Materials Support and Tips

[arton Rotaru]

Well, with deferred rendering, you can see many more lights at once than just six.

(I left a comment in the merchant section about this.)

 

[BlackMagi Darkwatch]

The reason I mentioned attached lighting is it would be dynamic as the visitor interacted with the scene, It would cause the shadows to move as they moved.

In my test scene there is no possibility of adding sun/moon as the build is supposed to be underground so it needs to be lit with wall torches but therein lays the problem. To place wall torches in a more or less realistic way I would need to place more lights than the viewer can render.  When using the wall torches as light sources the effect is static, we can simulate movement using particles and even add sounds but in RL the flames would dance which in turn would affect the shadows being cast over the walls/floor.

I totally love materials but can anyone suggest a way to better light an underground scene where the flames can dance and create a more dynamic effect to their surrounding area?

Black

[Mikki Miles]

I like the subtle effects you can achieve with normal and spec maps, those where you say to yourself "wait a moment, something's different here..."

Look at the lute backs, it's really not a big difference, but all in all a big improvement.

if you want to look at that "in real", here's my playground:

Mikki Miles' playground

[Coby Foden]

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BlackMagi Darkwatch wrote:

To place wall torches in a more or less realistic way I would need to place more lights than the viewer can render.

I totally love materials but can anyone suggest a way to better light an underground scene where the flames can dance and create a more dynamic effect to their surrounding area?

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The number of light sources is an OpenGL thing, not a viewer's rendering limitation. The number of light sources available in OpenGL application depends on the scene rendering type.

Forward rendering (Advanced Ligting Model OFF in the viewer):

• Maximum of eight light sources (SL reserves one for the sun and one for the moon, so we can use six local lights)

Deferred rendering (Advanced Lighting Model ON in the viewer):

• No limits in the number of light sources, we can use as many as we wish

 

To simulate fluctuating flames, just an idea:

How about placing invisible (100 % transparent) light source prim in the flame? The prim would move about in the flame randomly by a script. The intensity of the light prim would also be controlled by script. Perhaps this arrangement could give nice realistic flame lighting effect?

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Coby Foden wrote:

How about placing invisible (100 % transparent) light source prim in the flame? The prim would move about in the flame randomly by a script. The intensity of the light prim would also be controlled by script. Perhaps this arrangement could give nice realistic flame lighting effect?

 

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I've done that in the past, well it doesn't move around, but the colour randomly changes slightly to more reddish or yellowish and the intensity and range vary slightly. It's not perfect, since you can't change the settings all that often (per second). It does look pretty nice though.

[Drongle McMahon]

Arton & Coby...

Ah. I ndidn't know you could have more lights with ALM. I look forward to exploiting that. That makes it somewhat less a bad idea, I guess, although the overriding of the lights in the environment would still be unrealistic. Does anyone know how much effect more lights have on fps? Is that a practical limitation?

ETA - Although, on second thoughts, the problem would still be there for the users who don't use ALM. Backward compatability is such a pain!

[arton Rotaru]

I haven't tested it with the latest viewers, but in the past, rendering too many lights cripples viewer fps quite badly.

Of course, if you want to set up a specific environment, there's nothing wrong with setting up some light sources. But attaching local lights to everything just to make it look more "awesome" is kinda overdrawn IMHO.

[TatianaDokuchic Varriale]

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BlackMagi Darkwatch wrote:

The reason I mentioned attached lighting is it would be dynamic as the visitor interacted with the scene, It would cause the shadows to move as they moved.

In my test scene there is no possibility of adding sun/moon as the build is supposed to be underground so it needs to be lit with wall torches but therein lays the problem. To place wall torches in a more or less realistic way I would need to place more lights than the viewer can render.  When using the wall torches as light sources the effect is static, we can simulate movement using particles and even add sounds but in RL the flames would dance which in turn would affect the shadows being cast over the walls/floor.

