Unwanted highlights and shadows on curved surfaces.

One of the requirements for merchants at the Menswear Fashion Week 2012, is to have a new exclusive item to release at the show. I'd been working on this idea for men's summer Oxfords in a very old-fashioned style, yet totally nouveau and elegant.  Work on the textures going good, until I decided to update my old Phoenix 1.5.2.1185 viewer, to the latest 1.6.0.1600 viewer. Suddenly, these beautiful light-colored shoes looked strangely lumpy.    

Cairo in Phoenix 1.5.2.1185

Cairo in Phoenix 1.6.0.1600

What was going on? I tried every adjustment I could think of in the viewer itself (Edit> Preferences), all those variables, and I don't have a clue what half of them do). Then I made a simple object to test in both viewers. This loaf-shaped object consisted of 10 slices (like the highlighted slice). This is how the object appeared in the old Phoenix 1.5.2.1185 viewer. The individual slices cannot be discerned, and the object appears to be a smooth monolithic whole:-

Image 1. Phoenix 1.5.2.1185 viewer.

This next image is the same object as above, photographed under the same lighting conditions, on the same computer, video card, monitor, etc. As you can see, the upper half of the object, which consists of a series of half-discs, has unwanted shadows and highlights, which prevents it from being seen as a single smooth monolithic object.

Image 2. Phoenix 1.6.0.1600 and SL Viewer 2 v3.2.8

I wrote up a ticket in the Phoenix JIRA, (PHOE-3919, Faceted textures in 1.6.0.1600). After about six weeks of dialog, the ticket was moved over to the Fire project team. At their request, I also filed a ticket with Second Life (VWR-28603, Unwanted Highlights and Shadows on Curved Surfaces), which I think is a more accurate and descriptive title. 

At some point in viewer development, highlights and shadows were added to curved surfaces. This subtle effect only shows up under the following circumstances: the object must be white or light-colored, and it must be perpendicular to the light source. A vertical stack of discs viewed under noon daytime lighting will not be affected, because the light source is directly overhead. Whether some bright spark added this lighting effect as an  "enhancement", or whether some number got rounded up instead of down, I don't know. But anyone who looks at DEMOs of my shoes on the latest viewers, will think they look like shit. If you do, please add a comment to the JIRA Tickets (PHOE-3919 and VWR-28603). The more people complain, the sooner this subtle effect can be removed, and I can get back to making light-colored shoes.