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ALM Proposal / Work


Perrie Juran
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being 2022 I would think the majority of the user base would be able the run ALM  with shadows OFF even in crowded places. But as long as will still be able to turn on local lites or not and attached lites or not I dont see a problem having ALM on by default. As long as we can can still apply whatever EEP we want and not be forced to accept region lighting. Then that would be very bad indeed

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Just now, StarlanderGoods said:

Skybox and sky dome creators will have to figure out how to recreate light inside their builds, or find different means for privacy other than a huge simwide sphere that blocks all the light.

Between that and learning how to use reflection probes they're going to be pretty busy.

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1 minute ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Fancy new-fangled technology that allows objects to reflect the scene around them (see the below example, particularly the windows!)

SLScreen_001.thumb.jpg.7d3df18eb31a9a1c328d24563bba6b9f.jpg

Right! I knew they were working on something like this. I'd imagine this is going to involve some heavy lifting for computers, though?

That scene is not SL, btw, is it?

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36 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'd imagine this is going to involve some heavy lifting for computers, though?

I haven't had a chance to try it yet but from what I read in some of the previous meeting notes here it sounds like the majority of the heavy lifting is dependent on the number of probes sampled.

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Currently only 8 maps are active at any one time. However, given sampling of just 8 maps for rendering can take up to 70% of an RTX 3080 GPU, this number is likely to be dropped to 4, unless a more targeted means of sampling for a given pixel can be determined.

I'd assume an additional consideration would be the rate at which probes are updated which according to the blog post is currently...

Quote

whenever the number of objects in them changes or the Day Cycle changes, although the update rate is no more than one probe per frame.

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16 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Thanks, I had a look through a few of the meeting notes and linked the blog post that had information relevant to impact on performance, but there's definitely a ton of additional information in subsequent posts that's worth reviewing.

I'm quite excited to see the old SL environment/reflection map getting replaced, hopefully it won't take long for people to start utilizing them once the feature is released.

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40 minutes ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

That's a lot of material to get through, no pun intended again.

What I've gotten so far is old normal maps will not work; we will need 4 maps now (some with names) I've never heard of, and something or other about Unreal Engine(?).  Unreal engine?  Wow!

I hope they will have classes to teach how to make the maps.

 

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5 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

That's a lot of material to get through, no pun intended again.

What I've gotten so far is old normal maps will not work; we will need 4 maps now (some with names) I've never heard of, and something or other about Unreal Engine(?).  Unreal engine?  Wow!

I hope they will have classes to teach how to make the maps.

 

The PBR compatible maps they're implementing are pretty much industry standard at this point so will probably be easier to work with than the current SL materials for those using 3D software that supports PBR workflows.

The reference to Unreal Engine is only in regards to the upcoming support for the .gltf format, it's certainly not going to be a requirement for any aspect of creating content for SL. :)

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3 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

That's a lot of material to get through, no pun intended again.

What I've gotten so far is old normal maps will not work; we will need 4 maps now (some with names) I've never heard of, and something or other about Unreal Engine(?).  Unreal engine?  Wow!

I hope they will have classes to teach how to make the maps.

To explain the new PBR names in simple terms:

Albedo = Regular SL texture
Normal = Normal map in SL
Emissive = Fullbright in SL (for specific parts of the texture)
Metallic-Roughness = Shininess in SL, or Glossiness and Environment together

Blender can easily bake all of these textures for you, it's just a couple clicks different from what you'd normally do.

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4 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

To explain the new PBR names in simple terms:

Albedo = Regular SL texture
Normal = Normal map in SL
Emissive = Fullbright in SL (for specific parts of the texture)
Metallic-Roughness = Shininess in SL, or Glossiness and Environment together

Blender can easily bake all of these textures for you, it's just a couple clicks different from what you'd normally do.

So, the one that is new here is Emissive?

Is there any change to the effect, or ways in which one can tweak, Normal and Specular (i.e., Metallic-Rougness)?

Or is it that this separates the last two, which are together now?

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4 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

So, the one that is new here is Emissive?

