PBR WOW!

[Qie Niangao]

I don't think non-PBR content is going to keep getting produced for long after the Firestorm PBR viewer retires support for the last version with direct rendering. Creators just aren't going to bother with a whole separate workflow to satisfy a small and dwindling market. 

It seems to me that theoretically Henri or somebody could do a quick and dirty baking of the AO (red) channel of the Metallic/Roughness map onto the Albedo map to substitute for missing diffuse textures, and just ignore specular and normalmaps because the point would be to feed content specifically to Materials-blind non-ALM viewers.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I don't think non-PBR content is going to keep getting produced for long after the Firestorm PBR viewer retires support for the last version with direct rendering. Creators just aren't going to bother with a whole separate workflow to satisfy a small and dwindling market.

Based on the number of items, and not really old ones either, that I've found that don't bother at all with normal or specular maps (or that just use a crappy blank specular map set at 51%), I'd say that an awful lot of creators are going to do the absolute minimum to accommodate PBR.

Add to that the fact that you need Substance Painter or something similar to produce proper PBR materials (although I know that there have been recommendations somewhere here for cheaper or free substitutes) . . .

If, after all this time, there are people not availing themselves of the advantages of the old system, there are likely to be many who don't take advantage of this either.

7 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

It seems to me that theoretically Henri or somebody could do a quick and dirty baking of the AO (red) channel of the Metallic/Roughness map onto the Albedo map to substitute for missing diffuse textures, and just ignore specular and normalmaps because the point would be to feed content specifically to Materials-blind non-ALM viewers.

Is this something that can be done in the viewer?

[Qie Niangao]

There's no question that folks will keep creating content using the old Materials system. What I'm saying is that those who move to PBR are only going to keep producing diffusemaps for so long—basically, they'll run out of patience by the time Firestorm retires their last forward-rendering-capable version. It'll be analogous to fitting for Slink avatars now: some will keep doing it, but the payback is small.

10 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Is this something that can be done in the viewer?

I think it should be possible. It would require some surgery, for sure, but on the surface it seems like child's play compared to the prerequisite of maintaining two distinct rendering pipelines.

[Luna Bliss]

6 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

9 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

If advanced lighting becomes forced then shadows would be automatically cast on everything. This is already a factor in the highest settings now, and skyboxes are too dark when using them.

Won't making this advanced lighting mandatory ruin all the skyboxes?

Come to think of it, even my store will be ruined, as it's in a skybox.

Advanced lighting doesn't require using shadows.

Thanks, yes that's good to know that it would not be mandatory....but...people have to know they can disable shadows, and most aren't aware.  They just go with the defaults set up for their PC or crank it up to high levels and don't want to bother fiddling with settings.

Several years ago a couple of shoppers were majorly offended when I kindly recommended lowering their graphics settings after they complained it was too dark in the store. One said "I'm not changing my computer just to shop somewhere"!!    

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

On 12/9/2023 at 3:45 AM, Arduenn Schwartzman said:

PBR materials do not differ a lot from Blinn-Phong ('classic') materials at all. The differences are very subtle. With all respect for the skillfully-made video and the expert decorations, they do not showcase disctinct PBR features. The footage could have easily been mistaken for one made with an old viewer, showing old materials The video mostly shows wet cobblestones 'reflecting' very diffuse, monochromatic red, white, and blue point lights. This can all be achieved with classic materials and an older viewer just as well.

The biggest change is the viewer (and the server making reflection probes). Making PBR materials as opposed to classic materials, on the other hand, is somewhat overrated. PBR materials offer separation of roughness metallic and emission mapping, but that's really all. I estimate you can make 90% of all objects in SL look the same with Blinn-Phong materials as you can with PBR materials. In most cases, all your old 'classic' Blinn-Phong items will reflect details just as nicely in de new PBR world.

My real fear #1. PBR can look great, PBR can look crappy. It depends more than ever on the surroundings. There's a real danger that people will think objects with PBR materials look crappy and put the blame on PBR tech in general, or because the creator textured it badly, whereas the real reason may very well be their own bad environment.

My real fear #2. Streaming cost. PBR materials double the amount of texture data that needs to be transfered from the asset servers to your computer (triple, if you include backwards-compatible classic texturing). Right now, if I cam around further away from and then back nearby my avatar again, I see the viewer 'forget' a lot of textures from nearby objects, as if they aren't properly chached on my local drive. Maybe that's just a bug that will be addressed in future updates. For now, for me, PBR means lot of waiting while staring at blurry objects.

