ALM Proposal / Work

[Jenna Huntsman]

46 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

First, do we know which TPVs have incorporated that code?

Any viewer based on the Linden 6.6.3 + codebase will have the perf. improvements. That includes the latest version of Firestorm.

46 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Second, was performance for both forward-rendering and direct-rendering improved?

*maybe*, although forward-rendering has been "depreciated" in LL's eyes for a while. It's been getting fixes as-and-when needed, but it was never going to be upgraded with any new features; so any improvement is a happy coincidence.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

These suggest that it's only the direct-rendering that's been sped up

To be clear, I don't know if forward-rendering had improved because I don't use it and haven't heard anyone talk about it one way or another.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator

[EliseAnne85]

9 hours ago, Paul Hexem said:

I have no idea what you're talking about, but now that weed is legal, that's okay.

Oh, I thought you meant SL was terrible on the human end of things.

SL is not terrible if you are a Tiny or a Dinkie.  When I'm a human, it lags badly even at low complexity.

So, never mind, anyhow that I quoted you if you don't know what I have experienced as a human as compared to a Dinkie.  

Again, SL is not terrible as a Dinkie.  

Edited September 29, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Jackson Redstar]

On 9/28/2022 at 5:04 AM, Henri Beauchamp said:

ALERT ALERT ALERT

They are doing it !

This is totally, utterly, dishearteningly crazy, but LL is removing forward rendering (non-ALM) support from their future PBR viewer. See this commit.

I urge users with modest PCs to publish here their frame rates with ALM (no shadows, no SSAO, no DOF) on and off (no other graphics setting being touched), so that LL, maybe, may understand how terrible is their mistake and how miserable they will cause many users to feel when logging into SL in the future !

ALERT ALERT ALERT

The thing is Linden should be making descions based on real date and use cases. Back in the olden days we designed web pages to conform to 800x600 until there was enought data showing that a small minority of users were still using that, so the designs changes to support higher resolutions. Sure some of the suers on older systems grumbled but there is no way you can continue to suoort fringe use cases. Times change. Computer specs change. And in 2022 it is hard to imagne anyone even on a 7 or 8 year PC can't run with ALM on and at least shadows off....

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

14 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

SL is not terrible if you are a Tiny or a Dinkie.

Seems like a good opportunity for a compromise.

People could just use tiny avatars and equally tiny boats and planes.  If you're 1/8th the size you can have a 128m draw distance and it'll feel like 1024m, it would be like playing Micro Machines in SL! 

[EliseAnne85]

1 minute ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Seems like a good opportunity for a compromise.

People could just use tiny avatars and equally tiny boats and planes.  If you're 1/8th the size you can have a 128m draw distance and it'll feel like 1024m, it would be like playing Micro Machines in SL! 

So, tiny people would work and SL would not be terrible?   hmmmmmm?  

Paul said and I quote "Usually I tell people to get as much horsepower as possible because SL is so terrible".  It is as a human, so that's what I  thought he was talking about because SL is not terrible at all as a Dinkie.  

Weird thing tho, Dinkie's can run at low complexity like humans with BOM and other optimizations, but tinies are extremely high in complexity and in the hundreds of thousands *but* there is no lag with the tinies.  Yet humans at low complexity cause me much lag.  This I don't understand.  

Also, if there is an option to show friends only why can't we show only our stuff?  That might help.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

7 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

So, tiny people would work and SL would not be terrible?   hmmmmmm?  

Paul said and I quote "Usually I tell people to get as much horsepower as possible because SL is so terrible".  It is as a human, so that's what I  thought he was talking about because SL is not terrible at all as a Dinkie.  

Weird thing tho, Dinkie's can run at low complexity like humans with BOM and other optimizations, but tinies are extremely high in complexity and in the hundreds of thousands *but* there is no lag with the tinies.  Yet humans at low complexity cause me much lag.  This I don't understand.  

Also, if there is an option to show friends only why can't we show only our stuff?  That might help.

Well I was (mostly) joking, although the idea of creating a giant sim-sized bathroom or bedroom and creating a Micro Machines style race track does sound kind of fun (I've always loved games/sims where all the environment is huge and the players are teeny tiny by comparison).

