Do this deliciously today (if your graphics card supports it):
- Download Second Life 1.15 for the Beta Grid.
- Go to Client menu > Debug Settings and from the top dropdown menu, select or type in "RenderGlow" (it will autocomplete).
- Set "RenderGlow" to "TRUE" from the bottom dropdown menu.
- Also in the top dropdown menu, you can change "RenderGlowResolution", "RenderGlowSize", and "RenderGlowStrength".
Observe…
This is a much more ethereal appearance than the present "flat" style. I managed to get this ample bloom by resizing my viewer window and moving it across my dual monitors. A pleasant, dreamy accident which makes SL's environments look more like some of the "commercial games" out there. What's especially appealing to me is that this is live and in realtime.
For a more meaningful before & after:
If you like this, send a happy IM to Runitai Linden, graphics guru. I think he also did the newly-generous halo around 1.15's sun.
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Ooh, looking good. I saw these on your flickr page already and couldn'y make out if it was a new feature or a FilterForge filter. Good to see it's a feature, imho that means more of these eyecandy features may be coming up.
Compositing the normal look and the renderglow could get you some sweet & unexpected results I think.
@Daedalus: Yeah, with all the Filter Forge trix I do, it really points at me hoping for more of these effects in realtime. I haven't tried a composite yet but hopefully more peeps will pick up on this and do kewl things!
I think it looks horrible. One of the nicest things about secondlife is how real everything looks. Why spoil that with gaudy glare? Or are you wearing dark glasses?
WOOT!
First games I've loved this in were GuildWars and Oblivion.. with many snapshots I made in SL I've recreated this effect indeed with a diffuse glow, tinkering with contrasts and colors. I was *so* hoping SL would follow the trend sometime soon. This looks prooooomisiiiing! ~bounces in chair~
now only hope it doesn't drop fps with 50%…
I think it's quite impressive and something that should be added to the graphic options sooner or later. Maybe with some options to tweak the intensity or something like that. I think me must face the fact that SL graphics are not that "kick-ass" compared to todays games, which is a comparison most ppl do at their first glance on SL. And this feature will greatly improve the visual appearance of SL i think.
I simply like it.
Yay SL gets bloom :3
Now all we need is a way to get better grass/trees/etc and this game will look tons better than most "commerical" games.
The character models etc are already better, just need a bit of help on the environment, and this is getting there
Very cool – can't wait to mess with it (I'll wait'll after noon, though). Now if only Dynamic Reflections looked like the usedta (they look all blurry now) and Light Glows hadn't gone away.
Mari
hehe… it crashed me.. , will try again
Very cool. Can't wait to play with it
wow.. That really is god like.. Will have to try that out. ^.^
Torley — I don't wanna be negative on this but, as cool as this is (looks like its basically HDR lighting finally) — I gotta wonder how long it'll be till it's removed:
Remember all of these — (and I still remember how awesome they looked)
REAL looking water shaders, not the dull, dumbed-down ones we have now..
— Removed, likely never to be seen again.
1.10's improved shaders and ground shadows
— Removed before release, likely to never be seen again.
Specular Reflections
— Removed, likely never to be seen again.
Shiny+Transparent
— Removed, likely never to be seen again.
Dynamic Reflections
— Removed, likely never to be seen again…
I think next on that list will certainly be "RenderGlow" — removed, likely never to be seen again.
There'll be the usual cry of, "This makes SL unusable on my P2-500 with MX400 / G3-333 with Radeon 8000!" …
But at what point are we gonna be able to say, yes, there's a cutoff point because we CAN make SL look better…
I hope it stays in. I hope the things I mentioned above come back (even though LL said they would), but I'm not holding my breath.
… In short, folks, don't get used to this feature. :\
Marianne — Where do you see Dynamic Reflections, still? I don't see that as still existing anywhere… If it's still in there in some form, it'd be cool, but I've looked all over?
Everytime I try the RenderGlow it crashes me in beta.
Mac 10.4.9 MacBook
It would be -really- cool to set 2 types of light objects, some lights just normally cast lights while others glow. THIS is cool. VERY cool.
Michi, same place RenderGlow is, under "RenderDynamicReflections".
It's been seriously nerfed.
I still want llSetShaderProgram(string program, integer face); // ^_^ ;;;
Looks good from this end but it's crashed me the 2 times Ive tried it on my end
on a day like today (Upgrade Day) it takes forever to come back after a crash.