That's not to say I don't welcome our new PBR overlord. I'm in the middle of a PBR workflow transition myself right now and I love all this shiny new stuff.

 

 I was thinking, I don't see it... But maybe I do just do not know it...

[FelicityPage]

23 hours ago, MoiraKathleen said:

I don't think turning off advanced lighting in a non-PBR enabled viewer really gives any meaningful data about how your system might run under PBR.  I think trying out the current LL viewer which now has PBR enabled is a much better way to evaluate the changes made to implement PBR.

Okay, I downloaded the SL Viewer. Do you or does anyone else know how to find the FPS in the SL viewer? 
Never mind found it. Okay so on Firestorm Non-PBR Viewer, I was getting 60 FPS at the spot where I land when I log in (usually ranges from 50-60 FPS. 

Now, with the SL viewer which is PBR viewer, I am fluctuating between 21-28 FPS. 

Big drop. Will see how it goes while I go into sims. 

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by FelicityPage

[MoiraKathleen]

1 minute ago, FelicityPage said:

Okay, I downloaded the SL Viewer. Do you or does anyone else know how to find the FPS in the SL viewer? 

Ctrl-Shift-1 brings up the Statistics window which has the FPS.   

I generally go by how the scene loads and how well I'm able to move around.  If I feel that I'm getting good performance, then I don't normally worry about what the FPS value happens to be.  

[FelicityPage]

18 minutes ago, FelicityPage said:

Okay, I downloaded the SL Viewer. Do you or does anyone else know how to find the FPS in the SL viewer? 
Never mind found it. Okay so on Firestorm Non-PBR Viewer, I was getting 60 FPS at the spot where I land when I log in (usually ranges from 50-60 FPS. 

Now, with the SL viewer which is PBR viewer, I am fluctuating between 21-28 FPS. 

Big drop. Will see how it goes while I go into sims. 

 

Going into sims brought it down to 5 FPS even though everyone was set to not rezz. Oof. 

[FelicityPage]

13 minutes ago, MoiraKathleen said:

Ctrl-Shift-1 brings up the Statistics window which has the FPS.   

I generally go by how the scene loads and how well I'm able to move around.  If I feel that I'm getting good performance, then I don't normally worry about what the FPS value happens to be.  

Thank you. I was unable to walk for about 30 secs, then when I did walk it was very laggy. Things were freezing up when I was trying to click things. It was pretty bad. 

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

wow it is really cool, cause this is a mirror inside my house and apparently there is a house, road and street sign in the mirror's reflection!  I never noticed this before so, might be something that was there all the time.

 

https://gyazo.com/77b0dba9393ada33be1a04297373c0e3

Edited December 15, 2023 by SpiritSparrow Skydancer

[MoiraKathleen]

3 minutes ago, FelicityPage said:

Thank you. I was unable to walk for about 30 secs, then when I did walk it was very laggy. Things were freezing up when I was trying to click things. It was pretty bad. 

You might want to check the shadows setting - I switched the shadows setting from sun/moon to none to see what difference that made, and gained about 15 -20 FPS from just that change. 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

11 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

I don't think non-PBR content is going to keep getting produced for long after the Firestorm PBR viewer retires support for the last version with direct rendering.

I bet you said exactly the same thing about non-ALM-Materials, 9 years ago. 

And yet vast amounts of content is still made that doesn't use specular colour maps and normal maps, and a fair amount that does use them does so very badly, because the creator didn't RTFM, and thought the spec map was a strength map, and made it basically very dark grey, so no highlights actually show on the rendered surface at all.

I also suspect you are going to be as wrong this time as you were back then.

 

I suspect a great many creators in SL are NOT paying a monthly rentals fee for Substance Painter, and won't HAVE a PBR workflow at all, any more than they have a ALM-Mats workflow now..

 

[LipstickAndDreams]

23 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I bet you said exactly the same thing about non-ALM-Materials, 9 years ago. 

And yet vast amounts of content is still made that doesn't use specular colour maps and normal maps, and a fair amount that does use them does so very badly, because the creator didn't RTFM, and thought the spec map was a strength map, and made it basically very dark grey, so no highlights actually show on the rendered surface at all.

I also suspect you are going to be as wrong this time as you were back then.

 

I suspect a great many creators in SL are NOT paying a monthly rentals fee for Substance Painter, and won't HAVE a PBR workflow at all, any more than they have a ALM-Mats workflow now..

 

Yeah, thats the most hilarious part. Nobody save for a few asset flippers creators LARPing as professionals are going to even use this.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

4 minutes ago, LipstickAndDreams said:

Nobody save for a few asset flippers creators LARPing as professionals are going to even use this.

