Why I Don't Like PBR

[Chic Aeon]

Haven't been reading this thread but have been working in PBR.  I think it would be a REALLY GOOD THING for LL to redo the day cycle as it really doesn't reflect PBR items. It looks like early eve at "midday".  That has probably been mentioned in these oh so many pages but just underlining the problem. 

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

• Not sure what the "Current EEP minimum" slider is meant to do. Could be that my inebriation is inhibiting me from understanding, but clarification would be appreciated.

It does look like a slider, unfortunately, but it's intended to express the currently possible range of the reflection probe ambiance value, as controlled by the SKY_REFLECTION_PROBE_AMBIANCE parameter to llSetEnvironment—which I never knew existed until I started on this and haven't yet tried, but it's documented as:

Quote

Minimum ambiance value for all reflection probes.

range = [0.0, 10.0]

Caveat: This feature will be supported in the upcoming GLTF Materials project. Currently it will only work in supported testing areas with a supported test viewer.

which I take to mean that the EEP Environment can specify that reflection probes can only have effective ambiance values above that minimum. The example is intended to depict an Environment-imposed minimum ambience of 3.2, which could be as high as 10.0 (hence values above 10 are apparently always effective in any Environment—blindingly bright though they may typically be). And the ambiance the "user" has chosen in the example, 0.525, would not be seen in the probe in that Environment.

It's yet another thing where I need to test my interpretation of the documentation.

I'm suddenly realizing that use of such a contraption needs to come with a heads-up that the user is on their own if they're using a viewer-local Environment because there's no such function as llGetAgentEnvironment.

(Now I'm imagining a "Director's Cut" Experience script that combines reflection probe editing and llSetEnvironment to link all the interdependent lighting effects. This is all so outside my wheelhouse.)

Again, I really appreciate your feedback, it's a huge help!

[Qie Niangao]

Over the past week or so I've spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to make sense of how the reflection probe Ambiance setting affects different EEP-specified lighting qualities within the reflection probe volume. I'm not even talking about subtle color balancing here, just which qualities even matter. Some observations:

1. As far as I can tell, cloud color doesn't seem to have any effect on ambient lighting anywhere, within or outside a reflection probe. (It definitely changes the sky, but I can't detect any discernable effect on the color of ambient lighting, even if it's fully saturated and every other EEP quality is grey. Maybe at some sun elevations something subtle happens, but I can't really see the cloud color influencing it.)
2. The description of fade_color, "the current color of the light emitted from the dominant light source" sounds good, but I just don't see that color in the ambient lighting. With a black SKY_AMBIENT, that "Environment Ambient" is pretty dark and nearly monochromatic, so the best I can find for approximating Environment Ambient seems to be SKY_LIGHT total_ambient.
3. At reflection probe ambiances between 1 and 4, luminance of all other ambient lighting is boosted, excluding that "Environment Ambient" component completely, but including local lighting. Here what I'm seeing is mostly SKY_SUN sun_color. Above 4, local lighting is washed out by ever higher luminance attributable to "indirect lighting received from the sky" according to the wiki (which still seems mostly sun_color for what little chroma is visible).

There are so many parameters that in combination might affect ambient lighting, but I think I'll just give up and use total_ambient for the zero-ended swatch, and sun_color for a band along the bottom of the light grey "indirect radiance" triangle, maybe a gradient up to that upper right triangle that can be bright white and labeled "sky only". The immediate EEP setting isn't necessarily where the probe will be used anyway (the user may need to tweak over a wide range of Environments)—and in many Environments, the different ambient light sources may not be all that distinct anyway, so I think I'm well past the point of diminishing returns with picking swatch colors.

Oh, I should respond: yeah, these ranges are intentionally non-linear. This number is nothing like a ratio scale of measurement and is only piecewise ordinal, even. The change in the range from 0 to 1 is usually more extreme than the whole rest of the scale, but there's a qualitative difference in how the other two ranges behave so I think they warrant being shown as distinct.

