New updated enviroments

[Chic Aeon]

I think we can see that there will be issues with materials just like there were in the earlier viewers. It is really important (and oftentimes overlooked by creators) to check and see what your items look like for folks that do not see materials (or choose to have them off).  I had one person who had lovely jewelry --- this back in the day when materials were brand new -- IF you had Advanced Lighting enabled. If not it looked really bad. 

 

For the really old timers this could have been compared to using the built in "low" "medium" etc choices in specular. Some folks couldn't see those back in the day, so counting on that to hid your less than stellar builds didn't work all that well. 

 

But some of us have fixed some things ourselves -- likely issues that LL didn't even know existed -- or at least had no idea how users could fix for themselves - and that's a good thing. 

 

In Sansar -- at least when I was there -- the areas were all self contained and there was no way for visitors to change the look of the skies, water etc.  That was an advantage in some ways because things could and did look the way that the creator intended them to look. At the same TIME if you were selling something like a building or furniture -- the people didn't really know how things would look under THEIR lighting. So there is no perfect answer. 

[arton Rotaru]

35 minutes ago, ChinRey said:

You can actually argue that it's the old windlight that got it wrong.

Look at these two specular maps:

They are both for rusty oil drum tops compare them directly but you can see the difference in the overall darkness. The one to the left is from one of the 3TD collections of CC0 assets and fairly typical of what you'd use in most game engines. The one to the right is what I had to come up with to get a decent shine without overfocusing the reflection under the old windlight. I'm not saying one is right and the other is wrong and I'm definitely not saying EEP got the normal and specular map handling right. But there is an argument for trying to comply with the de facto industrial standard(s).

Rust is not very reflective, if at all. The almost pure white edges and scratches make those pop out. I don't see why this dark map wouldn't work in SL for a rusty surface actually.

Edited December 17, 2020 by arton Rotaru

[NiranV Dean]

7 hours ago, arton Rotaru said:

Look, it's not about if you or me like, or doesn't like the current behavior. It's about what it is now, and what it was before.

Let's look at an image I have taken that shows Linden Lab content, made by a Mole. I have chosen Mole content deliberately because I knew people will come by and just say things like you did, that people are just too stupid to make material maps and the like. Now you still can say that the Moles are too stupid too, but all that is not the point.

The point is, if this Mole wanted that road to be as shiny as it is in EEP (left side) he already could have done that in the pre EEP viewer as well. There was no lack of shinyness in the old viewer. Not at all. Looking at that road, the Mole actually put in some effort to make that road look nice and convincing (right side, pre-EEP).

Just go there and check for yourself. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Horizons%20Galatea/168/72/23

 

 

It's not nearly as shiny for me as it is for you.

I still don't see the problem with this though, one thing doesn't necessarily carry over to another system perfectly. It's like people expect everything they do to look exactly the same in PBR rendering when it absolutely wouldn't. This isn't a switch to PBR but from the commits related to shiny/specularity calculation, it seems like what EEP did/does is actually a more correct calculation (given any bugs are completely worked out, like accidental double shininess, taking wrong color channels as information etc) and thus whatever EEP is trying to do would be the better way, despite it looking different (obviously). This is no different to the many other issues that SL has that i'd like to see fixed (one particularly about attachment offsets that i already did fix) that would cause things to change slightly and people complaining that things changed in order to keep correctness going forward. Again, given that the current specularity isn't bugged somehow i'd say we'll have to go in and adjust our content if necessary. I'm not saying EEP is a good thing, i hate what EEP did and how it was completely unnecessary to make all these rendering changes now rather than later all in one. We're just going to break things twice now, EEP's rendering changes were absolutely unnecessary.

[arton Rotaru]

4 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

It's not nearly as shiny for me as it is for you.

Doesn't matter.

For the X and last time. Do a comparison between EEP and pre EEP. That's the point.

I won't comment the rest of your post, because I'm tired of doing so. It has all been said multiple times already. I just don't know why people feel the need to counterfight this over and over again. There is no gain for anybody to fix all that on the content side.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

9 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

There is no gain for anybody to fix all that on the content side.

And this is why Second Life is so stagnant.

[NiranV Dean]

10 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

Doesn't matter.

For the X and last time. Do a comparison between EEP and pre EEP. That's the point.

I won't comment the rest of your post, because I'm tired of doing so. It has all been said multiple times already. I just don't know why people feel the need to counterfight this over and over again. There is no gain for anybody to fix all that on the content side.

