PBR WOW!

[arton Rotaru]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing wrong here though.

Here are the maps that the download from the online site gives me, along with how I'm inputting them into the GLTF Packer: "Diffuse" > Base Color, "AO" > Occlusion, "Rough" > Roughness, Metallic left empty, "Normal" > "Normal," and Emission left empty.

And here are the three maps I'm getting (aside from the actual GLTF file):

I'm not understanding where the blue in the ORM is coming from. Any sense of what I'm doing wrong here? It's not coming from the Normal file, is it? Should I not be adding that???

The blue color of the orm map is correct. The AO map has a rather unusual overall grey tone, plus the grey rough, plus a white metallic map will be that sort of blue.

Since white in the metallic map is indicating metal, while black is non metal, the metallic factor will have to remain at zero. Because a blank map is always white with this packer tool.

The AO map will be only applied in areas that are actually occluded from direct light. So this material will render quite dark when put in shadow. Hence, these material maps you downloaded aren't ideal IMO.

Edited December 31, 2023 by arton Rotaru

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

The blue color of the orm map is correct. The AO map has a rather unusual overall grey tone, plus the grey rough, plus a white metallic map will be that sort of blue.

Ok, so the ORM is ok then?

7 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

Since white in the metallic map is indicating metal, while black is non metal, the metallic factor will have to remain at zero. Because a blank map is always white with this packer tool.

Alright, gotcha. So, Metallic in the Materials edit dialog goes to "0." Correct?

If one wants it shinier then, what might one use?

And thank you, btw. 🙂

[Evah Baxton]

5 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

See, SL doesn't USE other game engines, so it has exactly ZERO need to be compatible with them. None.

 

!!

[arton Rotaru]

14 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Ok, so the ORM is ok then?

Alright, gotcha. So, Metallic in the Materials edit dialog goes to "0." Correct?

If one wants it shinier then, what might one use?

And thank you, btw. 🙂

I have added some more to my previous post.

Yes, its somewhat confusing, because this packer is defaulting to a metal material if you don't have a metallic map for it. Hence it's setting the factor to 0, which makes it black again. For a non metal you would provide a black metallic map usually. Then the factor can remain at 1.0.

Think about you have metal and non metal in one material. The factor will have to be 1 to keep the white areas white.

To make it shinier pull down the roughness factor. 0 = black color, hence lowest roughness = most shiny.

Edited December 31, 2023 by arton Rotaru

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, arton Rotaru said:

I have added some more to my previous post.

To make it shinier pull down the roghness factor. 0 = black color, hence lowest roughness = most shiny.

Right! Thank you again!

(I have to stop thinking of "roughness" as another sort of version of a normal map, and remember that it's about light and shiny.)

[arton Rotaru]

17 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Right! Thank you again!

(I have to stop thinking of "roughness" as another sort of version of a normal map, and remember that it's about light and shiny.)

Yeah, rough is confusing because its working in the opposite way than spec/gloss. Where white is most shiny.

Takes some time to get out of that old habbit.

Edited December 31, 2023 by arton Rotaru

[arton Rotaru]

58 minutes ago, Evah Baxton said:

!!

But you know that implementing a standard has nothing to do with other game engines, right?

It only has something to do with being compatible with a standard.

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by arton Rotaru

[Zalificent Corvinus]

5 hours ago, Extrude Ragu said:

Don't forget to use the old forward renderer

And that's where you recveal your true colours.

I said that the non shiny, matte finish pbr samples you showed could be matched with Blinn-Phong, thats ALM Materials, not "the old forward render" flat matte 2003 style., like for like, a diffuse map, and a normal map, and grey scale speculars., which SL has had for 9 years.

The slab wood and stone in the first pic are no better than the ALM B-P packs, sold on the MP,  The pinkish granite in the second pic, ditto, the blue stuff in the background, some cloth? the detail isn't clear enough to see if it's any good, but diff/norm/spec sets for denim are available too.

