but does anyone know why in 2.6 when you go into texture paint everything is shaded really dark unless you move the light close up to it then it only lights what the lamp is close to?
It sounds like its doing Real Time Lighting. Its showing you what it will look like when rendered. Example if You had a scene and you were working on the Object and it looked good but you forgot to add a light. Then when rendered it would show black because no light was put in. So it seems that it is showing you what the object will look like as rendered but in real time as you are working on it. I am not positive that is it but it sounds right.
turn shadeless on in the material panel
next time you have a question try scrolling down to the bottom of the homepage
IMHO,
while in texture paint mode and sculpt mode that “shadeless” button should be on the bottom tool bar somewhere…