superpeeve Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

[Luna Bliss]

Just now, Persephone Emerald said:

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Pet Peeve:  My store, situated in a skybox, is waaay too dark on higher graphics settings. It's the shadows.

What if you make the ceiling all skylights?

The skyboxes are stacked in layers in some places. One layer would work.

[AmeliaJ08]

Did we lose a giant thread or am I just being stoopid?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Oh I have redesigned my store a number of times over the years....guess it's time to do so again. I've got stuff (some that could be retired really) spread out over multiple levels, each level taking up an entire region, so god knows how much internal lighting that would need.

A few (very large) reflection probes covering the entire area should allow you to increase the ambient lighting?

Lighting an entire region certainly sounds like a challenge, though!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

Did we lose a giant thread or am I just being stoopid?

Which?

[Istelathis]

5 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The skyboxes are stacked in layers in some places. One layer would work.

What is your HDR set to?

Really low makes the shadows pretty dark

[Luna Bliss]

5 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

15 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

The skyboxes are stacked in layers in some places. One layer would work.

What is your HDR set to?

I'm not concerned about my own viewer. I have to consider what store customers and park visitors will likely have theirs set at. Likely it will be the default.

[Love Zhaoying]

29 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

31 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

Pet Peeve:  My store, situation in a skybox, is waaay too dark on higher graphics settings. It's the shadows.

Welcome to the magical world of PBR!

Time to check out reflection spheres and internal lighting?

Yes, as I've posted multiple times, I had to add "local lights" in my own build if I wasn't going to use "Midday" or certain other settings. It fixed the issue nicely without any reflection probes.

[Istelathis]

Yay Helios is back, with some updates!

A few moles or lindens are hanging out in it, I would share screenshots but am unsure if they want to keep it secret.  I don't see Anubis at the moment though, perhaps he has been placed in a reeducation camp 🤣

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes, as I've posted multiple times, I had to add "local lights" in my own build if I wasn't going to use "Midday" or certain other settings. It fixed the issue nicely without any reflection probes.

Thanks...made me think what I could do...no need to light up the entire store...I can just add one or more local lights at each vendor location. My concern is people TP'ing to a dark vendor after seeing an item on the MP they want to check out. 

At my landing area I do spam out a message to change to mid settings....but not everybody arrives at the main landing.

Adding local lights did work well for my undersea part of the park.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

10 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Yes, as I've posted multiple times, I had to add "local lights" in my own build if I wasn't going to use "Midday" or certain other settings. It fixed the issue nicely without any reflection probes.

Thanks...made me think what I could do...no need to light up the entire store...I can just add one or more local lights at each vendor location. My concern is people TP'ing to a dark vendor after seeing an item on the MP they want to check out. 

At my landing area I do spam out a message to change to mid settings....but not everybody arrives at the main landing.

Adding local lights did work well for my undersea part of the park.

More info: Since my main build is a "box", I found it sufficient to put a light in each interior corner near the ceiling.  That was enough for the whole "box".

Peeve: When you mention something over and over, and someone else finally has the same peeve! 🙂 

 

[AmeliaJ08]

38 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Which?

The headache one

[Sid Nagy]

1 minute ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

The headache one

A headache thread? Here? No!
Which of the 1,345 ones do you mean?

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 hour ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Does the mirror surface have to be flat?

Can it work on the inside surface of a cylinder?

Can it work on the inside surface of a hollow box? One can squish a box to widen the interior angles, then cut away the part you don't want.

Can it work on a mesh surface or only on a simple box prim?

Interesting questions, all of which I intend to explore at some point in time (either when I get better hardware or when I have the patience and fortitude to put up with the sort of frame rates I get when messing around with mirrors 😅).

 

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

No, it's for a three-mirrored vanity. One mirror facing the front, and one on each side, slightly angled. You know, a pretty normal setup for vanity mirrors. (Not that I actually OWN a vanity in RL, mind you. I haven't had one since I was, like, 16!)

I did manage to play around a little with mirror probes just now and tried a set up with a single mirror probe and 3 mirror surfaces at different angles and managed to get the sort of effect I think you're looking for.

I didn't bother with the frame and the angles of the side mirrors only differ by a few degrees but the results seem fairly convincing.

I'm curious as to what the effect of altering the vertex normals on a flat mesh surface would be and whether it's possible to "bend" the angle of reflection by altering them, but that's an experiment for another day.

Anyway, it seems like your idea for a 3-mirror vanity table is definitely possible. @Scylla Rhiadra

[Luna Bliss]

19 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

More info: Since my main build is a "box", I found it sufficient to put a light in each interior corner near the ceiling.  That was enough for the whole "box".

Peeve: When you mention something over and over, and someone else finally has the same peeve! 🙂 

Well we did discuss this months ago....I knew it was coming...shadows click on by default once you leave mid settings...and the darkness envelopes my store and park.  At least it can be disabled, but so many don't want to mess with settings at all.  In fact, I've had customers complain that I'd dare to ask them to change their settings just to shop at my store  

[Ayashe Ninetails]

13 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

The headache one

Page 2.

