One type of sun lighting makes my avatar look terrible.

[Elinah Iredell]

I really wish Linden would discontinue the midday sun noon time lighting environment. It is the most unflattering lighting in sl.  In all the the years I have been in second life, even before mesh heads  were invented it's always made my avatar look terrible, no matter what shape I had or skin used. And now that mesh heads are here it 's still terrible on every head I have ever tried on.  It is the most unflattering unattractive lighting in second life ,yet so many places seem to use it.  I think it would be nice if Linden made sure that all lighting choices were attractive and flattering to second life avatar faces., 

[Alwin Alcott]

we have/had windlight and now eep ... there's choice enough a lot, and possible to make your own

Edited July 22, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[Rowan Amore]

I've almost never used regional settings.  The only time I do is if I'm at a region to take pictures and then I'll use the shared environment (old region WL).  I certainly never choose mid day sun for anything.  

Check your library folder for Settings.  There are some beautiful EEP settings in there to use either as personal lighting or lighting for your home.

[Janet Voxel]

I believe you can also set your own lighting with EEP and its persistent. So all you have to do is choose one that looks better even in midday lighting.

[Nalates Urriah]

@Elinah Iredell With Firestorm, and I think most viewers,  you have the choice to use a single environment setting for your session OR... you can use the region's settings as you move region to region in a session. Aviators and sailors prefer the first. But, you may be happier with the later. You may be surprised at all the amazing environments you have been missing.

In Firestorm the setting is in Preferences->Firestorm->Extras (tab) at the bottom, Persist Environment settings through out sessions.

I tend to have my viewer set to persist. So I will often open the PhotoTools and and select the Shared Environment for Sky, Water, and Day Cycle.

[Maitimo]

Since EEP I have tended more often to keep shared environments on. Some people have made some really beautiful ones.  I have made my own special sunset sky for sailing which looks nice. But when I'm building or shopping or changing my appearance I switch to Nams Optimum Skin & Prim. The high ambient light in that one (and a few others such as CAWL) gets rid of the ugly shadows.

[Elinah Iredell]

3 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

@Elinah Iredell With Firestorm, and I think most viewers,  you have the choice to use a single environment setting for your session OR... you can use the region's settings as you move region to region in a session. Aviators and sailors prefer the first. But, you may be happier with the later. You may be surprised at all the amazing environments you have been missing.

In Firestorm the setting is in Preferences->Firestorm->Extras (tab) at the bottom, Persist Environment settings through out sessions.

I tend to have my viewer set to persist. So I will often open the PhotoTools and and select the Shared Environment for Sky, Water, and Day Cycle.

Thank you for the advice. I don't use firestorm I use the second life viewer because I had an issue with firestorm years ago. I agree though there are many pretty environmental settings in second life but I just dislike the midday setting . I guess  the problem is for me even if I personally chose an attractive setting for my avatar, I will be the only one to see it  , I have no idea how I appear to others  and what setting they are using.  I do create my own settings too , but I will be the only one to see them. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Elinah Iredell

[Rowan Amore]

20 minutes ago, Elinah Iredell said:

I have no idea how I appear to others  and what setting they are using.  I do create my own settings too , but I will be the only one to see them. 

But it's been that way for a long time.  Many people use a specific environment all the time.  That could be literally thousands of different settings.  How others see you is really irrelevant and not something anyone can control.  So many places use setting that are much too dark.  Some, too bright.  The only lighting you can control is your own.

[Aegir Giha]

Hi Elinah! I think you will like an EEP that is lighter and softer toned. Try the Environment named Places Paris.

It is in the library at the bottom of your inventory.
Right-click it and apply to yourself to test, apply to parcel when you like to apply it to your parcel for everyone to see.

Have fun!

[animats]

Mainland lighting is about to get fixed. Ambient light level was set too low when EEP went in, and there was no tool to change the defaults for sims for large numbers of sims. That's supposed to be fixed in the next server rollout. See the notes from last Tuesday's server user group meeting.