While there are a few advantages to scaling down your avatar and environment, it's not really the ideal solution for poor performance.  I'm not sure why you're seeing such a drastic contrast in complexity when changing avatars, but it most likely has something to do with the items worn on each avatar rather than their comparative size.

 

[EliseAnne85]

34 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Well I was (mostly) joking, although the idea of creating a giant sim-sized bathroom or bedroom and creating a Micro Machines style race track does sound kind of fun (I've always loved games/sims where all the environment is huge and the players are teeny tiny by comparison).

While there are a few advantages to scaling down your avatar and environment, it's not really the ideal solution for poor performance.  I'm not sure why you're seeing such a drastic contrast in complexity when changing avatars, but it most likely has something to do with the items worn on each avatar rather than their comparative size.

 

I don't think the tinies are adding on more stuff than Dinkies or humans but tinies since they are so old wear the flexi-prim non-mesh clothing so that could be it.  

Tinies go way back to when SL was first created so they are very "boxy" animal avatars but even without stuff added they are still a higher complexity than Dinkies or human mesh avatars, so I'm saying more or less just naked the tinies are the highest complexity but they don't lag my computer at all like human mesh avatars do.

SL can run with over a hundred tinies at high complexity and not lag.  But bring in 3-4 humans at low complexity and my computer can't handle anymore humans.  I think the complexity thing is over-rated.   I've heard it is.  It's the triangles than in the human mesh avatars that are rough to run OR it's the scripts in the human mesh avatars.

Tinies and Dinkies have very little scripts.

I feel I need to upgrade my computer to be able to run more humans but I want to wait until this new viewer comes out so I get the best option to what is needed for a better human SL.

Edited September 29, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

53 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I don't think the tinies are adding on more stuff than Dinkies or humans but tinies since they are so old wear the flexi-prim non-mesh clothing so that could be it.

I'm fairly certain that it is, flexi-prims are heavily penalized when calculating complexity.

It's possible that the reason you suffer from less lag in a sim full of tinies despite their complexity being higher is that, unlike tiny avatars, human avatars have a huge selection of mesh bodies, clothing, skin textures, jewellery, makeup, etc, etc. which translates to a far wider variety of objects and textures which have to be loaded and stored in memory.

If you have 50 avatars all wearing the same basic mesh body and then a small selection of objects and textures that are re-used on multiple avatars then you'll most likely see a marked improvement in performance compared to 50 avatars each wearing a completely unique ensemble of high resolution textures on high poly mesh.

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I'm fairly certain that it is, flexi-prims are heavily penalized when calculating complexity.

It's possible that the reason you suffer from less lag in a sim full of tinies despite their complexity being higher is that, unlike tiny avatars, human avatars have a huge selection of mesh bodies, clothing, skin textures, jewellery, makeup, etc, etc. which translates to a far wider variety of objects and textures which have to be loaded and stored in memory.

If you have 50 avatars all wearing the same basic mesh body and then a small selection of objects and textures that are re-used on multiple avatars then you'll most likely see a marked improvement in performance compared to 50 avatars each wearing a completely unique ensemble of high resolution textures on high poly mesh.

Yeah, but still the prim skirts don't lag on the tinies but be a human and put on a flexi-prim skirt just for fun and you might be a complexity of about 300k and the humans will lag but not the tinies nor the dinkies wearing flexi skirts.

Your statement about 50 avatars wearing the same basic body, yes that would be tinies and dinkies, so that is probably it.  And, that makes tinies and Dinkies more like the Classic human avatar which the viewer responds better to.

One thing about scripts though on the human avis, is, with BOM it is eliminating all those scripts for eyeshadow, eyeliner, gloss, and infinity scripts just for make-up.  LOL If people just apply a single lipstick and/or eye make-up (liner, shadow, brows, whatever) as a tattoo that eliminates a lot of scripts.   This is something to consider then for me to retire my onion-skin human avi.  Yes, I have BOM human avi's but I didn't want to give up my onion-skin avi's.  Maybe I should.  It's just too many scripts in those.  

Another thing that can add to a performance issue is an inventory that is a mess or too much stuff.  Client side we need to do out part too in cleaning out old files from our computer as well as our SL inventory and not expecting to run tons of programs at one time while on SL.  

Edited September 29, 2022 by EliseAnne85

[Ernst Osterham]

9 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

SL isn't built like a game engine, it can't run like one whatever the content.