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

PBR. I neither love it or hate it, it just exists.

I played around with it and tried to make mirrors, glass and metallic looking things etc, but because of the awkward and confusing UI in the editor, I gave up quite quickly and went back to a regular non PBR viewer, feeling a bit disappointed and frustrated, mainly with myself for my lack of patience, but also frustrated from the completely unintuitive PBR UI in the edit window.

I did notice while I was using the PBR viewer that the region EEP settings looked a bit nicer, warmer and glowier than usual and that basic high shine prim objects looked slightly more "real" and were partially reflective, although sadly they didn't reflect my own avatar's reflection. FPS was a bit lower as I had anticipated but that was probably because I had settings on Ultra with shadows etc.

I would advise LL to greatly simplify the UI for the creation of PBR effects for the casual or short-attention span SL user (!) who would like to create PBR style effects in the same instinctive manner as it is to texture a regular prim with regular Materials and Shine elements.

Create a specific PBR tab in the edit window, featuring some big obvious "Make Mirror", "Make Glass" or "Make Metal" etc button with preloaded default PBR effects in the UI. It should be as easy to use as putting physics sounds into objects with the same edit window. Why not even tie the two systems together, so you get physics sounds and PBR shines both combined at the same time?

It would be nice to make things easier and less complex for the less skilled and impatient user and also not to overwhelm new SL users with a confusing PBI UI. At the moment, PBR effect creation is completely unintuitive and as clear as mud and seems to have been designed by the graphics devs just for trained graphics artists who already have the skills necessary. At the moment, PBR creation is not for the masses, it's just for a small minority of SL users.

It all seems a bit of a waste of the LL graphics devs time and effort if PBR is not fully utilised by SL's masses and may not lead to the prettier and more attractive world that LL envisages in SL's future.

Edited January 30 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Janet Voxel]

I dunno, I took a picture at backdrop city a week or two ago. The backdrop I chose had holes in the wall and you could see the other backdrops behind it. So I rezzed a prim and put it behind the backdrop. 
 

Normally, I would slap some kind of image back there and go about my business. For some reason I thought “Why not try a pbr material on a prim? I’ve never done that before.” So I jump on MP and scan for pbr materials. Marketplace is absolutely flooded with cheap pbr materials btw. Which is great in this case because I wasn’t really willing to spend a lot for a small detail. 
 

I spent the 25L for something that claimed to be emissive. I clenched my buttcheeks and hit buy. Sure enough, I got the material and it popped right on the face and adjusting the glow worked with the slider.

I didn’t need any special knowledge. It was as just like buying a texture and popping it on a prim.

I did want it to be more…..glowy. I really wasn’t expecting it to work for 25 L, but I wouldn’t say this requires an advance degree to use or do.

Pic for reference (maybe nsfw?): https://www.flickr.com/photos/pumpumsnacks/53481337881/in/photostream/

 

 

[Quinn Elara]

On 1/30/2024 at 1:06 PM, Qie Niangao said:

The description of fade_color, "the current color of the light emitted from the dominant light source" sounds good, but I just don't see that color in the ambient lighting. With a black SKY_AMBIENT, that "Environment Ambient" is pretty dark and nearly monochromatic, so the best I can find for approximating Environment Ambient seems to be SKY_LIGHT total_ambient.

The wiki article on llGetEnvironment mentions that fade_color erroneously returns an unclamped value, meaning the return isn't as expected. You can fix this by clamping manually, e.g:

vector luminenceHack(vector in)
{ //Hack to modify input colour to max brightness. Credit: Jenna Huntsman.
    list channels = [in.x, in.y, in.z];
    float maxChan = llListStatistics(LIST_STAT_MAX,channels);
    if(maxChan == 0)
    {
        return ZERO_VECTOR; //Avoid divide by zero error.
    }
    else
    {
        return in*(1/maxChan);
    }
} //This func also handles clamping, as it will multiply against a negative number. (thus, the result is reduced)

It's also worth noting that fade_color is the general ambient lit color of the environment, but won't factor anything coming from reflection probes.