Is there any change to the effect, or ways in which one can tweak, Normal and Specular (i.e., Metallic-Rougness)?

Or is it that this separates the last two, which are together now?

You're close but, as usual, it's a wee bit more complicated.

At the moment we can toggle between using the alpha channel in the main diffuse texture for either transparency or emissiveness (glow), so essentially we already have an 8-bit (greyscale) emissive map but it's being changed to a separate full colour texture.

They are including a new type of map, the Occlusion map, which will be in the red channel of the Metallic-Roughness map (which will actually be three separate greyscale textures combined into the red, green and blue channels of a single image).

The materials system we have now is basically the equivalent of a Specular PBR workflow while the new system will be a Metallic PBR workflow.  You can find a fairly straightforward explanation of the differences between the two and a list of pros and cons for both in this blog post PBR Textures Metallic vs Specular Workflow but essentially this quote sums it up pretty well...

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PBR Specular Workflow uses a Specular Color map in conjunction with the Gloss Map for correct specularity. This has both a strong benefit and a significant disadvantage, especially in terms of game creation.

PBR Metallic workflows are memory friendly in nature and hence often more suitable for game development.

 

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14 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

Albedo = Regular SL texture

No, it isn't.

A texture is a baked surface map with the base color and static simulations of shading, reflections and all the little lumps and bumps across the surface it covers.

An albedo map only has the base colors. Everything else is supposed to be generated dynamically from other maps and from shaders. It does not work on its own at all.

A diffuse map is a bit of a mix. It contains some shading, reflection and surface details. It really needs shaders and other maps to shine (no pun intended) but it can do on its own in a pinch.

We already have problems with the confusion between textures and diffuse maps in SL. Adding textures as albedo maps and albedo maps as textures will make this much worse.

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1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

An albedo map only has the base colors. Everything else is supposed to be generated dynamically from other maps and from shaders. It does not work on its own at all.

My post was only trying to relate the new maps in layman's terms with the ones we're used to, without having to caveat and explain the technical differences. 😋 I think you can understand why I put it the way I did, and I appreciate you adding the details either way.

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20 hours ago, Sid Nagy said:

So the next hot thing in 2023 could be:
"Sorry, but I have to unfriend you, because the lamps in your living room don't reflect in your windows!"

 

do not worry, just make a female avie with big boobies and you will have friends no matter where the shadows fall.

As for ALM, I still leave it off except for pics because it makes my (souped up super duper newly built by a professional geek gaming computer) get hotter than it should. No idea why, but off ALM stays. 

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4 hours ago, Akane Nacht said:

do not worry, just make a female avie with big boobies and you will have friends no matter where the shadows fall.

As for ALM, I still leave it off except for pics because it makes my (souped up super duper newly built by a professional geek gaming computer) get hotter than it should. No idea why, but off ALM stays. 

My not suped up, regular duper, newly built (with some old parts included) built by me gaming computer runs 2 ALM enabled viewers in ultra, at 60 fps.  Maybe you just have a hot rig.  My previous video card was super hot, constantly firing up the fans like it was about to take off, but it turned out that that´s how that video card worked.

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1 hour ago, StarlanderGoods said:

My not suped up, regular duper, newly built (with some old parts included) built by me gaming computer runs 2 ALM enabled viewers in ultra, at 60 fps.  Maybe you just have a hot rig.  My previous video card was super hot, constantly firing up the fans like it was about to take off, but it turned out that that´s how that video card worked.

Possibly I've picked equipment that doesn't play nice with SL, but that's been the case for my last 3 computers. I can run other games on ultra settings without my GPU & CPU breaking a sweat, but SL with ALM on and standing still = 🔥

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21 hours ago, Wulfie Reanimator said:

My post was only trying to relate the new maps in layman's terms with the ones we're used to, without having to caveat and explain the technical differences. 😋 I think you can understand why I put it the way I did, and I appreciate you adding the details either way.

I looked up the first map - Albedo and looks interesting BUT what are the requirements of a machine going to be to run this proposed ALM with four maps thingamajig?  Do you or anyone have any idea on what the system requirements are going to be?

 

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