News Flash: Second Life, December 2020 - über shiny

[Rachel1206]

News Flash: Second Life, December 2020- Über shiny

A year, which should have known as the year of cloud uplift is total overshadowed by a new trend in Second Life!

Shiny flashy clothing and avatars – even wool sweaters or Scottish checkered skirts are shiny like latex.

Avatar skin, makeup, lipstick, clothing – you name it – the new en vogue in Second Life is über shiny stuff. I noticed, it started with lipsticks and makeup and now spread to all kind of new creations.

Taste is individual, but my God, it looks terrible, where is the FPD (Fashion Police Department), when needed. Makes me wonder, if people wearing these shiny clothing or making their avatar skin shine like a 1970 disco ball has ALM on? Add the new EEP and they outshine anything.

 

[belindacarson]

avatar snob alert

[Lyssa Greymoon]

22 hours ago, Rachel1206 said:

Makes me wonder, if people wearing these shiny clothing or making their avatar skin shine like a 1970 disco ball has ALM on?

Given the love affair SL residents have with low end laptops, I'm gonna guess that's a no.

[Chaser Zaks]

Yee, people don't really seem to understand how specular mapping works. They either throw the ambient occlusion on instead of specular, turn the diffuse black/white, or if they got something from a models website they put it on there without fine tuning the settings.

The glossiness, environment, and color all have to be changed, they can't just throw the specular map on and call it a day(On occasions if these settings are correct by default), otherwise everyone and everything looks like they just got out of a fresh vat of lube.

I do find myself having to fine tune things I get after I purchase them, but in the end, it is well worth spending a little extra time fine tuning it to add realistic-ish lighting effects to my house.

Edited December 19, 2020 by Chaser Zaks

[Bree Giffen]

How come nobody told me about this new trend? I need to get shiny now! 

[Rowan Amore]

8 minutes ago, Bree Giffen said:

How come nobody told me about this new trend? I need to get shiny now! 

*hands you a bottle of baby oil*

[Fauve Aeon]

Is this similar to what happened with the old-style face lights and glow-infused twinkly lit crowns etc? That some of us returned to many having ALM on when we didn’t and got called out for being no better than walking lit up holiday tree? 🎄🎄🎄 GOOD TIMES! 

...but most of us listened and quickly ‘got better’ too. 😉

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Fauve Aeon said:

Is this similar to what happened with the old-style face lights and glow-infused twinkly lit crowns etc? That some of us returned to many having ALM on when we didn’t and got called out for being no better than walking lit up holiday tree? 🎄🎄🎄 GOOD TIMES! 

...but most of us listened and quickly ‘got better’ too. 😉

I've used face lights on occasion when doing a picture. Don't I feel silly when I turn off my picture graphic settings but don't take off the face light and go wandering around, blinding all my fellow residents.

[Orwar]

23 hours ago, Rachel1206 said:

Shiny flashy clothing and avatars – even wool sweaters or Scottish checkered skirts are shiny like latex.

   What's worst is, most of the 'specular maps' on things tend to look a little something like this:

   Like, how about 'if you don't know what specular textures are, don't put them on your stuff'? 

24 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

*hands you a bottle of baby oil*

 

[foneco Zuzu]

https://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

Bring particle bling back, I say!

[Rachel1206]

OK, today at a pool party I asked one friendly, if he had ALM on and knew, how he looked.

He did not - send him a picture and his reaction was: OMG, I look like a joke.

Helped him with Preferences in Graphics and how to adjust his body HUD.

So, in this case, an user who needed a little help. But still leaves the big question, why creators use those high shine settings/make product looking like that.

Edited December 20, 2020 by Rachel1206

[Pomeline Pancake]

The amount of shine depends on the "windlight" for me.

Anything head or body can be adjusted. But no mod clothes and shoes etc. That's an issue.