With a PBR environment preset, expect total_ambient to be zero (<0,0,0>) or close to zero, regardless of time of day - you can see that in these presets - https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/PBR-EEP-Collection-Windlights-Studio-Saberhagen/25626640

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

I snarfed the luminenceHack from jira, before they (temporarily now, soon permanently) disabled logins, and have been using it when I feed llGetEnvironment colors to a simple listener HUD (now that rezzed-in-world fullbright doesn't preserve color anymore). But for non-black Ambient Color EEP settings (like starting from "Use Region Settings"), that fade_color sure does not look like the ambient lighting I see in the environment.

But yeah, with the Environment's Ambient Color set to black, there's much less involved in setting a reflection probe's Ambiance value. I guess the full range would be more or less linear that way, inasmuch as the 0-1 setting is practically a no-op, but… is there some reference I should read that explains how the Ambient Color setting is now basically obsolete with PBR?

It really does make a tremendous difference, enough that now I guess there's not much value in continuing this project. But if Ambient Color shouldn't be used anymore, somehow every landowner (and any other EEP user) needs to get the memo.

This PBR migration is turning out to be much more disruptive than I anticipated. When I read this in that Marketplace description:

Quote

… based on meteorological data for Vancouver, BC from summer 2023, and follow lighting principles used in the film industry and procedural skies used by major game engines.

I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I'm really gonna need to find a different hobby.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

But if Ambient Color shouldn't be used anymore, somehow every landowner (and any other EEP user) needs to get the memo.

I haven't had a lot of time recently to play with PBR, but I think a thread (assuming one that I've missed doesn't already exist) somewhere on how best to adjust existing EEP settings to compensate for changes in how lighting is rendered under PBR, along with a discussion of what you've been playing with here -- the implications for Reflection Probes -- would be a really good thing.

One thing I should do when I have a moment is compare the settings of the legacy Midday with the new PBR one. What did they change? (Not that I think the new one is any great shakes, tbh.)

Edited January 31 by Scylla Rhiadra
Missing word

[Andred Darwin]

In my view, there's a lot to like in PBR, but is true that things get's a bit "interesting" once you start  tweaking current scenes.
I've been trying for the last couple weeks to fully update my store and all items to PBR, as I intend to send free updates with materials built-in and all items with a fallback Blinn-Phong texture set ready for old viewers).

I'm using (and updating to as they build) the latest dev viewer from Github (gltf-maint-2 branch, https://github.com/secondlife/viewer/releases/tag/Second_Life_Release%23ea4dc1f-gltf-maint-2).

PBR in itself, is not that much slower than the old engine (got a lot better compared to a few months ago)... the problem is that for closed indoors, as an example, on a PBR scene, you need lights, there is no way around it using a new EEP setting, at least I cannot figure a way that would look acceptable without lights and once you add lights, performance starts taking a huge hit, very noticeable on large builds with more than 20 lights. (Of course varies depending on your machine.)

Basically... Closed indoors, PBR only, new EEP settings and no lights... scene is pitch black. (We could go by before with old EEP settings without using lights and no performance penalty)

Points lights do not cast shadows, and along with projectors (which do cast shadows) they bleed everywhere, through walls (thin walls mostly)... lights are and have always been quite a pain in SL... and now they are required for indoors using EEP settings converted to PBR. Ambiance setting in probes can help a bit, but after certain values, forget colors, or avatar skin color. Ambient Occlusion also becomes unnoticeable using point lights. 

Reflection probes are another headache as of now, and are needed, if not required, for indoors / buildings, so you don't see reflections from a "4th floor" as an example at the "1st floor" (same with large or open rooms in a house), probes dont blend really well, specially if using different parameters such as Ambiance, they must be positioned accordingly and some scenes may require quite a few of those. (I needed 4 Box Reflection Probes @ my store ).
Reflections probes as of today, are quite slow, the scene will "lock up" for a bit while they update, from bright to "normal", and that happens quite a lot, sometimes without even moving the avatar/camera. 

