Why I Don't Like PBR

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

In theory, this is fixable with reflection probes, with which you can, to some degree, "customize" interior lighting (especially used in conjunction with local lighting, but that raises the problems you've already highlighted).

What I was "hoping" in my case, was that adding an RP someplace would "fix" the problem (so that I wouldn't need to add the local lights).

I just put 1 local light in each corner of the room and that works..

So far, I've only been told that if I place a ceiling light inside an RP it will look nice.

Awaiting further advice (or when I try the pretty ceiling light). LOL

 

[Zalificent Corvinus]

The more examples of LL's "released a couple or three years too soon" fustercluck coded dead-duck version of a cut down basic PBR, worthless fubar edition, and how "trendy up-to-date" creators are mis-using it, the happier I am that I'm using a viewer with NO support whatsoever for PBR.

 

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

So, we'll all need to set up proper lighting depending on what we're wearing?

Of course, because EVERYONE knows that "FailContent EgoVendor" is the greatest creative talent in SL, and SURELY every other brand will copy their PBR probe settings, right?

 

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I'm really a bit confused about how this whole thing is going to work out when every creator will be using different lighting for their product and we're using another.  Can someone explain how that's going to work out?

Yes, the answer is it ISN'T going to work out at all.

 

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Apparently, I need to set up my lighting or whatever but how the hell is anyone suppose to figure that out or even bother just to wear a damn outfit. 

Don't forget you have to convince the owners of the places you go, to REMOVE all their "wrong" PBR probes, and ban other visitors from wearing the "wrong" PBR probes so that the "Right" probe you have is the only one illuminating your outfit.

 

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

But people use all kinds of different lighting.  That's my point.

One Probe Set to light them all,

One Probe Set to find them,

One Probe Set to rule them all,

And in over contrasted Darkness BIND them...

 

 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Lights don't need to contain scripts unless they're supposed to dim or turn on and off on touch, or flicker. I used to use a trick that makes candles and fluorescent lights flicker without a script, but it only looks good at short range, so I've pretty much switched to scripts for that. But definitely, whatever lights one uses, it takes a bunch of work to look good and work right in a setting, but I think the results are a whole lot more interesting for the investment.

Two points to add to this:

1) we are now, I think, not limited as to the number of point lights we can employ for any one scene, meaning that one can use a fair number of them, if need be, to get the lighting right, and reduce the amount of "bleed" through at walls and such.

Of course, point lights count towards your LI, so it's also important to remember that . . .

2) literally any object that you can modify can be converted into a point light simply by going to the "Features" tab. You can, in theory, have lighting coming from a kitchen chair or a tea pot -- although on occasion the effect may look odd. But this is one way to introduce local lights without adding too much to your LI.

 

ETA: I wish we could use more than two projectors in a scene, because these really DO look better, and behave more realistically, than point lights. And, although I haven't tested it thoroughly, I think you CAN use more than two -- but only two will be able to cast shadows.

Edited February 29 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

we are now, I think, not limited as to the number of point lights we can employ for any one scene, meaning that one can use a fair number of them, if need be, to get the lighting right, and reduce the amount of "bleed" through at walls and such.

Of course, point lights count towards your LI, so it's also important to remember that . . .

Since in my example it is 1 open room, 4 lights = 4 prims = 4 LI. 🙂

ETA: The example build itself is no-mod.

Edited February 29 by Love Zhaoying

[Rowan Amore]

22 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I'm okay with limping along until subsurface scattering is ready for adoption, at which point every skin without it will look Ruth-like in comparison.

Considering the amount of money people spend (myself included) on customizing our avatars, if current skins are going to look like crap without it, I can see some severe pushback from the general SL community.  It's bad enough people are still running around with 1000W facelights but now they're going to running around with some probes attached?  Please tell me I'm wrong about this.