I totally love materials but can anyone suggest a way to better light an underground scene where the flames can dance and create a more dynamic effect to their surrounding area?

Black

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You might want to check out Outy's Fire and Light Scripts v3.0 by Outy Banjo's which includes a nice "Flicker" module that may be what you are looking for.

I've been working on some wall paneling with a lot of raised plaster work.  Since it's meant to be used in an 18th century chateau it gets a bit of sun/moon but not a lot.  The addition of normal & specular maps in combination with the fire flicker is pretty cool.  As someone else said, it's subtle but makes the overall scene come alive a bit more.

Because this texture is meant to be used indoors (with lower lighting) I found I could use a much higher intensity on the normal map.  From now on, I'll have to remember to adjust my wall textures depending on whether they are for interior or exterior use.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Nice example Mikki,

No wet surface so many people complain about and a very low "oh look at me!" level. Very subtle, very nice, makes a lot of difference.

[Madeliefste Oh]

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arton Rotaru wrote:

Of course, if you want to set up a specific environment, there's nothing wrong with setting up some light sources. But attaching local lights to everything just to make it look more "awesome" is kinda overdrawn IMHO.

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It might not be the best practice, but still I think this is what you will see happening in the future. Just because local lighting let´s you get so much more realism out of your items, then sun/moon only.

In fields of the market where the looks mainly depends on shiny materials, like jewelry, the odds will shift. Because with this new possibility the skills you need to imitate a material in a believable way are shifting. Till now jewelry makers had to depend on their photoshop skills to make realistic looking materials like silver and gold.

I think that is going to be different because of materials. You can make gold or silver now in a more realistic way, with less Photoshop skills when you learn how to master your "material maps - light set combination".

Most creators want to sell their products, and product pictures will often present the object in an attractive way. Now when you build up a nice light set to shot your product pictures, but you offer your products to customers for sun-moon light only, you will get a lot of complaints, that the object looks in nothing like the picture.

Then you have to explain that the effect on the picture can be reached under this and that light circumstances, and customers might feel ripped off, because "it is just ridiculous that it only works in this or that light." Customers who tell you never to buy from you anymore and bad marketplace reviews will be the result.

How can you convince your customers that under the right circumstances your products does really look like the picture, since you cannot control the lights in the surrounding of your customer? There is just one way to solve this problem: control the lights that influence your materials, in other worlds: attach invisible prims to light your materials.

[BlackMagi Darkwatch]

On my system with 8 light sources in the scene, I lost 8fps making it sadly unacceptable. As to backward compatibility the light sources didn't show... 

Well - I think I will have to build another light source model as wall torches are not going to be the way forward for me.  As to the lighting effect (moving lighting) I did consider the possiblilty of simply moving a single prim up and down, that will be tested when I have a new model!

Black

 

[BlackMagi Darkwatch]

Hi TatianaDokuchic

Thank you for the tip

 

Black

[BlackMagi Darkwatch]

HI Coby

That was my bad really on citing the light source issue - I remember it saying be frugal on the wikki but couldn't remember if it was the viewer or as you pointed out the OpenGL engine.

I like your idea about the fake lighting and will be looking at implenting something like that in the future - the todo list just keeps growing!

Thanks

Black

 

[Madeliefste Oh]

My next experiment is about using specular in the case where you have shiny and mat materials combined on the same texture face.

In the treasury below, the locks and plates that close the chest are seperate meshes, the texure for the lid however is on the same the same texture face (same for the base part).

By making a specular map that gives very little shininess to the wood, and much more shininess to the metal, I could can make a realistic looking difference in shininess for a single texture face.

 

[Jean Horten]

As long as materials cannot be applied to avatar nonmesh clothing ,I don't give a ( insert word of your choice here) about it. Another half implemented thing. Why can't LL implement things completely ( Mesh deformer, flexi mesh, materials textures for avatar clothing) ?

J.