EEP settings are a bit more restrictive than it used to be, specially for outdoors and "midday",  changes to the sky (sky color, sun light, etc..), you will notice right away on your objects / shadows / avatar skin, night scenes are a lot easier, it's not impossible, but will take quite a lot of time. Water is not that bad after you tweak it for PBR (I had several friends complain about it using a PBR viewer, but all it takes is a bit of tweaking).

There some wiki articles about EEP, they have a lot of good info, but way too technical for regular users like me, "I just want a blue sky, not a blue everything...", I sure hoped EEP would become easier with PBR.
I did some experiment with EEP and I have some to show at one of my parcels at the Brown region (feel free to stop by if you want http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Brown/39/27/26 , disclaimer, I do sell stuff at that parcel.
Ambient color is recommended to be black, and it does in fact produce best results for PBR scenes, the new Midday, in the latest viewer is a great starting point, and PBR materials looks almost identical to what we see at Substance Painter using the recommended HDRI.

On the bright side... I believe the dev team did do a great job when it comes to rendering current scenes using old EEP settings, compared to what it was a few months ago, a lot got tweaked and changed.
You may notice things may look a bit more "faded" when using just diffuse textures, or more saturated when using diffuse, normal and specular maps but after a couple days, your eyes "kinda" get used to it, some scenes do look better using the new viewer.

My 2 cents to anyone ... try the new viewer (specially after FS picks up the latest changes, hopefully soon... ), give a chance for your eyes to get used to it, leave PBR and new EEP settings for a bit later... unless you are willing to do some digging to get information, and try out things ( also fail a lot )... each scene is different, and there are lots of snarky users "helping" assuming that one way will fit all or one way is the only correct way.

In the end PBR is really impressive, a scene with PBR looks way more vibrant, realistic, and will open doors to many great scenes. (Once you or your eyes get used to PBR... the old becomes weird)... here is one example, even though not really what I like in SL... but quite impressive, the following link is to an adult region... so be advised... should open on Feb 2nd, but people can visit now... (They are tweaking EEP as we speak..)
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Quantum City/128/153/3501

I'm looking forward to see how PBR and the viewer turns out in a couple months, at the same time quite disappointed to see "SL" doing things the exact same way as before... releasing stuff that is not really ready, and for sure, leaving stuff behind that never gets fixed...

Edited February 1 by Andred Darwin

[Qie Niangao]

3 hours ago, Andred Darwin said:

There some wiki articles about EEP, they have a lot of good info

Do you happen to have some of these saved and could share? All I know about are:

• the Environmental Enhancement Project ("How to EEP") wiki page
• the Environment Editor knowledge base article

which are generally better than nothing, but too superficial to really understand what all needs to change to make EEPs "compliant" with PBR.

There's some additional information in the scripting wiki for llGetEnvironment(), but it's assuming "facts not in evidence", for example:

Quote

In viewer versions 7.0+, this [SKY_GAMMA parameter] value has been repurposed into the "HDR Scale" value in the EEP editor. (Thus, this will return the value of the HDR Scale slider).

Like… and this makes sense because…? Just try searching the Knowledge Base for "HDR".

The alternative is dipping into Content Creation User Group transcripts that assume so much history, like:

Quote

Runitai Linden: (you can disable the adjustment to HDR and turn off auto exposure if you apply a sky that was saved wit hthe PBR viewer with Reflection Probe Ambiance set to zero)

It may as well be in Greek. So I'm really hoping there are pages out there I'm just not finding. Somehow EEP creators are making PBR versions of their previous Environments, but how did they know what to do? Folks wanting to create (or migrate) their own Environments need a clue.