That’s true because no matter what the content there are fundamental world constraints SL has that games don’t.  Just look at all the trouble MMOs have with lots of people in the same place, or creating persistent, large worlds.  It’s not easy.

I do feel content is huge though.  When people talk about “lag” in SL most times they are talking about graphics lag or sluggish network retrieval and loading of assets.  Those things are primarily content based.  
 

When Sl is built more like a game it runs ok-ish.  Go to a sim like Drune and it looks nice AND runs pretty well.  Go to 511 jazz and it runs like garbage.  

 

 

 

[ChinRey]

3 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

I think the complexity thing is over-rated.

No, it's not over-rated because that would imply it had some value at all and it doesn't.

Here's a fairly random snapshot from Firestorm's lovely new performance tool:

So, an avatar with 31,000 complexity takes up 440.26 μs of rendering time whilst one with a whopping 147,000 complexity only needs 68.17 μs. The problem is that although the ARC calculation can estimate the actual load of a classic avatar close enough it's at least in the right ballpark, it can not handle mesh avatars at all so the figures it comes up with for them has no relation to reality whatsoever.

[Gabriele Graves]

5 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

When I'm a human, it lags badly even at low complexity.

This really depends on the hardware and the internet connection you have.  I have a human avi and I never experience any lag even at major events with many avatars.  So being a human isn't terrible for everyone.

[Henri Beauchamp]

On 9/28/2022 at 10:21 PM, ChinRey said:

No, it won't work that way because, as I've said earlier, an albedo map is not a texture.

You are mistaken.

The forward rendering mode cannot care less about materials (it simply does not use them), be them current (ALM) materials or future PBR ones. That map will simply be ignored; you will not see all the ”shinies”, but things will keep rendering as they do today when you switch ALM off.

Anyway, should LL force deferred rendering on with their future viewers, you will see a Cool VL Viewer version with a dual renderer (as I already did with WL+EE), one with PBR, and the other with forward rendering...

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

2 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

The forward rendering mode cannot care less about materials (it simply does not use them), be them current (ALM) materials or future PBR ones. That map will simply be ignored; you will not see all the ”shinies”, but things will keep rendering as they do today when you switch ALM off.

The albedo map is essentially the equivalent of a base colour texture (i.e. the only texture you can see when you switch off ALM).

When used properly an albedo map doesn't contain anything other than the surface colour whereas in SL the base texture is usually comprised of additional details to simulate things like depth or lighting however, since I doubt SL creators are going to collectively learn to use PBR materials correctly overnight, I imagine we'll still see plenty of albedo maps that contain all sorts of imaginative shading.

[Henri Beauchamp]

4 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

The albedo map is essentially the equivalent of a base colour texture (i.e. the only texture you can see when you switch off ALM).

When used properly an albedo map doesn't contain anything other than the surface colour whereas in SL the base texture is usually comprised of additional details to simulate things like depth or lighting however, since I doubt SL creators are going to collectively learn to use PBR materials correctly overnight, I imagine we'll still see plenty of albedo maps that contain all sorts of imaginative shading.

The forward rendering mode uses just one texture (the one that existed since day one in SL), the diffuse texture. All the rest is ignored (not rendered). PBR materials will not be seen (just like current materials are not): not a big deal as far as I am concerned, as long as the viewer got a rendering mode that runs at decent frame rates on non-gaming PCs (or mobile: the Cool VL Viewer already got ARM builds)...

[Qie Niangao]

10 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

When used properly an albedo map doesn't contain anything other than the surface colour whereas in SL the base texture is usually comprised of additional details to simulate things like depth or lighting however, since I doubt SL creators are going to collectively learn to use PBR materials correctly overnight, I imagine we'll still see plenty of albedo maps that contain all sorts of imaginative shading.

Isn't this almost guaranteed to continue for as long as there are viewers that support forward rendering?

In fact, won't all viewers need shadows visible at all times in order to deter creators from baking everything down to albedo, just in case?

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

14 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

The forward rendering mode uses just one texture (the one that existed since day one in SL), the diffuse texture.

There are specific differences between the image data that is meant to be included in the (non-ALM) base texture, the (current materials system) diffuse texture and the (new PBR system) albedo texture however in essence they all share the same basic function which is to dictate the base colour of the surface they're applied to.