[arton Rotaru]

There's no doubt that people will advertise their stuff like that. But I can only speak for myself, I will not going to do it that way.

About the texture skills. The only thing that's shifting in the creation of diffuse maps, is you don't need to have baked in highlights. Everything else will be the same. If you want realistic surfaces, you have to make your diffuse maps pretty. On top of that, you have to create the specular map. Mostly done from the diffuse map as a basis. So infact, you will need more texture skills than before.

When something works quite well with sunlight, it's not going to break when there are some light sources around. It will just look like illuminated by a light. That's fine. If there is no light, inddoors, into the shadow, I wouldn't expect much specularity from things. That's fine also.

We just have to keep in mind, the SL render engine isn't the most sophisticated engine out there. By only adding normal and specular maps, it won't change SL into a photorealistic environment.

Maybe it's time to create a fancy line of interior lamps, to light up indoor spaces.

[Madeliefste Oh]

... or a nano size lighting system

[arton Rotaru]

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Madeliefste Oh wrote:

... or a nano size lighting system

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:matte-motes-wink-tongue:

[Creator Linden]

An explanation of how applying materials affects your land impact can be found here.

 

Applying materials does cause your object's LI to be calculated using the standard LI parameters, 

but this should not cause LI cost to 'explode' however.

 

Any unreasonable increases in LI due to material use should be reported as a bug to the Materials Project JIRA.

[Drongle McMahon]

" ...this should not cause LI cost to 'explode... "

Hmm.

This is my favourite traditional prim crumhorn (in sunlight, without attached lights). Its LI is 3. If I decide to add a specular map to the wood, to make the wood varying sininess, its LI jumps to 1901.

Now I know this is because a small tortured torus has a prodigious (triangle based) physics weight if it's physics weight is left as the default type "Prim". I know that I can prevent the increase by switching it to type "Convex Hull" before adding the specular map. But most people probably don't know this. Unless they have sufficient capacity on their parcel, they are going to wonder why it was returned. They will write forum threads and tell all their friends that materials cause astronomic increases in LI - avoid them at all costs!

There is an obvious solution - change the physics shape type automatically when applying materials changes the accounting type. Unfortunately, that will cause another set of problems when people suddenly find they can't get inside their houses if the put materials on them. Ok. So the only way out is to look at the new LI and put up a confirmation dialog if its more than a certain inmcrease. But that will take ages for any complex builds because the LI has to come from the server, and the server will have to calculate it in advance of the change bing applied. Hmm.

ETA - I know. Crumhorns are out of date and can't be supported! I should use a Meshophonium instead.

[Pamela Galli]

I can't imagine that anyone but creators would be applying spec maps. Would they?  Creators hopefully will make a little more effort to become aware. 

Well, maybe not.

[Drongle McMahon]

I thought everyone was a creator! :matte-motes-big-grin:

But seriously - yes. They don't have to make them. I would expect people to be selling materials as they now sell textures for anyone to use. There should be as much demand for general-purpose materials as there is now for general purpose textures. They don't have to be only build-specific. You don't think there will be amarket for that?

In fact, they don't need even to be applying maps. They could be using a blank specular and normal maps just to get proper specular highlights.

[Madeliefste Oh]

Fashionistas will discover soon enough how to polish their mod shoes and how to hairspray their mod updos

But something else. I want to give my nice bumpy grey cube an icy look, I had the idea to make my speculair color icy blue to reach this effect. But now, when I try to control my specular color in the colorfield, it colors also my diffuse texture. And this is not the effect I have in mind at all. The only way I could the effect I want to see is by placing a blue lamp.

Any other ways available to influence my specular color without changing the color of my diffuse texture? Or do we just have lamps for this?

 

[Cerise Sorbet]

Specular has a separate color field, under the environment and glossy spinners. Make sure you're using that one.

[Madeliefste Oh]

Thanks, found it. It works pretty well indeed