No. What you are saying doesn't matter. The platform we are using is constantly changing, sometimes more sometimes less, we have to accept that our content may very well be broken at any given time and cannot be preserved infinitely. How it looked before EEP doesn't matter as whatever was before EEP is no longer and is thus now wrong unless whatever EEP does is bugged as explained before. EEP is now and unless you find a calculation error or a bug it doesn't matter what you think of how everything looks now. Saying "but it looked like this before" is neither a bug report not constructive feedback because it is obviously intended to not look exactly the same as pre-EEP since otherwise EEP could have as well not changed anything in the first place.

Just now, Wulfie Reanimator said:

And this is why Second Life is so stagnant.

Wolfie is right. The unwillingness of people to fix their content and update to changes is the reason SL is stagnating. LL knows this and this is the reason LL has been so extremely hesitant to do anything that could even remotely alter how content looks.

[arton Rotaru]

8 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

And this is why Second Life is so stagnant.

Now it's getting ridiculous. In which way will this change in specularity move SL forward? What are the benefits when we have darker spec maps as we used to have? How is that an improvement that is worth enforcing that change?

Anyways, I'm out of here!

[NiranV Dean]

Just now, arton Rotaru said:

Now it's getting ridiculous. In which way will this change in specularity move SL forward? What are the benefits when we have darker spec maps as we used to have? How is that an improvement that is worth enforcing that change?

Anyways, I'm out of here!

Because it is not just this. This specularity complaint is just one of many in a sea of complains exactly like this.

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

Now it's getting ridiculous. In which way will this change in specularity move SL forward? What are the benefits when we have darker spec maps as we used to have? How is that an improvement that is worth enforcing that change?

Anyways, I'm out of here!

Hey, I get your point.  There were plenty of more important things that could have been done besides replacing something that wasn't really needed.  But, since it's never been relevant what the actual residents think, the argument is pointless.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

8 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

Hey, I get your point.  There were plenty of more important things that could have been done besides replacing something that wasn't really needed.  But, since it's never been relevant what the actual residents think, the argument is pointless.

Are we not "actual residents" as well?

Besides, it was already agreed that EEP changes were unnecessary for now and better things could've been worked on instead.

[Fauve Aeon]

19 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

Hey, I get your point.  There were plenty of more important things that could have been done besides replacing something that wasn't really needed.  But, since it's never been relevant what the actual residents think, the argument is pointless.

It might have just been a business decision, maybe something that was a condition of the sale and/or the handoff to the new owners for all we know, same with uplift. Big ongoing projects needing to be wrapped up and rolled out before the end of year. Just guessing about those 2 things and the timing. 

[steeljane42]

31 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Are we not "actual residents" as well?

Besides, it was already agreed that EEP changes were unnecessary for now and better things could've been worked on instead.

We are "niche residents". I post here sometimes, lurk around more often, and some topics that are discussed on forums from time to time, like "complexity", "good/bad content" and so on is something I never heard in-world, not even once.

Most people don't care about that, they just want things to look good and "work". And people like consistency in SL just as they like it in RL, maybe even more so, since it's an online world and aside of tech issues the rest of the changes to it are all done by LL exclusively vs million of random things that might happen in RL.

So vast majority of changes and efforts LL makes should be put into eliminating ongoing issues, some of them are known for years. For example the not so rare case when failed teleport to an offline region (by an orb or via other means) can cause all scripts in worn objects to be put into not running state, which breaks all scripted objects and it's good if they are copy and/or can be redelivered, no-copy stuff with no-mod scripts just breaks forever. it's a know issue for years, and still not fixed.

Or more recent and EEP related one, the JIRA with an issue I linked earlier in this thread on the 1st page, which makes water to take up to 30-35% of FPS now on EEP vs 5-7% on windlight. What most "actual residents" will like, a slighly different shine with terrible control system to adjust skies or 30% extra fps? I'm willing to bet it's the latter. Therefore it should have been a priority to fix for LL, but it's not.

That whole EEP thing was a mess from the start to its current state. How long ago we got black stars bug on windlight, because LL thought to push EEP so hard and made server changes on the main grid years ahead of an actual EEP release? So, yeah, a totally unncecessary changes and a big waste of time and resources, that will now take more time to fix as well. But hey, at least it's not Sansar *this time for sure* 2, right?

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, steeljane42 said:

We are "niche residents". I post here sometimes, lurk around more often, and some topics that are discussed on forums from time to time, like "complexity", "good/bad content" and so on is something I never heard in-world, not even once.

Most people don't care about that, they just want things to look good and "work". And people like consistency in SL just as they like it in RL, maybe even more so, since it's an online world and aside of tech issues the rest of the changes to it are all done by LL exclusively vs million of random things that might happen in RL.