[Quinn Elara]

4 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

Do you happen to have some of these saved and could share? All I know about are:

• the Environmental Enhancement Project ("How to EEP") wiki page
• the Environment Editor knowledge base article

which are generally better than nothing, but too superficial to really understand what all needs to change to make EEPs "compliant" with PBR.

There's some additional information in the scripting wiki for llGetEnvironment(), but it's assuming "facts not in evidence", for example:

Like… and this makes sense because…? Just try searching the Knowledge Base for "HDR".

The alternative is dipping into Content Creation User Group transcripts that assume so much history, like:

It may as well be in Greek. So I'm really hoping there are pages out there I'm just not finding. Somehow EEP creators are making PBR versions of their previous Environments, but how did they know what to do? Folks wanting to create (or migrate) their own Environments need a clue.

Documentation for EEP has always been an issue. I did a small writeup of some rules-of-thumb for making presets that play well with the PBR viewer here - https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Jenna_Huntsman#PBR

The llGetEnvironment stuff is because the PBR viewer no longer implements gamma as it was in older viewers. Instead, it serves as an adjustment to the HDR camera in the scene (if reflection probe ambiance is above 0), or the overall scene brightness (if reflection probe ambiance is 0).

The definition of a "PBR" EEP will likely vary depending on who you ask, but it mostly would boil down to 2 descriptions:

1. An EEP that the author has verified and matches their artistic vision for the environment in the PBR viewer.
2. (my definition) An EEP that has removed the classic ambient light in favour of the PBR viewer's indirect lighting system (IBL), and thus will have a reflection probe ambiance of 1 or above.

[Qie Niangao]

5 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

I did a small writeup of some rules-of-thumb for making presets that play well with the PBR viewer here - https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Jenna_Huntsman#PBR

Thanks, this is already a big help!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Documentation for EEP has always been an issue. I did a small writeup of some rules-of-thumb for making presets that play well with the PBR viewer here - https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Jenna_Huntsman#PBR

The llGetEnvironment stuff is because the PBR viewer no longer implements gamma as it was in older viewers. Instead, it serves as an adjustment to the HDR camera in the scene (if reflection probe ambiance is above 0), or the overall scene brightness (if reflection probe ambiance is 0).

The definition of a "PBR" EEP will likely vary depending on who you ask, but it mostly would boil down to 2 descriptions:

1. An EEP that the author has verified and matches their artistic vision for the environment in the PBR viewer.
2. (my definition) An EEP that has removed the classic ambient light in favour of the PBR viewer's indirect lighting system (IBL), and thus will have a reflection probe ambiance of 1 or above.

Alongside Qie, let me thank you for this, Jenna: it's very useful.

I had noticed that the Scene Gamma slider was no longer functioning as it used to -- it would be nice if the Knowledge Base article were updated to reflect this. I've used it a lot in the past to tweak lighting and shade, which it clearly doesn't do anymore: I suppose now I need to use the Blue Horizon and Blue Density settings for this?

I also need to fiddle around to find what best reduces or modifies the horrible vasoline-like sheen that PBR now seems to use to represent "shine," at least in objects textured with BP materials.

I suppose it's too much to expect that LL is going to issue a new set of adjusted EEP settings, as they can't seem to manage even to keep the documentation up-to-date.  I am clearly going to have to set aside a couple of evenings to creating my own PBR-friendly EEPs to replace the 30 or so custom ones I've been using for photos. Ugh.

[Qie Niangao]

11 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I suppose it's too much to expect that LL is going to issue a new set of adjusted EEP settings, as they can't seem to manage even to keep the documentation up-to-date.

This is a problem on Mainland where we're up against region default Environments on Linden land that are not actually what you get with "Use Region Settings" in About Land / Environment, neither of which were great even before PBR. I don't know if we should expect these ever to get repaired, unless maybe when some Materials get spread over the terrain (eventually, we hope).

