Comments on: An illuminating tale of the history behind Second Life's facelights http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights Home of the musical Dream Journal. Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:09:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: PP #1: Second Life Facelights « Common|Sensible http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights/comment-page-1#comment-52432 PP #1: Second Life Facelights « Common|Sensible Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:27:44 +0000 http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights#comment-52432 [...] the top of my list are “facelights”. Gee, thank you Torley, {frowns with a [...] [...] the top of my list are "facelights". Gee, thank you Torley, {frowns with a [...]

]]> By: PP #1: Second Life Facelights « Blackthorne inSL™ http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights/comment-page-1#comment-52430 PP #1: Second Life Facelights « Blackthorne inSL™ Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:35:36 +0000 http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights#comment-52430 [...] the top of my list are “facelights”. Gee, thank you Torley, {frowns with a [...] [...] the top of my list are "facelights". Gee, thank you Torley, {frowns with a [...]

]]> By: Torley http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights/comment-page-1#comment-41325 Torley Sun, 18 May 2008 15:08:02 +0000 http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights#comment-41325 @Ann: Thanks for checking that out. @Gwyn: Great comment! Of course, I'd expect no less from you. But no pressure. ;) I remember when the OLD lighting model caused a lot of grief due to sheer performance slowdowns and "light lag" scares. My own system at the time (powered by a now-weak Ti4200) was crippled in many locations with oodles of local lights, so I selectively turned it on and off. (I also remember when we had shadows for objects, but that's another thing...) One can imagine an angry mob descending on a facelight-wearer. A truely "only in Second Life" situation! What's happening with "glow" is interesting... all of this, really, is similar to some music production experiences: years ago, when virtual studio instruments (aka software synths) were introduced, CPU power was very limited compared to today. Of course you could play a few realtime, but to play more tracks, an ingenious workaround was devised: add a FREEZE mode to prerender certain tracks so that they couldn't be changed, but that CPU load would go down. In Second Life to some degree, prebaking is the same, with the exception that we don't have more advanced, dynamic lighting models YET... but Runitai Linden's work with SSAO looks exciting, and there'll be more to come: http://www.kittenlulu.com/?p=588 I should emphasize: WindLight renders our avatar meshes more accurately; it exposes their archaic-ness. Remember when we used to have a separate "Avatar Vertex" checkbox? Well, previously, avatars were lit *differently* than the rest of the scene, but now, that's been streamlined. I believe it was BigPapi Linden who noted our avatars use way more polygons than they should (he comes from a rich background in optimizing game content for performance). So the problem here is not so much changing how WindLight affects avatars as improving avatar meshes — since the former is a newly-updated part of the whole pie, whereas the latter hasn't fundamentally changed in years. @Sable: Good observation; but I believe it's actually a light, not texture baking. @Ann: Thanks for checking that out.

@Gwyn: Great comment! Of course, I'd expect no less from you. But no pressure. ;) I remember when the OLD lighting model caused a lot of grief due to sheer performance slowdowns and "light lag" scares. My own system at the time (powered by a now-weak Ti4200) was crippled in many locations with oodles of local lights, so I selectively turned it on and off. (I also remember when we had shadows for objects, but that's another thing…)

One can imagine an angry mob descending on a facelight-wearer. A truely "only in Second Life" situation!

What's happening with "glow" is interesting… all of this, really, is similar to some music production experiences: years ago, when virtual studio instruments (aka software synths) were introduced, CPU power was very limited compared to today. Of course you could play a few realtime, but to play more tracks, an ingenious workaround was devised: add a FREEZE mode to prerender certain tracks so that they couldn't be changed, but that CPU load would go down. In Second Life to some degree, prebaking is the same, with the exception that we don't have more advanced, dynamic lighting models YET… but Runitai Linden's work with SSAO looks exciting, and there'll be more to come: http://www.kittenlulu.com/?p=588

I should emphasize: WindLight renders our avatar meshes more accurately; it exposes their archaic-ness. Remember when we used to have a separate "Avatar Vertex" checkbox? Well, previously, avatars were lit *differently* than the rest of the scene, but now, that's been streamlined. I believe it was BigPapi Linden who noted our avatars use way more polygons than they should (he comes from a rich background in optimizing game content for performance). So the problem here is not so much changing how WindLight affects avatars as improving avatar meshes — since the former is a newly-updated part of the whole pie, whereas the latter hasn't fundamentally changed in years.

@Sable: Good observation; but I believe it's actually a light, not texture baking.

]]> By: Sable http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights/comment-page-1#comment-41167 Sable Tue, 13 May 2008 17:16:47 +0000 http://torley.com/an-illuminating-tale-of-the-history-behind-second-lifes-facelights#comment-41167 There is one other option. SL already includes the equivalent of a facelight that is activated when we enter 'Appearance' mode. I believe (although I could be wrong) that this is a modification of the texture baking done for the the avatar texture, rather than actually using a point light. It's within LL's power to make this an option in the preferences menu such that it can always be applied to all AVs within the client's field of view. That way, if you want to see facelit people in addition to the 'dynamic' lighting effects that builders create, you can. If you would rather not see people this way, then you should have the option of turning the preference off. There is one other option. SL already includes the equivalent of a facelight that is activated when we enter 'Appearance' mode. I believe (although I could be wrong) that this is a modification of the texture baking done for the the avatar texture, rather than actually using a point light.

It's within LL's power to make this an option in the preferences menu such that it can always be applied to all AVs within the client's field of view.

That way, if you want to see facelit people in addition to the 'dynamic' lighting effects that builders create, you can. If you would rather not see people this way, then you should have the option of turning the preference off.

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