[Persephone Emerald]

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Thanks...made me think what I could do...no need to light up the entire store...I can just add one or more local lights at each vendor location. My concern is people TP'ing to a dark vendor after seeing an item on the MP they want to check out. 

At my landing area I do spam out a message to change to mid settings....but not everybody arrives at the main landing.

Adding local lights did work well for my undersea part of the park.

Would it be too awful to set vendors to Fullbright?

[Luna Bliss]

1 minute ago, Persephone Emerald said:

1 hour ago, Luna Bliss said:

Thanks...made me think what I could do...no need to light up the entire store...I can just add one or more local lights at each vendor location. My concern is people TP'ing to a dark vendor after seeing an item on the MP they want to check out. 

At my landing area I do spam out a message to change to mid settings....but not everybody arrives at the main landing.

Adding local lights did work well for my undersea part of the park.

Expand  

Would it be too awful to set vendors to Fullbright?

lol I'm not sure...but I'm imagining customers wandering around in the darkness, searching for brightly lit objects in the distance...

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

Interesting questions, all of which I intend to explore at some point in time (either when I get better hardware or when I have the patience and fortitude to put up with the sort of frame rates I get when messing around with mirrors 😅).

 

I did manage to play around a little with mirror probes just now and tried a set up with a single mirror probe and 3 mirror surfaces at different angles and managed to get the sort of effect I think you're looking for.

I didn't bother with the frame and the angles of the side mirrors only differ by a few degrees but the results seem fairly convincing.

I'm curious as to what the effect of altering the vertex normals on a flat mesh surface would be and whether it's possible to "bend" the angle of reflection by altering them, but that's an experiment for another day.

Anyway, it seems like your idea for a 3-mirror vanity table is definitely possible. @Scylla Rhiadra

It does work!  But somewhat predictably they all reflect the same perspective on the subject (or at least they seem to?) -- presumably because they're all built on the same reflection probe?  Which is what you mean by bending the angle of reflection, right?

[Cristiano Midnight]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

That's awful Chris.

If ONLY people would pay attention!

😜

Pipe down Cecilia!

[Cristiano Midnight]

2 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

You remind me so much of Christ though, and I can't help but spell your name as such...

You clearly have never seen my Flickr lol.

Oddly enough though when people shorten my name (as opposed to misspelling it), every once in a great while I get Crist instead of Cris.

[Arielle Popstar]

8 minutes ago, Luna Bliss said:

lol I'm not sure...but I'm imagining customers wandering around in the darkness, searching for brightly lit objects in the distance...

Offer walk in clients a free headlamp!

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

3 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

Pipe down Cecilia!

I think I prefer that to the more usual "Skylla."

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

15 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It does work!  But somewhat predictably they all reflect the same perspective on the subject (or at least they seem to?) -- presumably because they're all built on the same reflection probe?  Which is what you mean by bending the angle of reflection, right?

Actually (despite my terrible choice of completely white background and empty sky) you can just make out that the perspective changes slightly in each mirror if you look at the reflection of the edge of the white platform I'm on in the left hand mirror as it's not parallel with the horizon like the reflected edge in the central mirror (the right hand mirror is deceptive since the reflection of the edge of the platform behind me lines up perfectly with the side of the platform in the background).

There is definitely an issue in that changes to the camera distance and angle seem to do strange things to the angles/perspectives in the side mirrors which aren't completely aligned with the probes Z axis.  The mirror will still work relatively well within a certain range (and I suspect the position, etc. of the probe can be modified to alter the thresholds of that range) so as long as you wanted something which worked well when your avatar is sitting at the vanity table or standing in front of it then it should be fine, although I'm not sure how far you can push the angles of the side mirrors before it all goes pear-shaped.

Edited Friday at 11:16 PM by Fluffy Sharkfin
typo

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

17 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Which is what you mean by bending the angle of reflection, right?

Not exactly, although it could be used to change the perspective of a flat surface (and I got the idea when thinking about whether or not a mirror had to be aligned exactly to a mirror probe in order to work at all and it occurred to me that if that were the case then you may be able to fool the renderer into thinking the surfaces were aligned by aligning the vertex normals instead).

I was thinking it could also be used to make curved surfaces reflect a "flat image" as if it were a flat surface and vice versa (like crazy mirrors in funfairs that distort whatever they reflect) and also to make mirrored surfaces that reflect correctly despite not appearing to be aligned with the probe they're using.

From what I've seen of probes so far they seem very finicky and particular about how they're set up which can be a pain when you just want them to do what they're designed for.  If, however, you're approaching them from the perspective of "what crazy stuff can I do with this?" then their finicky and particular nature (and the weird stuff that happens when you ignore it) can lead to hours of entertainment and occasionally some really great and unexpected results.

[Love Zhaoying]

29 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I think I prefer that to the more usual "Skylla."

I was thinking, "Sss Sss Skilla!"