Pic 3, oh my, that brick work, that's just BAD, right hand edge of the inner raised dish part, there's striations on the texture, looks like the normal maps been put on SIDEWAYS there. at the wrong scale. As for the rest of the brickwork, it's almost as if somebody forgot the O in ORM.

Pic 4, the dark slab wood's no better than the light, the highlights are a bit too bright for wood, unless you had it covered in oil. The blueish metal, its about the only thing in any of the pics that actually shows what PBR is good at ( more or less ). But that blueish tint to the specular highlights can be done by hand in a ALM-Materials with the specular tint colour picker in the edit panel. It's just more work.

 

Seriously there is NO wow in those pics, you couldn't have chosen worse examples of "PBR looks great" if you had tried deliberately.

Why don't you go and do some nice shiny chrome with mirror polished reflections, that's the main advantage of PBR, has ben for 13 years, reflected on shiny metal, that's it's strength.

Non shiny, non reflective surfaces basically look NO better than with normal and specular maps.

 

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I'm not understanding where the blue in the ORM is coming from.

You have a WHITE metalness 8 bit image in the set, when that's stuffed into an ORM, the 8 bit metalness map goes in the 8 bit BLUE channel of the 24 bit ORM.

In basic PBR speak, you just told it your 'leather' is made of metal.

[arton Rotaru]

45 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Non shiny, non reflective surfaces basically look NO better than with normal and specular maps.

My goodness, so much talk for literally nothing...

Why don't you download a PBR viewer and place a Blinn-Phong and a PBR material side by side? Even you would be able to see the difference in the light distribution over the surfaces.

The sad part is, you wouldn't aknowledge it even if you see the difference, because you just want to keep trolling.

It's getting old...

Edited December 31, 2023 by arton Rotaru

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I have to stop thinking of "roughness" as another sort of version of a normal map, and remember that it's about light and shiny.

Pretentious Bloody Rubbish has had this "lets make up new terminology to be cool and confuse people" thing since day 1.

Roughness is what USED to be called "Specular Tightness", white areas have very tight hard edged bright specular highlights, black or near black areas have very soft dull specular highlights., It's basically the same mechanic used in Blinn-Phong materials in non PBR viewers, wheelie bin plastic, grey 50, leather grey 75, latex could be grey 100 - grey 150, non mirrored metal might be grey 175, glass, 200 -225, almost nothing would have grey 255, 

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

44 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

But you know that implementing a standard has nothing to do with other game engines, right?

It only has something to do with being compatible with a standard.

 

You only have to be compatible with a "standard" if you want to be compatible with other things that use that "standard".

Awful Mac have ignored "compatible with standards" for years. It's practically a trademark of theirs.

 

So far, the argument for "We must have PBR seems to boil down to "Some would-be content creators coming here from elsewhere, with subscriptions to Substance Painter, will find it easier to learn to make texture s for SL's ALM", which seems like a poor reason to adopt a standard when doing so takes so much time, effort, and money, and causes so much hassle.

 

Seriously, if people WANNT to go down the "compatible with other peoples games" route, they could have just said.

 

"Kick the Mac users to the kerb as they are only 5% of the userbase, as confirmed by FS figures on platform usage, switch to DirectX 12, it has lots of shiny, and is an industry standard for games with better graphics than SL"

 

But that would have caused a lot of screaming from the Mac users right?

 

[arton Rotaru]

5 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

You only have to be compatible with a "standard" if you want to be compatible with other things that use that "standard".

Awful Mac have ignored "compatible with standards" for years. It's practically a trademark of theirs.

 

So far, the argument for "We must have PBR seems to boil down to "Some would-be content creators coming here from elsewhere, with subscriptions to Substance Painter, will find it easier to learn to make texture s for SL's ALM", which seems like a poor reason to adopt a standard when doing so takes so much time, effort, and money, and causes so much hassle.

