Coming soon to Second Life: Windlight Region Settings, which enable region/estate owners to pre-set their land to a particular WindLight setting. Then, instead of having to give visitors a WindLight preset and complicated instructions on how to install it, as you do now, landowners can just set it ahead of time. You can try it out now by downloading the Project Viewer here.
Let content creator Ann O'Toole, who told me about this Linden Lab project, explain why this is so cool (if you haven't guessed already):
"[I]t is as easy as selecting one of your stored windlight settings in the modified estate management panel," she tells me. "Create your customized atmosphere/day cycle and set your region to it and everyone that enters gets it automatically."
Take a look at this machinima Ms. O'Toole made:
"Why is this big? Because we can now set up WindLight environments for our sim visitors. Take Bryn Oh's awesome Anna's Many Murders display, for example. It takes a lot of effort and many minutes for a visitor to use the settings notecard and properly manually create the WindLight settings for that display. With this feature, Bryn will just set the region WindLight environment up exactly how Bryn wants it seen, and everyone entering automatically gets the right and exact settings for the build/environment the moment they enter.
"We have wanted this since... the moment Windlight was released."
Great feature, can't wait.
Posted by: Robustus Hax | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 11:25 AM
I hope the SL developers take a page from Phoenix and make the adaption of a new windlight optional, instead of automatic. I have greatly enjoyed the windlight popup through Phoenix the last several months, though, and I'm glad the Second Life viewer is picking it up! Even quite a few of my roleplaying sims have picked it up, in addition to Bryn's work having it already in place.
Posted by: Deoridhe | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 11:41 AM
Is this just going to be another damned thing that mainland sim owners don't get?
Posted by: Scarp Godenot | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 01:08 PM
I read this and thought 'um, haven't we already had this feature?' Then I remember that I'm a Phoenix user.
Posted by: Rowan Derryth | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 01:12 PM
Good to see this becoming an official part of our shared reality. I've been using it opt in for the last few months and it's great.
Posted by: Adeon Writer | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 01:13 PM
(Also a Phoenix user) I hope the parcel windlight settings will be able to override the estate settings.
Posted by: Nickola Martynov | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 01:42 PM
As the former main project lead at Linden for WindLight, and the person responsible for its very inception at the company Linden acquired for this, can I say how absolutely thrilled I am for this feature to finally be hitting SL?!?! This is really, truly great for land owners and all their visitors. This will finally enable everyone to experience the dramatic effects afforded by WindLight as they were truly intended. Kudos, LL, and congrats to all the resis! This will raise the immersion factor for all tremendously!
Posted by: Pastrami Linden | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 02:12 PM
At Last! My collection of regions trying to represent a Desert World (for a certain type of sci fi Roleplay that shall not be named) will finally not be surrounded by sea for all my visitors! (well, my visitors who don't use Phoenix anyway) Praise the Great Maker!
Posted by: Vooper Werribee | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 02:26 PM
Coming Soon: A feature that phoenix already had for months. At least LL is giving us something we want.
Posted by: Rawst Berry | Monday, June 06, 2011 at 05:50 PM
It has puzzled me for a long time now, that LL has not implemented such a system from the moment on they introduced windlight.
However we are lucky to have thrid party viewers so the Phoenix team provided everyone with I think one of the best features they have thought up so far.
I would be happy if LL would acknowledge that they implemented a feature brought into SL by the Phoenix team and give credit to them.
Posted by: Rin Tae | Tuesday, June 07, 2011 at 01:28 AM
Quoting:
It has puzzled me for a long time now, that LL has not implemented such a system from the moment on they introduced windlight.
However we are lucky to have thrid party viewers so the Phoenix team provided everyone with I think one of the best features they have thought up so far.
I would be happy if LL would acknowledge that they implemented a feature brought into SL by the Phoenix team and give credit to them.
Unquote:
What can We say? its's Lind Labs whith we are dealing with!
Not only they didnt give credit to who deserves it, but tries to make news of something 90 pct of sl resedidewnts already know (yes, 90 pct are using phoenix, just be in world every day and see):
Posted by: foneco zuzu | Tuesday, June 07, 2011 at 05:40 AM
awesome, the region transitions rock too!
Posted by: cube republic | Tuesday, June 07, 2011 at 12:44 PM
@Scarp: Is that even possible? Last time I checked, it wasn't -- you could own all the land in a sim, but you couldn't own the sim.
Posted by: Galatea Gynoid | Tuesday, June 07, 2011 at 04:46 PM
I don't want *any* windlight change setting popups, I have my displays set up the way I want, and those damned blue windows appearing every time #[email protected]$ me off! WAY more annoying than anything else I've found in ages...
Posted by: Duane | Wednesday, June 08, 2011 at 09:57 AM
@Duane: What popups? You must be using some unsupported third party viewer. Try the project viewer. It does it automatically. If you don't want the weather and environment the sim owner who pays for the sim sets up then don't go there.
Posted by: Ann Otoole InSL | Thursday, June 09, 2011 at 09:28 AM