And half of them will get the PBR wrong anyway, because they won't RTFM.

"Hmmm metalness, that makes it shiny, right?"

"Hey why does this latex dress I bought from you make me look like the T-1000, all liquid metal?"

"Hmmm dynamic reflection maps, that makes it shiny right?"

"Hey why does this dress I bought from you cause a 90% hit on my FPS"

 

[BilliJo Aldrin]

On 12/12/2023 at 12:03 AM, Prokofy Neva said:

I could accept the FPS hit if I was just twirling around on some new fabulous Linden Reveal thing and sayiing "Oooh, shiny! Ooohhhh Love!"

But that's not all.

It also makes everything look blurry and ugly. It does NOT make things look crisp and shiny and fabulous like my Mom's glass coffee table before her bridge game, you know, when they put the little wine glasses with the cigarettes in them, the Malt Balls in shiny candy dishes, and little favours from Woolworth's like a porcelain dog. This was 1959.

Instead, it looks like an acid trip gone wrong. I have put up pictures before, not today, Satan as it would require me crippling my machine and struggling to put it back "like it was".

 

Hope those malt balls are genuine Maltezers and not those nasty Hersheys whoppers.

 

[Arielle Popstar]

8 hours ago, FelicityPage said:

Going into sims brought it down to 5 FPS even though everyone was set to not rezz. Oof. 

Try toggling Ctrl+Shift+ALT+4 to load just the scene.

On my older Nvidia 1070 vid card I find FPS of the SL viewer with all graphics enabled to be higher then Firestorm's latest without PBR. Won't make me switch as the SL viewer is just crap in usability but at least it shows that the PBR when implemented will not be as bad as some are reporting.

Having said that though, I still resent all the focus on what I see as being little more than questionable eye-candy, that in the long term has little value after the initial oohh and ahh. Every time I get the forced SL viewer updates and see the changelog I see all the coding that was done for the latest version and think how much better we would have been off if they could actually have put that time and effort into making the viewer more usable and easier for new and old alike, instead of all the focus on graphics with EEP and the PBR.

The inventory preview extension was a good start but now it would be nice if they spent a few years on making the whole inventory and marketplace buying process more efficient and streamlined.

[Innula Zenovka]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I still resent all the focus on what I see as being little more than questionable eye-candy, that in the long term has little value after the initial oohh and ahh.

My understanding was that, since OpenGL is no longer being developed, and is being supported by fewer and fewer game engines,  LL had little alternative but to adopt PBR, the widely-used replacement for OpenGL, sooner or later.    Apple no longer support OpenGL, I believe.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Innula Zenovka

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

My understanding was

Basically wrong.

 

2 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

since OpenGL is no longer being developed, and is being supported by fewer and fewer game engines

Strictly speaking, as long as the GPU card drivers include the most recent version of OpenGL, it doesn't MATTER how many game OTHER engines still use it. LL can quite happily carry on with OpenGL for many years to come if they want to.

 

4 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

LL had little alternative but to adopt PBR, the widely-used replacement for OpenGL

Also wrong. PBR is NOT a replacement for OpenGL. In fact the new PBR viewer still uses OpenGL to display the PBR.

Potential replacements for OpenGL, are DirectX for Windows, or Vulkan, which is for Windows and Linux.

 

7 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Apple no longer support OpenGL, I believe.

Awful Mac no longer support ANYTHING not made by Awful Mac, but that's ok, because hardly anybody plays any kind of "computer game/world/whatever" on Awful Macs anyway.

 

[Arielle Popstar]

1 hour ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Basically wrong.

 

Strictly speaking, as long as the GPU card drivers include the most recent version of OpenGL, it doesn't MATTER how many game OTHER engines still use it. LL can quite happily carry on with OpenGL for many years to come if they want to.

 

Also wrong. PBR is NOT a replacement for OpenGL. In fact the new PBR viewer still uses OpenGL to display the PBR.

Potential replacements for OpenGL, are DirectX for Windows, or Vulkan, which is for Windows and Linux.

 

Awful Mac no longer support ANYTHING not made by Awful Mac, but that's ok, because hardly anybody plays any kind of "computer game/world/whatever" on Awful Macs anyway.

 

You'll no doubt be happy to hear that according to a couple of mobile alpha testers, PBR is not as yet included in that viewer. 😃

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Arielle Popstar said:

You'll no doubt be happy to hear that according to a couple of mobile alpha testers

I'd be happy hearing that the mobile nonsense had been scrapped due to it being a waste of time, effort, and money chasing an imaginary market.