 

Seriously, if people WANNT to go down the "compatible with other peoples games" route, they could have just said.

 

"Kick the Mac users to the kerb as they are only 5% of the userbase, as confirmed by FS figures on platform usage, switch to DirectX 12, it has lots of shiny, and is an industry standard for games with better graphics than SL"

 

But that would have caused a lot of screaming from the Mac users right?

 

Sigh,
it has nothing to do with other peoples games. glTF is widely adopted by any entity that is using 3D content.

Edited December 31, 2023 by arton Rotaru

[Zalificent Corvinus]

15 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

Why don't you download a PBR viewer

Nothing on Earth could convince me to use ANY version the LL viewer, FS alpha you have to apply, and I dislike FS, and while I could try Henri's viewer, it's a V1 clone and the UI therefore sucks,.

17 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

and place a Blinn-Phong and a PBR material side by side? Even you would be able to see the difference in the light distribution over the surfaces.

Comparisons have already been posted by others in the thread and in other threads, the PBR version looks BAD. Oh I can see a difference, I just don't agree it's better,.

19 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

The sad part is, you wouldn't aknowledge it even if you see the difference

I would aknowledge it, because I can see it, LL's PBR looks dreadful.

It's ALMOST as bad as the rendering in Sansar.

 

20 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

keep trolling

For MONTHS, PBR-Trolls have run around spouting ""pbr means we can haz mirrors", and when told that mirrors are NOT part of the current version, they whine, nowe they are making "fake mirrors" using reflection probes.

22 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

The sad part is

Those ref-probe not-mirrors look WORSE that the actual mirrors, that appeared in Sims 2, back in 2004, running under DirectX 9c.

We have PBR-Trolls looking at comparison shots of a sequined skirt, under SL ALM-Mats, and SL PBR, and saying the version that glows in the sodding dark "looks better".

We have PBR-Trolls claiming that a diffuse map, and a normal map, with greyscale non metallic speculars doesn't look about the same as a diffuse map, a normal map, and greyscale non metallic speculars. Then we get pictures showing how "cool PBR" is, that in fact don't look cool at all, they look like somebody using Blinn-Phong, slightly badly.

 

10 minutes ago, arton Rotaru said:

glTF is widely adopted by any entity that is using 3D content.

It's used in the two BIG 1stP-Shooter engines, and in professional software used to make content for those engines, and in some hobbyist software used to make mods for games made in those engines.

So what. You don't need anything more than a decent image editor to make textures for Blinn-Phong, people have been doing it for years. No need for a monthly subscription to an Adobe product, just to make textures for some hobby project.

 

Insisting we all switch to this "professional" format, hat next, making changes so you can only upload from maya, or cinema 4d, or lightwave?

It's exclusionist, and elitist, and this chasing compatibility with things SL does NOT NEED to be compatible with, is just, strange.

It's imposing a standard because the standard exists, not because it's any use whatsoever to the majority.

 

[arton Rotaru]

See, you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about, and refuse to try to change that.

On static images you can't even tell if you are looking at a baked diffuse map in a forward renderer or a blinn-phong, or pbr image taken in realtime.

When your camera is moving is when the differences are revealed.

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by arton Rotaru

[Extrude Ragu]

59 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

And that's where you recveal your true colours.

I said that the non shiny, matte finish pbr samples you showed could be matched with Blinn-Phong, thats ALM Materials, not "the old forward render" flat matte 2003 style., like for like, a diffuse map, and a normal map, and grey scale speculars., which SL has had for 9 years.

Ah, no, I mean with a pre-PBR viewer, since the newer PBR viewer also enhances blinn-phong. You can still use ALM etc

[Extrude Ragu]

4 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing wrong here though.

Here are the maps that the download from the online site gives me, along with how I'm inputting them into the GLTF Packer: "Diffuse" > Base Color, "AO" > Occlusion, "Rough" > Roughness, Metallic left empty, "Normal" > "Normal," and Emission left empty.