RenderGlow rocks! Made a brief machinima of it for The Arch this afternoon:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zCl7BT4quCU
Warning:
on my ATI, renderglow does the following:
Positive:
It rocks! Looks stunning, really.
Negative:
It seems to make my client suddenly behave like an invisible plane was in front of the cam. Try turning renderglow on and rezzing something on the ground. or moving the cam around with alt+leftmouse. I wanna hear what happens to you.
The only way to get rid of it again is to turn off renderglow and relog.
Torley, if you read this..please please relay this to Rutinai :>
Found a small workaround for the problem, but still a workaround:
move cam out with alt+leftmouse, move back in with the scrollwheel. You're out of the 'invisible blocker' until you press esc.
tested, works awesome…
if only my neighbour didn't have all his plants in his garden on fullbright.. it looks like a fairground at night >.
Argent: it has been seriously nerfed. I kind of wish we could select our degree of nerfism, for those who don't mind the FPS hit, instead of a one-size-fits-all nerfology.
I tried the renderglow and it looks awsome! went back to turn it off but it won't go away now… always on? How do i turn it off? I even clicked the set to default and nothing! HELP!!
I like it … but its too bright, is there a way to tone it down so its not so much glare?
I like this feature, but i see some problems. Not in the effect, because i don't understand this things. But in some interactions, like webdesigners have problems to show correctly in many video resolutions, etc…
In SL it's a little worst, because the public is the whole world.
I make "true" this feature for me and all things become with a "light ball effect" (sorry about my english, but i want to say like this photos with more light they need). All objects setup for "brilho total" (in portuguese) may be setup again, and the objects with light effects like backlight don't works better with this feature.
I think this is a great advance, but i don't see the people setup this thing. So, we have people with "true" and "false", and i had to test the objects and his behaviours in all different lights incident to fit a better way for show ok for "true" and "false".
A lot of work, but i like
Unfortunatelly, this "re-works" and "downgrid things", like the "infinite bugs" in SL, make some considerer "crash" in the money gain at the end of days.
Well, hope you understand my "booga-ooga English" hehehehe
Talking about Glow: The new SL client text glow (or black pillow emboss) is Really Really Really Ugly. It makes the text less legible than it used to be and it seriously hurts my vision.
An appalling total flaw in design principles… Web 2.0 is about simplicity and clarity. What Linden Lab gave us is a step back in 1996 of overdone Web 1.0 decorations.
The text is way to too small to be applying any effect to it, especially a glow, outline or embossing. What the heck did LL's designer smoke the day he suggested this?
Torley, could you have LL make this optional or have them take it away? Please.
"It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes, 1939
To all that want the glow not to be as intense:
surf the debug settings more :> beneath the Renderglow entry are two (or three?) more, one of them being the glow intensity.
Bryon: Dunno. I love the new text borders/shadow. And I'm playing in a 800×600 window. Think of those who actually like the feature before you ask LL to completely remove it again :>
Optional would be okay, of course.
@ Michi Lumin
Client > Debug Menu > RenderDynamicReflections = TRUE.
They are very, very fuzzy now, though. Not the mirror they once were. Kinda a shame.
Mari
I like the new text too. I use this in my desktop and i think the "no effects" mode is a "design horror". But, each one had an opinion…
From the settings of glow, ok for me, but no control about the other user settings. No control and no previous… In webdesign you can test in different resolutions, different browsers etc… But in SL?… Just lucky strikes.
@ Chalice Yao … yep, I get the same problem with an apparent "glass plane" that totally kills the Alt+Drag camera controls (ATI card).
Also noticed that RenderGlow applies to any object with texture set to Full Bright – not just light-emitting objects.
This is a cool effect, but seems only useful in fully controlled situations. Such as creating fancy snapshots or machinima. Otherwise, ya gotta put up a sign by your build instructing visitors how to turn it on (and hoping their graphics cards are capable).
Don
I have no idea why, but every time I try it (which has been 4 times) I crash instantly and never see it. Any suggestions as to why this happened?
A pleasant, dreamy accident which makes SL’s environments look more like some of the “commercial games” out there. What’s especially appealing to me is that this is live and in realtime.
Since SL does offer an exchange of services for funds, I would say that SL is also one of the "commercial games" out there. I have yet to get in-world and see how this works.
On another note:
Could you please help me get my land back that I lost in a grid crash? I have emailed support with no help. My tier was raised and the lindens were taken from me but the land reverted to the seller.