And of course it doesn't include PBR, phones are not really up to that kind of "Real Computer" level processing, especially with LL's fubar coding of PBR. People keep telling you that, in every thread you claim otherwise in

 

[Arielle Popstar]

10 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

I'd be happy hearing that the mobile nonsense had been scrapped due to it being a waste of time, effort, and money chasing an imaginary market.

And of course it doesn't include PBR, phones are not really up to that kind of "Real Computer" level processing, especially with LL's fubar coding of PBR. People keep telling you that, in every thread you claim otherwise in

 

There was quite a market for Lumiya in spite of it not being promoted to new users until they were signed up and made aware of alternative SL viewers. I would imagine there will be quite a larger market when it is being advertised on the front page because other then certain unnamed Captain Oldbies, most of the world is or has gone to a more mobile style of gaming.

And I'll keep claiming mobile appliances can do it other than for high end gamers who aren't happy with anything but the latest and greatest desktop. Granted that for the smaller screens the Lab may have to actually get inventive and clean up and streamline the MP and and inventory UI's, but there is plenty of other game platforms that have shown them how if they actually cared to look at anything other then their own backyard. According to a few articles from the last few years the industry is looking how and why PBR can be adopted to a mobile market so no doubt it is on the Lab's to do list. Link, and another

Quote

Mobile
There is a lot of debate in the mobile development community about whether PBR should be used for mobile content/apps. After all, users have relatively small screens and rarely get to see the fine details that make 3D models and scenes look lifelike. At the same time, implementing physically-based rendering on mobile is not that difficult or costly, so many developers have started adding it in their releases.

https://3d-ace.com/blog/physically-based-rendering-using-pbr-for-games-animations-and-more/

 

[Rowan Amore]

57% of gamers have spent money on gaming in the last six months, however mobile lags behind in this area compared to other platforms, with a play-to-pay conversion rate of 45%, compared to 55% for PC and 66% for console.

So, I guess we can expect those who use the mobile viewer exclusively, those people LL is trying to attract, won't be spending much money in SL.  Wasn't that the whole point?  Bringing in a new crop of residents to spend money?  Or, just more people standing around various places AFK while they're at work.  

[Zalificent Corvinus]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

There was quite a market for Lumiya in spite of it not being promoted to new users

The market for that was existing SL users, who also had a real computer.

The supposed market for the new MobileLife Fail-Viewer is claimed to be the "vast untapped market" of juveniles who have no interest in SL, and many of whom are too young to sign up anyway, and many of whom have no credit card or bank account with which to register payment, so they won't generate any revenue either.

 

The Mobile dev program is an awful lot of time, effort, and expense to go to for some teens who lied about their age, get bored with the platform in 5 mins, and don't have any money to spend while they are here.

7 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

According to a few articles from the last few years the industry is looking how and why PBR can be adopted to a mobile market so no doubt it is on the Lab's to do list.

So the "industry" can't do it yet, confirming what EVERYONE has told you about phones not having enough grunt for the job, and odds are it will be some years before that changes, and if they stay true to form, LL will get around to copying the "industry" about 10 years later.

Good news! You can have an IMVSpew look-a-like PBR viewer on your phone sometime around SL30B to SL35B.

Don't hold your breath while you wait!

[Arielle Popstar]

4 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

57% of gamers have spent money on gaming in the last six months, however mobile lags behind in this area compared to other platforms, with a play-to-pay conversion rate of 45%, compared to 55% for PC and 66% for console.

That is maybe because the platforms that did go mobile have not made their products easy to buy as yet. Won't be easy in SL on mobile until they do some major work on the MP and Inventory UI. In the meantime look at these numbers:

79% of all gamers play on their phones, with 35% only gaming on mobile devices

47% of gamers play on multiple platforms, but mobile dominates single-platform play 

Link

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

That is maybe because the platforms that did go mobile have not made their products easy to buy as yet. Won't be easy in SL on mobile until they do some major work on the MP and Inventory UI. In the meantime look at these numbers:

79% of all gamers play on their phones, with 35% only gaming on mobile devices

47% of gamers play on multiple platforms, but mobile dominates single-platform play 

Link

What games?  Gamers will be very disappointed if they download SL and find out there is no game.  Where would SL fit in?

The top genres of mobile games are distributed between:

MOBA; multiplayer battle arenas

MMORPG;  MMORPG for mobile devices was less popular than for PC, because not every smartphone could support these games. 

Battle Royale;

card strategy games;

puzzles, including casual and hyper-casual games.