And here are the three maps I'm getting (aside from the actual GLTF file):

I'm not understanding where the blue in the ORM is coming from. Any sense of what I'm doing wrong here? It's not coming from the Normal file, is it? Should I not be adding that???

Ah, that is packed correctly, my bad. Yes the packer does pack white when no metallic texture is used, but the metallic factor should have been automatically set to 0 when you uploaded it.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Extrude Ragu said:

Ah, no, I mean with a pre-PBR viewer, since the newer PBR viewer also enhances blinn-phong. You can still use ALM etc

How DARE you move the bar towards something reasonable! Now we'll lose whatever reason Zal wouldn't put her money where her mouth is, and get a new reason!

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, arton Rotaru said:

My goodness, so much talk for literally nothing...

Why don't you download a PBR viewer and place a Blinn-Phong and a PBR material side by side? Even you would be able to see the difference in the light distribution over the surfaces.

The sad part is, you wouldn't aknowledge it even if you see the difference, because you just want to keep trolling.

It's getting old...

Maybe getting old is the solution!

All these problems will seem smaller in the big picture, and there will be less ranting and raving.

Bonus: when you get old, you don't have to trust "experts", just your wisdom and knowledge. I read it on the Forum. 
 

[Henri Beauchamp]

4 hours ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I could try Henri's viewer, it's a V1 clone and the UI therefore sucks

1.- My viewer is using a modified v1 UI: it is not a clone any more, but it is indeed a fork.

2.- It is amusing to see how the ”sucking” aspect changed over years... Back in v2-viewers days, v2+ sucked big time and v1 was wonderful. Well, indeed, v2/3 sucked big time, and v4+ (CHUI viewer) sucks (much) less... but you know, improved-v1 does not suck that much either... 😜

One word of advice, from a now old fart (woot ?.... six decades already ???... 👴 But I'm not that old yet, at least not in my mind ! ) :  try before rejecting. You might be surprised, sometimes (not always, of course), how prejudices can blind you !

And to get back to the topic of this very thread: it also holds true for PBR:

1.- Yes, PBR is good, because it paves the way to the future of SL, with adoption of a standard (GLTF) which is already widely in use and will become a ”must have” in the future. It also will make SL even more beautiful... in the end.

2.- Yes, PBR, right now, is definitely not ready in SL, and has been hastily pushed to release when it will still require months to reach a proper and acceptable status. It also badly impacts residents with a ”weak” computer, who sadly got little options to keep enjoying SL with acceptable frame rates and usability until they can afford upgrading their PC.

 

But point #2 is transitory (and, incidentally, I provide at least one option for the transition period), and #1 is what will count, in the end: let's make a deal and get back to the subject in two years from now (my bet is that PBR glitches will not be fully resolved before mid-2024, and it will require one more year before everyone can run PBR with a powerful enough PC), and see how things will have evolved (including our respective points of view). 😉

Edited December 31, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Quartz Mole]

Some disagreements seem to be getting a bit personal.   These, if they must be conducted at all, should be conducted in personal messages, not in the forum.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

And to get back to the topic of this very thread: it also holds true for PBR:

1.- Yes, PBR is good, because it paves the way to the future of SL, with adoption of a standard (GLTF) which is already widely in use and will become a ”must have” in the future. It also will make SL even more beautiful... in the end.

2.- Yes, PBR, right now, is definitely not ready in SL, and has been hastily pushed to release when it will still require months to reach a proper and acceptable status. It also badly impacts residents with a ”weak” computer, who sadly got little options to keep enjoying SL with acceptable frame rates and usability until they can afford upgrading their PC.

 

But point #2 is transitory (and, incidentally, I provide at least one option for the transition period), and #1 is what will count, in the end: let's make a deal and get back to the subject in two years from now (my bet is that PBR glitches will not be fully resolved before mid-2024, and it will require one more year before everyone can run PBR with a powerful enough PC), and see how things will have evolved (including our respective points of view). 😉

This more or less sums up my feelings on the subject. I feel that SL has been put on the path to "better things" (maybe) by this move, but it's going to be a bit of a horror show for the first little while.