That's annoying because I have a number of open-to-the-public parcels between Linden water and a Linden road or rail, so having distinct EEP settings on my ground level only disrupts the traveler's experience.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

That's annoying because I have a number of open-to-the-public parcels between Linden water and a Linden road or rail, so having distinct EEP settings on my ground level only disrupts the traveler's experience.

Yeah, I'm in exactly that same situation, with my public parcel adjoining the SLRR on Heterocera.

Being on the mainland sometimes feels a bit like renting from a landlord who hasn't repainted or repaired the property in 15 years, and won't answer your emails or phone calls.

[Henri Beauchamp]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

I don't know if we should expect these ever to get repaired

The problem is that, for now, LL did not repair legacy contents rendering, at the PBR viewer level, and instead created some hacked ”mid day” setting you can set in the viewer, meaning any legacy contents rendered with any other existing EE setting (which includes main land, but also all other current settings applied to all other type of lands) looks broken, with an ugly blueish hue.

We need to petition LL to fix the renderer, and have it render legacy contents with legacy EE settings !

[Andred Darwin]

41 minutes ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

The problem is that, for now, LL did not repair legacy contents rendering, at the PBR viewer level, and instead created some hacked ”mid day” setting you can set in the viewer, meaning any legacy contents rendered with any other existing EE setting (which includes main land, but also all other current settings applied to all other type of lands) looks broken, with an ugly blueish hue.

We need to petition LL to fix the renderer, and have it render legacy contents with legacy EE settings !

Not disagreeing with anything technical you are mentioning, but I dont believe is that bad, the new EEP settings are a bit more finnicky to deal with, but after spending some time with it, my 2 cents is that they do a really good job today with legacy content... 

The blueish hue becomes not as noticeable as you tweak EEP (Im not sure if they did something about it and its remediated now cause I'm using the latest GLTF viewer built from Github gtlf-maint-2 branch ).

I can easily make a midday setting now with warm tones, which pretty much does not show much of the blue tint, and to my personal opinion, quite enhance the look of legacy content, all with a nice blue sky and nice blue water (considering a bug exists where some artifacts are shown in water when you enable Screen Space Reflections  SSR).... also, maybe good to point out, I gave myself a chance to get used to the new viewer, I still can login with 6.6.17 SL Viewer, still like it very much... but I like a full PBR scene enough to just not use the old viewer. (The new Midday setting, hack or not, is a great starting point, for creators is amazing, finally what I see on a 3D creation software is really close to what I can see in SL ... just play softly with the "sliders")

Anyway, my point is... maybe it can be better... for sure... but it's not that bad as it sounds. (If and when full PBR scenes are available... I believe quite a few users will really be tempted to switch and reduce or even forget legacy content...  ).

Snapshot below: All legacy content, new EEP setting... warm tones, no damage to the avatar skin..., nice sky, nice water... no blue tint at all... (no "damage" to avatar skin, nice sky and nice water are my personal opinion...)... also, I really like that is easier to control shadows using the HDR slider... (first picture @ 1080p, second at 720p... size limits in forum for one post)

 

Edited February 1 by Andred Darwin

[Arielle Popstar]

17 minutes ago, Andred Darwin said:

Anyway, my point is... maybe it can be better... for sure... but it's not that bad as it sounds. (If and when full PBR scenes are available... I believe quite a few users will really be tempted to switch and reduce or even forget legacy content...  ).

I think a lot of users are going to be pissed that CalWL and Nam's Optimal Skin's are going to be too bright to be usable in the PBR viewers.

[Andred Darwin]

1 minute ago, Arielle Popstar said:

I think a lot of users are going to be pissed that CalWL and Nam's Optimal Skin's are going to be too bright to be usable in the PBR viewers.

Its just the beginning... it will all be tweaked... some like you mentioned will sell great and nice PBR EEP settings... others will just go, see what values are and make their own with their own touch, its all personal opinion anyway (Most will love CalWL and Nam's whatever that is, some just won't care about it), what matters is that the current system does allow it to be tweaked and allows creativity, and does not destroy old content.... 