So vast majority of changes and efforts LL makes should be put into eliminating ongoing issues, some of them are known for years. For example the not so rare case when failed teleport to an offline region (by an orb or via other means) can cause all scripts in worn objects to be put into not running state, which breaks all scripted objects and it's good if they are copy and/or can be redelivered, no-copy stuff with no-mod scripts just breaks forever. it's a know issue for years, and still not fixed.

Or more recent and EEP related one, the JIRA with an issue I linked earlier in this thread on the 1st page, which makes water to take up to 30-35% of FPS now on EEP vs 5-7% on windlight. What most "actual residents" will like, a slighly different shine with terrible control system to adjust skies or 30% extra fps? I'm willing to bet it's the latter. Therefore it should have been a priority to fix for LL, but it's not.

That whole EEP thing was a mess from the start to its current state. How long ago we got black stars bug on windlight, because LL thought to push EEP so hard and made server changes on the main grid years ahead of an actual EEP release? So, yeah, a totally unncecessary changes and a big waste of time and resources, that will now take more time to fix as well. But hey, at least it's not Sansar *this time for sure* 2, right?

There's nothing in your post that I disagree with, some of it I've said almost word for word. That's not how I read Rowan's post, though; sounded like she was making a distinction between Niran and I vs Arton and herself.

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

There's nothing in your post that I disagree with, some of it I've said almost word for word. That's not how I read Rowan's post, though; sounded like she was making a distinction between Niran and I vs Arton and herself.

I was not making that distinction.  @steeljane42just said it better than I did.  The forums are a very small section of residents.  Most of the folks I've talked with inworld couldn't have cared less about EEP.  

[Wulfie Reanimator]

10 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

I was not making that distinction.  @steeljane42just said it better than I did.  The forums are a very small section of residents.  Most of the folks I've talked with inworld couldn't have cared less about EEP.  

I think you should already know then, that I'm pretty proactive in pointing out that this forum population is very niche.

Neither do I care about EEP, hence me not really taking part in topics talking about it.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Rowan Amore]

18 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

I think you should already know then, that I'm pretty proactive in pointing out that this forum population is very niche.

Neither do I care about EEP, hence me not really taking part in topics talking about it.

Yes, I do know that and why my response was to @arton Rotaruand agreeing with them.  I also agree with everything @steeljane42said.

 

3 hours ago, arton Rotaru said:

How is that an improvement that is worth enforcing that change?

And that arguing is pointless since it's here to stay whether we like it or not.  I was in agreement.  Not all change is good.  It's just change.

Edited December 18, 2020 by RowanMinx

[Janet Voxel]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't EEP the completed version of WL? That is: wasn't WL an early, incomplete version of what EEP is now? Or EEP has a lot of features WL was supposed to have?

[Solar Legion]

18 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't EEP the completed version of WL? That is: wasn't WL an early, incomplete version of what EEP is now? Or EEP has a lot of features WL was supposed to have?

You're correct - or mostly/functionally correct.

Either way the end result is a yes.

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 minute ago, Solar Legion said:

You're correct - or mostly/functionally correct.

Either way the end result is a yes.

And it still isn't "finished" after more than a decade of waiting.

[Chic Aeon]

22 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't EEP the completed version of WL? That is: wasn't WL an early, incomplete version of what EEP is now? Or EEP has a lot of features WL was supposed to have?

To my knowledge that is incorrect but perhaps someone else has other memories. Windlight OH SO LONG LONG AGO was I believe purchased from a company  -- or there was a partnership or something like that. This from one or more of Torley's fun and helpful videos that we looked forward to each week.   Windlight gave us more skies and the ability to make our own. Before that it was really REALLY UGLY. 

 

EDIT: Solar posted a short comment while I was writing my long one (not unusual) so I would really like to know MORE about what he was saying and some bits of history that I apparently have forgotten --- OR from someone else. That' works too.  

 

EEP "seemed" to be -- when introduced -- a new way of doing things with some very positive ideas such as setting settings on smaller parcels, not just a sim and having different lighting at various levels (something I was VERY interested in as I was runny the Machinima Open Studio Project at LEA back then.   But along with that (when introduced) was the ability to SELL your EEP skies and to make complex scripted environments AND the upload charges for skies (that didn't happen in the end). So part of the point for The Lab it seems was monetary gain. 

 

They put in a ton of time on this with several lead devs involved and pause and such.  It may eventually turn out to be a really good thing. But it has also been very painful for a lot of people because -- not unexpectedly  -- it was handled badly so far as the citizens go. So as "citizenry" it is really up to us (and of course the third party developers) to do the best with what we have and hope that some of the glaring issues still in evidence eventually get fixed.  