To add to Henri's #2,

1) It's going to take some time for creators to learn the ins and outs of PBR -- how to create it, how to use it properly, and how to implement it intelligently, in ways that look good. Charlotte's hard work on it is an instance of the effort it will require, as, in a much much smaller way, are my own struggles figuring it out.

2) It's going to break stuff, despite the laudable effort not to do so. Some objects, and especially some clothing, are going to become all but unusable in the new PBR viewer because they weren't created with the new rendering system in mind. The ones that are no mod can go into the trash can immediately; and because most residents have only a pretty rudimentary idea of how to modify textures, a great deal that might have been reclaimed with adjustment will simply fall out of use. Shiny sweaters, objects that are too dark or too gleaming, are going to be a problem as the use of the PBR-enabled viewers spreads.

3) Among the things that I'm pretty sure, from my own experience, have been "broken" are our current standard EEP settings. Many of my old EEPs, including the ones in the library, just don't look the same anymore, and not in a good way: they are in particular frequently washed out. SL is starting to look either too bright, or too dark. So either someone is going to have to recreate the standard EEPs (as they did with Midday), or people are going to need to get better at creating their own. People are also going to have to learn that they need to add interior lighting to scenes.

I'm sure there are other issues that will arise. It's going to be a painful process, and, for me anyway, the immediate benefits are mostly pretty slight. But I will cling to a faith that ultimately this is all for our own good . . . right?

Edited December 31, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra
*$*@* autocorrect

[Henri Beauchamp]

19 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

2) It's going to break stuff, despite the laudable effort not to do so. Some objects, and especially some clothing, are going to become all but unusable in the new PBR viewer because they weren't created with the new rendering system in mind. The ones that are no mod can go into the trash can immediately; and because most residents have only a pretty rudimentary idea of how to modify textures, a great deal that might have been reclaimed with adjustment will simply fall out of use. Shiny sweaters, objects that are too dark or too gleaming, are going to be a problem as the use of the PBR-enabled viewers spreads.

3) Among the things that I'm pretty sure, from my own experience, have been ”broken” are our current standard EEP settings. Many of my old EEPs, including the ones in the library, just don't look the same anymore, and not in a good way: they are in particular frequently washed out. SL is starting to look either too bright, or too dark. So either someone is going to have to recreate the standard EEPs (as they did with Midday), or people are going to need to get better at creating their own. People are also going to have to learn that they need to add interior lighting to scenes.

That's what I meant when I wrote: ”it will still require months to reach a proper and acceptable status”.

The current rendering discrepancies (compared to the old renderer) when rendering legacy contents are just unacceptable, just like is unacceptable the fact you need to change an EE setting (*) to avoid seeing legacy shiny contents rendering blue.

This will need fixes: SL (and SLers) cannot afford throwing away the immense legacy contents base (it would mean restarting SL from scratch !).

----

(*) EE = Extended Environment. Loose the ”P”, people, the ”P” was for ”Project”, and it's now been years EE is no more a project... 😜

Edited December 31, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[OptimoMaximo]

4 hours ago, Quartz Mole said:

Some disagreements seem to be getting a bit personal.   These, if they must be conducted at all, should be conducted in personal messages, not in the forum.

Disagreement is always personal. One person disagrees with another, that's how it goes. On the other hand, the expectation of any debate to be agreeable, all smiles and pats on the shoulders is quite delusional. If that's the case, let's shut down any existing forum and get it over with.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

12 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

EE = Extended Environment. Loose the ”P”, people, the ”P” was for ”Project”, and it's now been years EE is no more a project... 😜

I've always liked "EEP" because it so well replicates my initial reaction to experiencing it. As in, "Eep! What fresh hell is this?"

😏