How To Hide Other People’s Annoying Facelights Without Offending Them

“Has anyone ever mentioned how bright you are, and they weren’t talking about your intelligence? Have you heard rumors that rooms become darker when you leave them? If so, you may want to ditch your facelight.”

That’s how I introduced Light Your Face, Not the Room, a previous article urging people to get rid of their facelight entirely or use something subtle instead.

The irony? Those who need to ditch their facelights the most do not read Moonletters. They’re still running around Second Life, lighting up rooms.

So what should we do?

“Tell them,” some of you say. “Help them.”

I hear you, and in the old days, I would have done just that – in a nice way of course – because I believed it was not just for my benefit but theirs too. I mean, if it were me, I’d want to know.

But I’ve learned a few things since then.

From experience, I can tell you that unless a person is new to Second Life and still open to receiving tips, you’ll likely get one of the following responses if you tell them about their facelight:

DISBELIEF: “I don’t see anything bright.” Basically, this person doesn’t have the same settings enabled that others do, so they do not even realize they light up the room. If you try to explain this they rarely do anything about it because, hey, they’re not seeing it.

DENIAL: “I’m not wearing a Facelight.” These insist they’re not even wearing a Facelight, and they’re probably not lying. Why? Because what’s lighting things up might not even have the name Facelight. It could be called “Illuminator” or something like that. It might not be attached to their face either. It could be something supposed to give light to clothing. Yes, that exists. I just bought an outfit that had an optional light you could put on. I tested it, and it lit me up like Christmas.

JUSTIFICATION: “I got this from (insert fancy brand name).” These people know they’re wearing a facelight or illuminator but since they got it from something with a brand name they think it must be good. They’re not seeing what others see due to their settings, but they won’t remove it since they trust the brand name more than what you tell them.

OFFENDED / EMBARRASSED: This person isn’t happy to be told about their facelight no matter how nice you are about it. They may feel like you’re picking on them, or become embarrassed that they were lighting up the room. This is what we don’t want.

Yes, I know there might be people who actually take advice and happily remove their facelights. There are always exceptions, but I haven’t encountered any yet. If you think about it though, if someone has been in Second Life for years and they’re still wearing a bright facelight, it’s not going to be easy to get through to them.

So what should we do? Do we just sit back and put up with light that kills the ambiance of the room?

Actually, there’s a solution, just on a personal level. We can’t control what others see, but we can fix it on our own screens.

FIRST SOLUTION: Simply deactivate Facelights entirely. Go to Avatar – Graphics – Rendering – and then untick Enabled Attached Lights (Facelights). Viola! You won’t see them at all anymore.

Cool right?

Not necessarily. Deactivating all attached lights means we don’t see our own subtle lights either, which some of us like to have. Facelights aren’t all bad. It’s only when they’re bright and spoil the atmosphere that they become a pain.

SECOND SOLUTION:

1. Learn the name of the object that’s causing the bright light. This can be done with a tool like What Are They Wearing which tells you the name of every object on an avatar and what body part it’s attached to.
2. Go to WORLD – Area Search – Filter – and make sure the Attached Objects box is checked.
3. Under the FIND tab, type in the name of the light causing the problems.
4. Right-click it and select “Blacklist” in the drop-down menu.

Blacklisting an individual object will get rid of the annoying light, without having to get rid of the lights we actually want.

Yes, we could tell people about it to try and help and hope they don’t get offended, but sometimes it’s better to not risk it and just deal with these things ourselves.