SL lighting vs skin is a shader limitation. If you don't have enough specular color on skin, you get dull, dead skin. If you have enough to get past that, you can see a shiny dot  where the sun reflects off skin. The combination of this problem and SL mainland's lack of enough ambient illumination puts some SL avatars into the "uncanny valley".

The "uncanny valley" effect kicks in when pictures of humans get close enough to reality that they get evaluated as human, rather than "cartoon". Then humans become very critical of flaws. Hollywood hit the bottom of the uncanny valley with "The Polar Express" (2004), which is widely considered "creepy". Hollywood got out of that with more advanced rendering techniques. Now you can't tell who's real and who's CG.

Games then got stuck in the Uncanny Valley as the visuals got better. That was a problem for a while. One solution is giving everyone somewhat dark, tanned skin, which you see in the GTA series. AAA titles started getting past this problem around 2019, whith better rendering techniques.

The real way out of this is adding a subsurface scattering layer, which SL does not support. Maybe someday. Meanwhile, stay out of the sun and tone skins down a bit.

Edited July 22, 2021 by animats

[Nalates Urriah]

@Elinah Iredell Firestorm has changed a number of times. Typically 2 to 4 times a year. So, you may want to reconsider it. It is the most popular viewer for a reason.

Since you are interested in how things appear, you should probably try the Black Dragon viewer. This is a top choice for many SL photographers. You can search the SL Forum for more information on and comments about the Black Dragon viewer. It has some awesome features that are only in it. BUT... it has a unique user interface and that is a problem for me but I still use it for pictures where I want to fix the avatar pose.

The Linden viewer has the setting in Menu->World->Environment->check: Use Shared Environment. I think the default setting is enabled. I think for you it should be enabled.

[Rowan Amore]

Although all the suggestions provided are great, you will still have no control over how others see you, which seems to be your major concern.  

[Eddy Vortex]

How others see you doesn't matter.  They have their viewers set to their own favorite lighting environment so you'll still look fine to them.  

Just don't walk around with facelights.  Not only will 2008 be calling for them back, they will make you look awful with the Chernobyl chic glow filling the whole sim, and ruin the local lighting ambiance regardless of anyone's settings.

Edited July 22, 2021 by Eddy Vortex

[Elinah Iredell]

3 hours ago, Eddy Vortex said:

How others see you doesn't matter.  They have their viewers set to their own favorite lighting environment so you'll still look fine to them.  

Just don't walk around with facelights.  Not only will 2008 be calling for them back, they will make you look awful with the Chernobyl chic glow filling the whole sim, and ruin the local lighting ambiance regardless of anyone's settings.

True  I know facelight can clash with the lighting environment. 

[Elinah Iredell]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Although all the suggestions provided are great, you will still have no control over how others see you, which seems to be your major concern.  

 yes I guess that is my concern what is the point of getting a nice skin, and working on your shape, buying an expensive mesh head, and then going to a sim with terrible lighting  and you look awful? 

[Elinah Iredell]

4 hours ago, animats said:

Mainland lighting is about to get fixed. Ambient light level was set too low when EEP went in, and there was no tool to change the defaults for sims for large numbers of sims. That's supposed to be fixed in the next server rollout. See the notes from last Tuesday's server user group meeting.

SL lighting vs skin is a shader limitation. If you don't have enough specular color on skin, you get dull, dead skin. If you have enough to get past that, you can see a shiny dot  where the sun reflects off skin. The combination of this problem and SL mainland's lack of enough ambient illumination puts some SL avatars into the "uncanny valley".

The "uncanny valley" effect kicks in when pictures of humans get close enough to reality that they get evaluated as human, rather than "cartoon". Then humans become very critical of flaws. Hollywood hit the bottom of the uncanny valley with "The Polar Express" (2004), which is widely considered "creepy". Hollywood got out of that with more advanced rendering techniques. Now you can't tell who's real and who's CG.

Games then got stuck in the Uncanny Valley as the visuals got better. That was a problem for a while. One solution is giving everyone somewhat dark, tanned skin, which you see in the GTA series. AAA titles started getting past this problem around 2019, whith better rendering techniques.