There are certain idiosyncrasies like PBR Specular diffuse maps containing no colour information for metallic surfaces but the major difference between the three renderers is the additional maps used to define the properties of the surface the materials are applied to and the way in which the graphics engine processes them.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

34 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

In fact, won't all viewers need shadows visible at all times in order to deter creators from baking everything down to albedo, just in case?

Well, that would effectively knock a whole lot of people out of SL.

Now, if everything were mod, it wouldn't matter so much perhaps?

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

40 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Isn't this almost guaranteed to continue for as long as there are viewers that support forward rendering?

In fact, won't all viewers need shadows visible at all times in order to deter creators from baking everything down to albedo, just in case?

Yes, pretty much, but if there are folks who are unable or unwilling to turn on shadows then I see no reason why creators shouldn't continue to create products that cater to them.

Some creators will embrace the new features and create content using the new PBR materials and whatever other new features LL implement and others won't and residents will have the option to purchase whichever content suits their purposes and/or limitations.  For obvious reasons LL are never going to be able to transform SL into something resembling a cohesive and unified visual experience because there is no continuity in the type of content being created or the skill level of those creating it, the most they can hope for is improving performance to a degree where they can afford to introduce new features while still accommodating as many of their users as possible.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Fluffy Sharkfin

[Gabriele Graves]

16 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Well, that would effectively knock a whole lot of people out of SL.

Now, if everything were mod, it wouldn't matter so much perhaps?

Even mod wouldn't really fix this for most people.  Perhaps creators should consider including both shadow baked and no shadow baked versions of their creations in the box.  I seem to remember coming across at least one example of someone doing this in the past.

I know I get tired of seeing shadows baked into everything.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Gabriele Graves

[Jenna Huntsman]

14 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

In fact, won't all viewers need shadows visible at all times in order to deter creators from baking everything down to albedo, just in case?

No, because you can use the Occlusion map in PBR to get the shadows instead (Part of what LL are calling the "Metalness-Roughness map", but the industry standard term is "ORM").

[ChinRey]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

You are mistaken.

The forward rendering mode cannot care less about materials (it simply does not use them), be them current (ALM) materials or future PBR ones. That map will simply be ignored; you will not see all the ”shinies”, but things will keep rendering as they do today when you switch ALM off.

Take a look at this texture:

This is how the diffuse map looks:

Albedo map:

With proper use of PBR you can't simply omit the other maps because they are essential parts of the appearance. You can even argue that the albedo/diffuse map is the least important of them!

Yes, I know we are forced to use textures as diffuse map substitutes in SL But that is not a satisfactory solution because all the shadings and 3D details we have to bake onto the faux diffuse map will interfere both with the normal and specular maps and also with the advanced shaders for those who are able to use ultra graphics, severely reducing the usability of these advanced features.

The texture as diffuse map is nothing but a crude hack and if we have to continue using it, there's hardly any point in going full PBR.

However, as I've already said at least once in this thread there is an obvious and fairly simple solution: include both an albedo or diffuse map for those who have computers strong enough to handle PBR and a ready made composite texture for those who don't. The composite textures will have to be generated server side, not uploaded by the creator of course but that's a farily trivial task.

Edited September 29, 2022 by ChinRey

[Henri Beauchamp]

@ChinRey

Your description is no different than what already happens with today's materials... Take a latex outfit, for example, it might just look as a matte surface with ALM off. And so what ?...

E.g. when I travel in SL (sailing, flying, riding, etc), I cannot care less about a specific latex outfit an avatar is wearing in the distance, but I do care about large draw distances at good FPS rates, as well as an anti-aliasing algorithm that does not make the scenery look blurry, with bad banding on distant parallels, for example... In this case, turning ALM off is the best compromise, by far, especially if you do not have a gaming PC.

However, when frequenting a BDSM club, I want to see all the gorgeous latex outfits and accessories, and I turn ALM on.

PBR will be no different, at least as far as my SL usage is concerned.

Edited September 30, 2022 by Henri Beauchamp

[Gabriele Graves]

Perhaps what is needed is a progressive ALM system that takes into account whether the details can be seen for the objects further away from you and degrades to the point where is not applied.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Gabriele Graves