 

I would be happy to hear another historical comment as while I often remember very correctly, I sometimes do not -- or do not know the whole story. But that's my input. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Chic Aeon
adding info

[Solar Legion]

At the time of acquisition, Chic, Windlight was incomplete - in terms of what features were wanted anyway. It was 'complete enough' to be rolled in however.

Though prior to it being rolled in, things weren't "really ugly" - they were simply different and the way most content was made, came across in that environment rather well.

[Chic Aeon]

OK. A little research tells me that my memory was pretty much correct.

 

 

I remember them as really ugly but glad you have better memories. 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Chic Aeon

[Solar Legion]

Heh, I joined about a year prior to you and tried to keep up with most of the advancements. Partly so i could help a friend or two that kept popping in and out of active SL use.

ETA: But yeah, I got to use Second Life before Windlight was introduced. At the time that it was first introduced it actually made things look a fair bit worse - until a few months to a year or so later that is. By then, content creators had caught up (mostly).

Also: While Windward Mark may have been releasing code as Open Source that does not mean that it was "feature complete" back then.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Solar Legion

[ChinRey]

5 hours ago, Janet Voxel said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't EEP the completed version of WL? That is: wasn't WL an early, incomplete version of what EEP is now? Or EEP has a lot of features WL was supposed to have?

It depends on how you look at it. Would you say Windows 10 is the completed version of Windows 7?

Windlight was a completed, fully functional and really advanced athmospheric system when LL bought and butchered the company that developed it. But software does get outdated of course

Edited December 18, 2020 by ChinRey

[NiranV Dean]

10 hours ago, Janet Voxel said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't EEP the completed version of WL? That is: wasn't WL an early, incomplete version of what EEP is now? Or EEP has a lot of features WL was supposed to have?

 

9 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

You're correct - or mostly/functionally correct.

Either way the end result is a yes.

 

9 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

And it still isn't "finished" after more than a decade of waiting.

Not really. Windlight was complete. What you heard was probably the fact that Windlight (the original one outside of SL that they acquired) was more than what we got in SL. Like with many things, the WL implementation in SL is just a massively dumbed down version of what the original was supposed to be. EEP didn't change a single thing about this. What EEP did however was simply taking what Winlight already did and adding a couple more options but their implementation were in a horrible condition (see the UI and rendering changes) and were partly or completely unnecessary (getting rid of local windlights, massive rendering changes) and on top of that were not what we asked for (presets being distributable as "marketable" items, e.g with permissions and as such becoming a protected asset, which in turn forced horrible workarounds to be made such as the absolutely disrespectful "Personal Lighting" window which is missing over half of the options). EEP didn't bring it closer to the original vision of Windlight at all.

I think EEP is such a big fail because it was lacking feedback for its direction. Whoever LL listened to or gathered "feedback" from to compile a project such as this, were either the wrong people (as always) or they didn't understand what people really wanted. If they had asked me i would have repeated the importance of keeping Windlight exactly as it is and not getting rid of local presets and NOT making the UI a huge disaster like they did. I would have repeated this like a mantra.

I wouldn't have:

• removed local presets
• made permissions applicable to preset items
• completely changed the UI or made it huge
• added a stupid "personal lighting" window
• made shader changes now that break everything down the line
• released this mess until all the things were fixed (new and old issues)

IF you are going to break so much things with EEP they could have at least used this chance to fix old rendering issues (a select few were fixed but there are still many to go)... but i suppose we'll have to wait for those rendering pipeline changes that seem to be in the making which are going to break everything again, hopefully this time for a good cause.

4 hours ago, ChinRey said:

It depends on how you look at it. Would you say Windows 10 is the completed version of Windows 7?

Windlight was a completed, fully functional and really advanced athmospheric system when LL bought and butchered the company that developed it. But software does get outdated of course

I'd never. Ever. Dream of thinking that 10 is a completed version of 7. I have only had issues with Windows 10 so far and i'm not even one of those unlucky bastards that totally wreck their OS every major update. Windows 10 is but a shadow of 7 if anything. Yes, yes. 10 doesn't bluescreen as easy (at least hasn't for me) but i only ever bluescreened due to out of memory issues (16GB RAM is very little nowadays, i have 64GB now, so that wouldn't be an issue with 7 now) but 10 is outright ugly and atrocious, it is annoyingly penetrant (like updates), never does what i want it to do (installs updates when i tell it to restart without updating) and forces me to restart, by breaking my sound in such a way that its not even fixable with CMD by restarting the entire audio engine, just so it can install its stupid new updates on me that i didn't want and delayed for a reason (because of all the horror stories of games, OS and even hardware breaking).

Edited December 18, 2020 by NiranV Dean