[Jenna Huntsman]

22 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

ban other visitors from wearing the "wrong" PBR probes

This intentionally doesn't work, so that's a non-issue.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PBR_Materials#Unsupported_use-cases

[Rowan Amore]

Just now, Jenna Huntsman said:

This intentionally doesn't work, so that's a non-issue.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PBR_Materials#Unsupported_use-cases

But venues/regions using them will effect our own avatars?  Honestly, couldn't care less how that chair looks but if my avatar looks like kaka with any EEP setting I might use, it's a hard NO.

[Jenna Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

But venues/regions using them will effect our own avatars?  Honestly, couldn't care less how that chair looks but if my avatar looks like kaka with any EEP setting I might use, it's a hard NO.

Yes.

An avatar stood within a reflection probe will have it's reflections and lighting influenced by it.

Reflection probes always work based on the EEP currently applied in the user's viewer, so any manually applied EEP will display the correct lighting within that probe for that setting, combined with any local lights (if any are present).

[Theresa Tennyson]

Theresa Tennyson attempts to re-write a half-finished "Fingers and toes from default skins won't work automatically with BOM but they're easy to fix" macro to read "You don't need reflection probes at all - most of the work is done automatically."

[Zalificent Corvinus]

5 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

This intentionally doesn't work, so that's a non-issue.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PBR_Materials#Unsupported_use-cases

Even better!

So, you make the mistake of buying "Pretentious Bloody Rubbish" enabled clothing and it looks like crap because "you are using the WRONG EEP/Probe Set".

Then you go somewhere, your favourite club say, and the owner of the club isn't using the EEP/Probe Set recommended by the maker of your outfit, or that suggested by the makers of anyone else's outfits.

 

Guaranteed to look like crap EVERYWHERE except your home and the store you bought it in Fail-Content.

That's going to be a REALLY BIG selling point for Pretentious Bloody Rubbish enabled clothing, isn't it?

 

The more we hear the less attractive PBR sounds. The sole reason for introducing it seems to be "make life easier for people renting a copy of Substance Painter", which does NOTHING for the customers.

[Jenna Huntsman]

1 minute ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

So, you make the mistake of buying "Pretentious Bloody Rubbish" enabled clothing and it looks like crap because "you are using the WRONG EEP/Probe Set".

Then you go somewhere, your favourite club say, and the owner of the club isn't using the EEP/Probe Set recommended by the maker of your outfit, or that suggested by the makers of anyone else's outfits.

If the clothing creator packages a specific EEP that they require you to use in order for the clothing to display correctly, that's a sign of faulty content.

PBR enabled clothing does not and should not require the use of a specific EEP preset.

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Theresa Tennyson attempts to re-write a half-finished "Fingers and toes from default skins won't work automatically with BOM but they're easy to fix" macro to read "You don't need reflection probes at all - most of the work is done automatically."

And for remarrrrrrrkably similar reasons.

[Persephone Emerald]

53 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Lights don't need to contain scripts unless they're supposed to dim or turn on and off on touch, or flicker. I used to use a trick that makes candles and fluorescent lights flicker without a script, but it only looks good at short range, so I've pretty much switched to scripts for that. But definitely, whatever lights one uses, it takes a bunch of work to look good and work right in a setting, but I think the results are a whole lot more interesting for the investment.

I know how to link objects to lower Land Impact. I know how to add light to a prim using Edit functions and how to remove a script after it's already creating its desired effect. I don't think most people, at least not newer users, know how to do these things, however.

1 hour ago, Andred Darwin said:

In my experience so far... for buildings like houses, etc,  if its a "legacy" building... it's better to use an old EEP, and not mix too many objects PBR materials... if its a building with PBR materials and PBR content... you may use a PBR converted EEP, along with reflection probes and lights, its almost a requirement, sounds like a lot... but you may enjoy the result... 

I think another thing to keep in mind... PBR/Legacy rendering is still being tweaked... and the current viewers (even some Beta ones), dont have the latest code... and in some cases the difference is really noticeable (of course each scene may be different... )

Which Linden Home themes are likely to get updated for PBR? Maybe just Ranch and Mediterranean? This would make sense to me, since people paying for Premium Plus are more likely to be able to afford a newer, higher end computer. Many of us mere Premiun subscribers might not even want to use PBR with our pre-PBR furniture and furnishings.

