Comments on: SL WindLight: Second Life But Not As You Know It

By: WindLight in Second Life & Habbo Furniture Stolen, What’s Next…? | Mark & Madeline

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:38:18 +0000

[...] TechCrunch also reports on a recent update to the Second Life universe that brings the new technology of WindLight to the world and some much needed realism to the experience in the process: [...]

By: Imsaho fleury

Imsaho fleury — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:14:58 +0000

I agree stuff looks great … except ..

my FPS went to about half of what it is now when at the ‘recommended’. To get back to the same level of distance detail as my ’standard’ viewer I had to go to the ultra setting, and at that point FPS went to 6 fps compared with 15 normally.

But yes .. we live on a tropical island and it olooked great at sunrise .

now .. all we need are proper lighting shadows!!

By: Vint Falken

Vint Falken — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:53:26 +0000

Besides some minor/major bugs* I think it turned out great: reflection of all, including avatars is what I always hoped and prayed to the Linden Gods for.

*wish we could already trade in WindLight settings*

*depends how you compare them to the new functionality and how important you find graphics overall. =)

By: Doreen Garrigus

Doreen Garrigus — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:36:15 +0000

I wasn’t really saying that the Linden trees looked better. I believe they do, but they rendered very, very slowly in the Windlight viewer so it took a while for them to get there. I just wanted to point out that the really bad two-prim tree was accurately rendered—exactly as its maker made it.

That said, I absolutely LOVE the Botanical Straylight trees, no matter which viewer I’m using.

By: Usu Ventura

Usu Ventura — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:17:04 +0000

Doreen - Linden trees don’t look any better. Whether there are 2 or 3 or more planes in the trees, Windlight’s shadow casting punches up the artificial shape. A real disappointment, when almost everything else looks so great. Time for a new round of Linden (and user-created) trees that suit the new light.

By: JayAre

JayAre — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:18:23 +0000

Looks amazing ! Can’t wait to try it out, but I hope it doesn’t affect the speed…

By: Doreen Garrigus

Doreen Garrigus — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:15:22 +0000

Hey Eric—those trees that look like two intersecting planes? They look like that because they ARE two intersecting planes. Those are user-created trees, composed of a picture of a tree uploaded into Second Life and pasted onto two prims (those are the building blocks in SL) which are then intersected and linked together. It has nothing to do with the 3D rendering. The system renders those objects exactly as they have been created. You need to look at Linden-created trees to determine how Second Life renders trees. I am a little curious, though. How much user-created content is there in Oblivion?

By: Rich White

Rich White — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 04:09:31 +0000

Secondlife WindLight on a Smartboard interactive whiteboard
edit delete - Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra50XTelwro

By: Nimrod

Nimrod — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:51:37 +0000

Techdemo showing the WindLight in Second Life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcv49fwApeU

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 14:14:34 +0000

The water is out of scale! Look at the sizes of those ripples.

By: Lowell

Lowell — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:39:09 +0000

Definitely an improvement but agree totally it makes other aspects even more dated….

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:08:10 +0000

The graphics look good, but not nearly as good as Oblivion and that was released a year and a half ago. I’ve spent a long time playing Oblivion. The trees in SL still look like they’re made with two intersecting planes. I could understand that in 2003, but in 2007 I’m expecting more.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:51:46 +0000

@csven

hehe… you should say ‘…those tiny mom and pop stores… ‘

By: csven

csven — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:18:48 +0000

@Joel - according to market research, strip show related activity is something like 17%, iirc. And gambling was banned months ago.

Most of the activity growth seems to be in education. I’m personally finding more engineers in SL. Not surprising to me, since the modeling tools - unlike any videogame of which I’m aware - are parametric based. That makes them closely related to the CAD tools I use to model the products which people buy at small retailers like Wal*Mart and Target.

By: Joel

Joel — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 20:07:54 +0000

Looks beautiful. I wonder if they will do photo-realistic strip shows or gambling dens too since that it is the only source of user activity in this otherwise desolated virtual land.

By: Alan Wilensky

Alan Wilensky — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:17:56 +0000

I believe that graphics induced crashed on iMacs and Mac Pro’s (same video hardware) were addressed in a recent patch via software update.

I don’t play in these virtual worlds, my world is virtual enough.

By: Chris Cameron

Chris Cameron — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:00:01 +0000

I don’t play SecondLife anymore - but from the looks of these new graphics it might be worth checking out again.

By: Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:56:48 +0000

The quality and scenery is amazing. Can’t wait to try this out.

By: The Grid Live

The Grid Live — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:51:06 +0000

Second Life News for November 15, 2007…

From: Second Life Blog Second Life Scheduled Maintenance Quote from the site - Second Life will be undergoing some Scheduled Maintenance starting at 7 AM PST on November 15, 2007.
From: Ambling in Second Life Get on Yer Bike for Africa Quote from the …

By: Christen

Christen — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:37:15 +0000

The Firstlook-Windlight viewer worked great for me and looks fantastic, but I will have to adjust some of my textures. Windlight seems to blow out color while the sun is high and on some texture even oversaturate the color beyond what i had originally intended. The environment looks more realistic than the old viewer by far, but I think older textures will have to be updated to match the new lighting conditions.

By: Jurado

Jurado — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:37:01 +0000

My take is the artist shares DNA with Ingres or has thing for his permanent verticle smile…..

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 18:36:46 +0000

Actually this upgrade won’t help flying dongs much. It’s more of an upgrade for the environment. It’s a ploy to distract you: Is that a flying dong? Wow, pretty clouds!

By: Greg

Greg — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:59:11 +0000

Awesome, now the griefing ops will have much more realistic flying dongs to terrorize the populace.

By: Antje Wilsch

Antje Wilsch — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:53:41 +0000

I don’t play any video games but I need to admit that it looks awesome. In the future it would be cool if they also allowed some of the green screen effect (like the movie 300).

By: i'm Ronald Lewis

i'm Ronald Lewis — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:42:15 +0000

The first photo looks like the steroid body of Barry Bonds.
A bloated, hardened boar.