In the end will be great... (I was really critical of how the new viewer handled current content a few months ago, and in my opinion, I'm pretty pleased to see they did tweaked it, and did quite a great job).

There is no way for them to see everything that is possible in SL, we need to let them know what we see ( feedback.secondlife.com )... they may take in consideration... 

[Arielle Popstar]

3 minutes ago, Andred Darwin said:

 (Most will love CalWL and Nam's whatever that is, some just won't care about it)

Windlight settings that are the two most oft recommended settings. They blended a lot of mismatched skin textures.

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

The problem is that, for now, LL did not repair legacy contents rendering, at the PBR viewer level, and instead created some hacked ”mid day” setting you can set in the viewer, meaning any legacy contents rendered with any other existing EE setting (which includes main land, but also all other current settings applied to all other type of lands) looks broken, with an ugly blueish hue.

We need to petition LL to fix the renderer, and have it render legacy contents with legacy EE settings !

Not sure if I was unclear or just more off-topic than usual, but what I was complaining about was a problem long before the PBR viewer: the Environment you get with "Use Region Settings" is not the Environment used on Linden protected land. They're both quite dim, but the Linden land setting is even dimmer, regardless of viewer. That's not ideal for private land adjacent Linden land when trying to blend in as seamlessly as possible.

I suppose we could bribe a Mole to actually run the comparison. I could see if there are differences among the parameters exposed to llGetEnvironment, I guess.

[animats]

5 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

quite dim

We're supposed to get automatic tone-mapping in SL, which is like auto-exposure. Then ambient lighting can be turned way down. That should help SL's long-standing dimness problem. Maybe we'll get a brighter sun, so high dynamic range does something useful.

Here's what that looks like in Cyberpunk 2077.

In a dark place, looking out at daylight. The bright outdoors is washed out. Just like reality.

Out in daylight, at dawn. Not washed out any more.

SL is already doing most of this, but it's not fully enabled yet. I'm looking forward to this working properly.

Eventually, PBR lights should have real-world lumen values, not 0..100. The whole point of PBR is to do what light really does, not what you think it does.

[Qie Niangao]

5 hours ago, animats said:

The whole point of PBR is to do what light really does, not what you think it does.

I realize we'll still be able to break the laws of physics and bend optics to our whimsy, but there's something a little disconcerting about the paintbrush being subsumed by the camera (again). But meh, we should enjoy these fleeting days until transformers displace imagination completely.

A little more about the Mainland EEP problem. That first step, "Use Region Settings" works fine. (Well, it replicates the region settings, which suck, but it does that part right.) The problem arises when customizing that day cycle at any level—or even just opening "Customize" and saving it to the parcel unchanged: It changes. I haven't compared all the llGetEnvironment parameters nor the whole cycle, but I know the Ambient Color (a.k.a. SKY_COLOR) differs a lot, along with the sun angles (because shadows move when entering from Linden land).

This happens in pre-PBR viewers, too, so all the fussing from PBR viewers about non-HDR Environment isn't what's causing the problem. (I guess the unwanted "customization" would be considered "not as PBR" because its Ambient Color is much brighter and pretty saturated at sunrise and sunset. But the problem long antedates the start of the PBR project.)

I'd submit a Canny ticket but I've been assuming all this will change at some point.

[Theresa Tennyson]

12 hours ago, Arielle Popstar said:

Windlight settings that are the two most oft recommended settings. They blended a lot of mismatched skin textures.

For when people would throw on their raccoon coats and jump in their Maxwells to go to the store to buy skins for their system avatars.

[Janet Voxel]

There have been a couple of attempts at making some pbr EEPs:

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/PBR-EEP-Files/25300388

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/JuicyBomb-Fable-Skies-EEP-Settings-PBR-Ready/25492106

I’ve tried the second one, I think it works pretty well.