The real way out of this is adding a subsurface scattering layer, which SL does not support. Maybe someday. Meanwhile, stay out of the sun and tone skins down a bit.

That is very interesting information I did not know that. Can you tell me how to identify the skins with the specular feature and which you consider dull? What type of skin do you recommend and can you create one yourself in photoshop? 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Elinah Iredell

[Aegir Giha]

Indeed, facelights are often terrible. I would advice not to wear one. But if you must, then get this one: Nlight FREE 2.0 Adjustable Beauty Light. It's at least subtle and does not create a huge light around you. As shown on the example pic. It's adjustable too!

 

[Elinah Iredell]

7 hours ago, Aegir Giha said:

Hi Elinah! I think you will like an EEP that is lighter and softer toned. Try the Environment named Places Paris.

It is in the library at the bottom of your inventory.
Right-click it and apply to yourself to test, apply to parcel when you like to apply it to your parcel for everyone to see.

Have fun!

I will check it out thank you.

  Update I checked it out really beautiful. I have a new fav environment. Thank you so much  It would have been hard for me to create this myself. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Elinah Iredell

[Rowan Amore]

Just an FYI, I still derender people's hair when I'm in the mood.  Also, when entering a busy place, I love seeing everyone before the BOM kicks in.  I'm sure I'm a scary to look at too before I'm fully rezzed.

[Janet Voxel]

Yeah, basically what everyone is telling you about having no control over how people see you is true. Things like having a different viewer and not having ALM enabled can make a big difference in how SL appears.

Some facelights can be good. I use one that has different settings, so on the lowest settings it does its job without lighting up the entire sim.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Facelight-Pro/16621523

[Tessy Taffler]

9 hours ago, Elinah Iredell said:

I have no idea how I appear to others  and what setting they are using

I know what you mean, you can make everything look great for yourself with different windlight settings but still going to look bad to anyone using default settings with the garish midday lighting.

[Blush Bravin]

One of my tests for any skin I demo is does it look good in midday lighting. If it doesn't, I don't buy it. I use midday setting a lot of the time and it's my preference for checking how things look. I'd be very upset if midday lighting was not available.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Blush Bravin
forgot the n't on doesn't.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

8 minutes ago, Blush Bravin said:

... does it look good in midday lighting. If it does, I don't buy it. I use midday setting a lot...

Eh? 🤔

 

[Nalates Urriah]

21 hours ago, Elinah Iredell said:

 yes I guess that is my concern what is the point of getting a nice skin, and working on your shape, buying an expensive mesh head, and then going to a sim with terrible lighting  and you look awful? 

What is being said has been accurate, you can't control what I see. HOWEVER... Everyone wants what you want, to look good. So everyone is making similar choices to yours. You can see that by looking in the thread 'How's your avatar look...' in this section of the forum. When we take a picture in SL our computer reproduces what we are seeing in our viewer. That is what gets posted. Amazing how many of us have nearly identical environments.

We use basic flat lighting, like CalWL, to setup the avatar as best as is possible. Doing provides a setup that looks best in most lighting situations. This means most people are going to see us as we want to appear... or at least close to what we want.

You can find one of the people in the 'look' thread and visit them. I have met a few of the people that commonly post in that thread. They look just like they do in their pictures. So I know their computer and my computer are rendering so close to the same I don't really notice the difference.

The real point of this thread is that if you make your avatar look good in a basic neutral environment it is going to look good in most environments. If you adjust your look in exotic lighting it is only going to look good in the unique lighting.

While it is true that you can't control what I see in my viewer that really doesn't matter. Make yourself look good and most of us will be doing the same, so we will all look good when we get together.

[Paul Hexem]

On 7/22/2021 at 4:37 PM, Rowan Amore said:

Just an FYI, I still derender people's hair when I'm in the mood.  Also, when entering a busy place, I love seeing everyone before the BOM kicks in.  I'm sure I'm a scary to look at too before I'm fully rezzed.

"Fully rezzed" doesn't help most people.