I am only asking this here because you have a reputation for being one of the very most helpful of the Lindens
Actually, you have some options for the RenderGlow. In the same window, use the dropdown box and select RenderGlowSize (try setting it at 0 – trippeh) and RenderGlowStrength (try 0.2 – trippeh!
)
@ Chalice Yao & Eric Coutinho:
I do realize some of you may like it. That's why I did mention making it optional. They won't take it away if they decided to go with it at the first place anyway. I just wanted to emphasize the point as a designer that it just doesn't make sense to me.
I honestly don't know how it looks on a PC… For lack of sub pixel font rendering technology (smoothing) fonts always look jagged and terrible on PCs anyway, so i understand this may have been created for PC users with a specific resolution and a PC gamma in mind in a desire to improve legibility and it might very well do.
But as a mac user with a 1440×900 LCD, it's affecting my better ability to read clearly compared to the way it was before, and it's a downside to me in that respect. A minimal darker drop shadow like there was before was just fine. An outline/emboss on small text is simply not design savvy in my book.
To prove it, here is a visual. Just view these SL Client Snapshots to compare the difference from before and after. I personally think it's obvious that the old drop shadow is a better read and better contrast that the new effect. Especially due to the fact that the glow is lighter than the previous shadow effect. To me the new style just looks faded and blurry…
Okay, I now have RenderGlow=True set, but the only difference I have noticed was some really cool sun effects, but I don't want to keep staring at the sun to be impressed, because I think you will go blind that way.
Torley, I'd be interested to know if you changed any of the the “RenderGlowResolution“, “RenderGlowSize“, and “RenderGlowStrength“ settings for the photos you posted, and if so, would you mind sharing those settings? Thanks!!
Having the same 'invisible blocking plane' problems after enabling (and even after disabling) this:
As stated above ——
It seems to make my client suddenly behave like an invisible plane was in front of the cam. Try turning renderglow on and rezzing something on the ground. or moving the cam around with alt+leftmouse. I wanna hear what happens to you.
The only way to get rid of it again is to turn off renderglow and relog.
Torley, if you read this..please please relay this to Rutinai :>
@Wrath:
) adds a glow to all objects set to emit light. So try it on at midnight and look at the difference on street lights for example. You'll see them Glow… everything Glows down here…
The RenderGlow (which should imo actually be Render Glow, it is not a glow added to the render, it is an option to render a glow
One thing I found out though, it also renders Glow on UI objects, it seems. Now I always have the option High-Res Snapshots enabled, that results in nasty white lines right through the center of my shots. If I set the Snapshot size to 1024×768, I get the lines still, but more to the sides. Only my window size 800×600 produces good Glowing Snapshots.
Wowza, lotta comments on this, thanks for coming over and checking out RenderGlow with your critiques.
Again, sorry, I can't provide support here. (1) It's my personal blog so I post these things for fun + intrigue and (2) I'm not Linden support. When the world was smaller, I used to be able to check out more account-specific issues. Now, not so much.
Pardon I can't really forward messages to other Lindens nowadays because there's too many for one person. You can IM Runitai with your feedback.
Latest thing I learned is it looks like yes, we're looking to implement this on an optional per-object basis, like other attributes (like Full Bright). I deliberately exaggerated the fx because (1) chronopoint ties me to Deus Ex: Invisible War's bloom and (2) that's what I do.
@Michi: I really miss shadows and others you mentioned. Good to keep it in perspective; you keep an excellent tally of history, something which too many people forget.
Some of those features were removed because of stability (Dynamic Reflections first worked for me, then got very crashy). I'd personally hope more eye candy at least be available via Debug Settings, so you can try-at-own-risk. There's too much goodness to be had out of visual experimentation.
SL keeps crashing the second I turn Renderglow to TRUE. Bummer. I'd have liked to try it.
@Tuli: RenderGlow in the "main viewer" is unstable, but the forthcoming WindLight version is *updated, improved, and officially supported for inworld content*.
Sometimes i think that sl was invented so we would be able to meet torley since he is so cool and the universe found a way for as many people to come in contact with this person as possible, and that watermelons are the world's most perfect creation
Peace, love and watermelons
effy
btw, when i turn on render glow, my puter starts kvetching about how i could spend 2k on a cdplayer/nintendo/doodlepad and then starts making the song im listenting to warble, glow is cool but if you cant make it happen dont worry. i cant see bling or beyond 64m lol but i know im on a glorified typewriter
@Effulgent: That's very nice of you. But even watermelons have room for improvement.