[Prokofy Neva]

On 12/18/2020 at 6:22 PM, Rachel1206 said:

News Flash: Second Life, December 2020- Über shiny

A year, which should have known as the year of cloud uplift is total overshadowed by a new trend in Second Life!

Shiny flashy clothing and avatars – even wool sweaters or Scottish checkered skirts are shiny like latex.

Avatar skin, makeup, lipstick, clothing – you name it – the new en vogue in Second Life is über shiny stuff. I noticed, it started with lipsticks and makeup and now spread to all kind of new creations.

Taste is individual, but my God, it looks terrible, where is the FPD (Fashion Police Department), when needed. Makes me wonder, if people wearing these shiny clothing or making their avatar skin shine like a 1970 disco ball has ALM on? Add the new EEP and they outshine anything.

 

I noticed this on some chairs on sale and ran in the other direction.

[Ceka Cianci]

I think a lot of people just don't want to get all ashy n stuff.. hehehe

 

[arton Rotaru]

On 12/19/2020 at 12:22 AM, Rachel1206 said:

Add the new EEP and they outshine anything.

Sounds more like that it's just the result of the messed up specularity in EEP viewers.

[Rachel1206]

5 hours ago, arton Rotaru said:

Sounds more like that it's just the result of the messed up specularity in EEP viewers.

OK, should we report it back as a JIRA? It would need to be very precise and point out the threshold values, where things get messed up.

Illustration of the the problem as mentioned in my OP - on purpose I made my skin to shiny, as I noticed many avatars have.

With high set glossiness and shininess, people will appear as on side 2 on the picture to residents, who have high graphics and ALM on.

If they do not have ALM enabled, they see them self as perfect good looking as on side 1 and not understanding, what all the fuzz is about.

For avatars the problem easy solved using low discrete glossiness and shininess values, only do minor, fine adjustments.

What I find hard to understand, is why some creators of clothes etc, use high values and making their creations look "über shiny". Now, as others have pointed out, if wrongly used normal and spectacular maps, this makes the problem worse. Now, if bug in viewer as @arton Rotaru points out, things get really hard to correct in a simple way and could explain, why some creators struggle to get it right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Rachel1206

[arton Rotaru]

1 hour ago, Rachel1206 said:

OK, should we report it back as a JIRA? It would need to be very precise and point out the threshold values, where things get messed up.

It's most likely the same cause as has been discussed in the New Environments thread. EEP vs Pre-EEP.

 

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-229448

This one is still open for comments:

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-229822

There are a couple of more reports probably.

[manoji Yachvili]

1 hour ago, Rachel1206 said:

OK, should we report it back as a JIRA? It would need to be very precise and point out the threshold values, where things get messed up.

Illustration of the the problem as mentioned in my OP - on purpose I made my skin to shiny, as I noticed many avatars have.

With high set glossiness and shininess, people will appear as on side 2 on the picture to residents, who have high graphics and ALM on.

If they do not have ALM enabled, they see them self as perfect good looking as on side 1 and not understanding, what all the fuzz is about.

For avatars the problem easy solved using low discrete glossiness and shininess values, only do minor, fine adjustments.

What I find hard to understand, is why some creators of clothes etc, use high values and making their creations look "über shiny". Now, as others have pointed out, if wrongly used normal and spectacular maps, this makes the problem worse. Now, if bug in viewer as @arton Rotaru points out, things get really hard to correct in a simple way and could explain, why some creators struggle to get it right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OMG.. is terrible.. I'm a kind of newbie on certain things so I hope that other see me in the right way 😬
Fortunately I do not do social life 😎

[Rachel1206]

2 hours ago, manoji Yachvili said:

OMG.. is terrible.. I'm a kind of newbie on certain things so I hope that other see me in the right way 😬
Fortunately I do not do social life 😎

You can easy check for your self, enable ALM (Advanced Lighting Model)and check, how you look. Just adjust you skin, if it is to shiny.

In Firestorm you enable/disable ALM in Preferences->Graphics->General, check box Advanced Lighting Model.