[Qie Niangao]

34 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Considering the amount of money people spend (myself included) on customizing our avatars, if current skins are going to look like crap without it, I can see some severe pushback from the general SL community. 

That wasn't what I was saying, though. All pre-PBR skins and any skins that can ever be developed with existing PBR materials have always and will always look pathetic compared to skins using subsurface scattering (for anything other than still photography, where the effect can be statically faked). But I have no idea how vast the barriers are to getting the capability into SL, or even how "standard" the feature set is.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

And that's my issue.  Half the people don't have a clue what's going on with PBR.   I've used the same day to day lighting for ages with just a small tweak when EEP came out.  That was basically windlight anyway just with more customization.  While lighting can have an effect on how something looks, not usually to the extent that an entire texture looks wrong.  

So I go to a club with PBR content and probes or whatever set up for whatever the hell reason.  I come in wearing an outfit that looks best in such and such lighting.  Will the outfit look ok in their chosen EEP/lighting?  Who knows?

Question for gamers who play games which use PBR.  Are you able to tweak your personal lighting as we can in SL or is it set to what the game developers choose and their content looks great?  

I am curious if you tried anything yet, if it worked, and what the solution was!

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Qie Niangao said:

pathetic

So, I hope you have empathy for us?  

I mean, we can't do anything about it.

 

[Sid Nagy]

So basically SL is made more complicated once more, just because LL had lightning devs hanging around since Phil closed his shop and came back and LL wants to be able to say that we endorsed a new shiny.
Sigh.

Edited February 29 by Sid Nagy

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Persephone Emerald said:

Which Linden Home themes are likely to get updated for PBR?

OMG! Are Belli homes also "dark at night" now?

[Persephone Emerald]

31 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

If the clothing creator packages a specific EEP that they require you to use in order for the clothing to display correctly, that's a sign of faulty content.

PBR enabled clothing does not and should not require the use of a specific EEP preset.

Yes, and neither should mesh bodies, heads, skins or hair. 

I've seen more than a few people complain in a skin store or mesh head store group that their avatar didn't look as it does in the vendor picture, only to be told that they need to change their EEP settings to this or such EEP setting recommended by the store owner.

[Sid Nagy]

1 minute ago, Love Zhaoying said:

OMG! Are Belli homes also "dark at night" now?

Far worse: totally pinkish in the morning.
Barbie world II

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Far worse: totally pinkish in the morning.
Barbie world II

Pink is completely manly and macho now. Did you miss out?

[Persephone Emerald]

4 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Far worse: totally pinkish in the morning.
Barbie world II

Thank goodness the dawn setting only lasts for a few minutes. It makes my whites look like I washed them with a new red shirt or towel.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

9 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

That wasn't what I was saying, though. All pre-PBR skins and any skins that can ever be developed with existing PBR materials have always and will always look pathetic compared to skins using subsurface scattering (for anything other than still photography, where the effect can be statically faked). But I have no idea how vast the barriers are to getting the capability into SL, or even how "standard" the feature set is.

Some games had subsurface scattering 13 years ago.

Skyrim was one of them, guess what one of the popular mood types for Skyrim is.

Subsurface Scatter disabler, because under some lighting conditions that happen in game, it turns skin a metallic bronze colour, that looks really really bad. so people use a mod to kill the SubScatter dead for better consistency in skin tones.

 

Subsurface scatter looks best when applied CAREFULLY, in static renders, applied carelessly in dynamic environments, it can look like total sh*te.

 

[Istelathis]

14 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

OMG! Are Belli homes also "dark at night" now?

It really is not that bad.

Edited environment - not to be taken seriously.

[Rowan Amore]

21 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I am curious if you tried anything yet, if it worked, and what the solution was!

The only things I've purchased that were PBR ready were homes from Scarlet Creative.  On sale so I couldn't pass them up.  She does include Non-PBR versions which is a good thing.  Personally, although I find the Firestorm PBR viewer runs quite well, I see no reason to use it or the SL PBR version at this time.