Facelight is one of the secrets of a good look in second life. For those of you that are still living without it, it's a transparent, invisible prim, floating in the air somewhere in front of your face and emitting light. It makes you always shine and, more important, it keeps those ugly face shadows away. As a side effect, it is quite useful in corridors, alleys, sewers an other dark places. But, simple as it is, it actually can make your life look quite miserable.
As said, facelight is one prim. or, it should be. So many times, in the moments just after teleporting, while textures are still rezzing and all is gray, you can see people with several spheres around their heads. Sometimes it's one, sometimes three of them, sometimes they look like a model of a Solar system. In a second or two, the spheres will disappear and start lighting their faces.
So were is the problem? Problem is that due to the OpenGL specs SL client renders only six light sources. Those six that are closest to the specific avatar. And if you have three facelights, there is only three more for the rest of what you see. So, you see most of the other faces with shadows, you have a bad look of the building around you. Don't forget that the artist that made the building probably needed some lights for it. And you are also "stealing" available light sources from the avatars closest to you.
And, there is no much difference in being lighted by three instead of one light source. Not unless you are making a photo and know exactly what you want to achieve with all those lights.
So, you can stay beautiful and shiny with one-prim facelight. Don't ruin your and other's experiences with all those spheres around you. Please.
Sad thing is that some hair designers are building these horrifying face lights into their hair. The person buying and wearing the hair doesn’t even realize they are doing these things and has no idea what those spheres are.
I’m actually this close to have all people who enter my sims get a notice that demands they remove all face lights or be ejected from the sim.
Not only does it steal local lights, but in the new windlight features, if you have your settings anything at all set to look “pretty” (boost settings above default because you are fortunate that you can) – it literally looks /horrifying/ – completely washed out and ghostly. if these people could see themselves as others with even slightly adjusted graphic settings, they’d swear-off face lights faster than they can log-out.
Yes, another issue is that most of the facelights are very bad quality, and those are not just home-made products. Add different times of day and windlight and there is a fashion catastrophe. But, that is (lack of) personal taste.
And I really don’t know why some creators make us suffer with combining different products. It’s the same as shoes with AO. All of a sudden you see your avatar in the middle of the battle of two AO’s, one in the shoes and the personal one, trying to get some balance standing or changing a pose every five seconds like a nervous idiot.
But, please, don’t ban all the facelight. A good one really makes a difference.
thank you for that very informative post! I myself don’t wear facelights unless I need it to take pictures of myself of where I am, then I take it off when I’m done.
Along with a 100 plus prim skirt, having a solar system of facelights and more attachments takes up prims and is generally render-heavy and a cause of slow-rez.
We fashionable females tend to be guilty of that.
Oh yes, we are. One of my favourite memories on SL is face of a friend that just learned that there are prim lashes: “With all the prims you usually wear – that exceeds complete houses with furniture – you actually wear prim lashes?!” Yes, we do. :D
I agree some people, even some creators of fashion, are not thinking in the limitations of the system when dressing (or designing) outfits with ARC over 1500 or more and wearing primlights that can make the sun look pale and even dark.
I confess i use a facelight with two spheres becuase i consider it makes my avatar look better in some Windlight settings and are really useful for SLphotography, but, as you are right, i will limit the use to photography sessions and i will open my eyes. ;-)
lol, dandellion!
i was also thinking about ARC. you know each time I visit a beautiful sim or a lagged one i feel guilty wearing all the prims.
hmm, ARC-friendly fashion should start being in vogue now, similar to RL being eco-friendly with their clothing and all, resources, even in SL is limited…:)
Thee is not much we can do abut it but spred the word, raise te awareness. It might sound silly for some, but that can be a good exercise in talking about eco andd social issues in both worlds.
I have to agree. 4 spots facelights are useful only when taking close-ups in dark environments. They look ugly and eyesore, not to mention that will blind you should you zoom in a pretty face wearing them.
Being passionate about haircuts I noticed too that this bad use of “inserted multiple facelights” in hairprims is spreading. I will try today to “kill” the other 3 lightspot being the hair “mod” ;)
oo great post about the face lights! i’ve noticed a big difference between different lights, there is a big variance in quality between them. but I never considered whether i had 3 light sources or one light source. I’ll pay more attention.
You can actually do away with the need for a facelight *nearly* all the time, if you take the time to make (and save) a viewer preset that fixes the problems in the horrible "default" setting.
The default setting is horrible and shouldn’t be used ever! The first thing I do whenever I log on is change to a customised preset we made based on one we got from Bare Rose (which was too bright).
Calhia posted her settings here: http://secondsoigne.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/optimising-windlight-for-avatars-20/ and even gave a link wher you can download the settings and install them.
If anyone doesn;t understand what a viewer pre-set is, I have an explanantion here: http://faerie-h.livejournal.com/25096.html
Seriously though, if you want a good facelight then the FREE CG facelight is wonderful. It’s fully controllable through a HUD and also fully sharable. It has a sensor that shuts itself down if it is not needed (I don’t know how it does it but it does) and then resumes working when conditions need it. I have it set to just a single dim source.
It was made by Cognitive Gears and is available for free here:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Le%20Zoo/137/28/22
Eidur, i wish you all the luck with editing the hair. last time I tried to do that it felt like advanced level of masochism.
Sera, I’d be much interested in your findings as of fashion expert.
Faerie, thanks for sharing the experience and links. Problem with WindLight settings is that they are local. You make ambient light good for yourself, but there are still all the other avies around wearing facelights, and, beside that, we all see the scene differently, depending on personal WL settings. Still, it’s a great thing for taking photos.
this is a brilliant post, thank you! i must have my facelight! …unlike all my friends my avatar doesn’t wear makeup so i need something to warm me up so to speak…so a face light is key! but i only wear one…(thank goodness i never heard of 3) but as a Victorian Steampunk my outfits are very primmy…[cough]…my ARC is a bit high though i do try and scale down for our New Babbage Aether Salon events…
i must say your blog postings are just splendid! i found you on Twitter (or you found me) and i hope i have your permission to repost, comment and direct my readers over to you!! (though my Victorian friends are bound to be shocked by your modern appearance…don’t worry it will be good for them! LOL) thank you so much for such good reporting!
~Capt. Red
I actually managed to sneak my appearance into some of the Babbage Salons. :) So don’t worry.
I wear my facelight as well. Used wisely, it’s a great tool.
I only use one, and I have found that the soft facelight the comes with Inzane’s skin works really well for everyday SL.
There is a feature in the Advanced menu that allows you to see the prim count of yourself and everyone around you for the time period you are logged on. Optimum is under 1000, but best to stay under 2ooo.
I was lagging hard at Nonko last night so I turned it on and saw I was at 2117 so I took my skirt off (I was decent, and surprisingly fashionable *grins* underneath) and lag was reduced considerably. So you never know who is watching your prim count and see if you are the jerk who is stopping up the drain, so to speak.
Great post!