9700k (to 5.2ghz) is beyond me.

And yes, I did try default settings as well by renaming folder in appdata and letting it create new cache as well, no difference. Back to 6.3.9. I'll check next release if https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-229031 is fixed. It's listed in "known issues" in FS' release notes as well. And if not fixed, then I'll stay on the old one until there's a breaking new feature released, like bento/bom/animesh. I actually did bother to self compile an exact copy of 6.3.9, so won't even have to mess around the old version blocking.

Edited December 10, 2020 by steeljane42

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Jackson Redstar said:

From what I seen its not that different than the old WL. Kinda wonder the primary reason for the change is to make the environments a sellable asset now lol

Most of the EEP assets I've seen on MP are free, but, yes, I suppose in theory.

The big differences are, as I said, for people creating immersive environments. Because EEP is server-side, the effects are no longer dependent on YOU having a particular Windlight in your viewer. And those creating environments also have more control over how they look, including day cycles, what appears in the sky, and so on.

[Ajay McDowwll]

17 minutes ago, steeljane42 said:

I thought it would be bad and didn't even bother with FS beta from a while ago, now I did. My usual "home button" spot at my own region (no variables there, such as new things or extra avatars) has ~40 less fps. 65 instead of ~100 on pre-eep. Purely because of the water (no, new setting does nothing, only completely disabling water in rendering types fixes it). Now I understand that FS team was feeling pressure from LL, being most used viewer and all, and being so late to release "new LL shiny" essentially leaving big portion of users without it for so long, but releasing it in current state... bleh.

And yes, I did try default settings as well by renaming folder in appdata and letting it create new cache as well, no difference. Back to 6.3.9. I'll check next release if https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-229031 is fixed. It's listed in "known issues" in FS' release notes as well. And if not fixed, then I'll stay on the old one until there's a breaking new feature released, like bento/bom/animesh. I actually did bother to self compile an exact copy of 6.3.9, so won't even have to mess around the old version blocking.

This is my concern.  I downloaded the Firestorm EEP Beta, and noticed a significant drop in FPS, so I stopped using it.  In SL, our FPS are pretty valuable, considering inworld elements are created by the residents, and therefore aren't necessarily optimized.  I FINALLY got my FPS in my home region up to a steady 35-40 at ground level while looking at the waterfall, and they're well over 100 at high altitudes... and when I finally HAVE to move to the EEP viewer, all that effort will be for naught.

I like sailing, and having a reasonable FPS (not to mention that sailing kind of requires water) is super helpful.  I'm really distressed that the FPS issue hasn't been fixed and we're still plunging ahead   I'm going to keep using my current version of Firestorm as long as I'm possible.  Hopefully a fix will be developed for the New and Improved Lag (TM) before I have to "upgrade" to the latest viewer.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Ajay McDowwll
Words.

[PermaRuthed]

Pffffft. What's wrong with Midday?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, PermaRuthed said:

Pffffft. What's wrong with Midday?

Nothing at all! Dahling, you're simply glowing with good health (and you must let me know what foundation you use!)

Grab a beach towel and bask in the warmth of that super-sized red dwarf sun that you can now (thanks EEP!) place above you in sky!

[PermaRuthed]

10 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Nothing at all! Dahling, you're simply glowing with good health (and you must let me know what foundation you use!)

Grab a beach towel and bask in the warmth of that super-sized red dwarf sun that you can now (thanks EEP!) place above you in sky!

Thank you, Dearie.  The foundation I use is the plain old classic #50-100-0.

[Rowan Amore]

52 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Most of the EEP assets I've seen on MP are free, but, yes, I suppose in theory.

The big differences are, as I said, for people creating immersive environments. Because EEP is server-side, the effects are no longer dependent on YOU having a particular Windlight in your viewer. And those creating environments also have more control over how they look, including day cycles, what appears in the sky, and so on.

Which in reality is a small percentage of SL users.  We all know that.  

I got a note card from store today mentioning how eep will effect their products and how to see them as intended.  Also,.they will have to be updating some for the same reason.  Yep, more work and less fps.  Sounds like a winner?  Not from the average SL users perspective.  It was unnecessary and franky, unwanted from the the majority of people I've talked to.