Firestorm PBR Release Is Out

[discussionbot]

35 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I just had a terrible, terrible thought - what if there was an AI being trained on the forums? "Hallucination" would be basically unavoidable.

It’d turn into Microsoft Tay  

https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297050/tay-microsoft-chatbot-racist

[Scylla Rhiadra]

36 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Oh it's plenty broke, it's just hidden from users by a ridiculously inaccurate avatar complexity system, so inaccurate that it's mostly ignored. When a single map is carved into a hundred faces, it's broke.

I liked your idea of auto-generated alpha masks. It would certainly beat the astonishingly annoying process of searching through scores of different alpha layers to find the right combination that would work for a particular garment. (I was as much a fan of Slink as anyone, and I gave Siddean points for attempting to abide by one of the articulated justifications for BoM, the end of alpha cuts, but even I gave up on my Slink body after a while. Putting together alphas for each new outfit was often enormously time consuming.)

What such a system might require, or should require, is a standardized and agreed-upon set of alpha cuts adopted by all garment creators. We know that LL is allergic to doing work it can dump onto residents instead reluctant to coordinate such efforts, yet alone impose standards, though, so . . . I don't know that this would work.

[Zrina Nebula]

On 6/21/2024 at 1:00 PM, Sabrina Nebula said:

I tried the Beta and wasn't really a fan. The final release still does not work as good as the LL viewer. As soon as I turn my camera around my screen starts flickering like an old tv 😭

I finally found the bug! Seems I can't run FS PBR viewer without VSynch being enabled. What a ride! Now it works fantastic ^^

[Nagachief Darkstone]

I do hope that LL releases PBR BOM either right before or at the same time as glTF scene support.

(Also, it's probably going to be the naive method of using the basecolor's alpha on how to handle the rest of the layering)

Mostly because each alpha slice face adds more information to the scene, and there was a semi-confirmed comment from LL at a user meeting that there will be hard data limits put in place for glTF avatars. It's very likely due to these data limits that PBR BOM will be mandatory going forward and that both body, clothing, hair, and accessory creators are going to have to learn optimization now or the hard way when their customers start getting "Maximum data reached" when attaching their horribly polygon dense hair or shoes.

Edited July 27 by Nagachief Darkstone

[Scylla Rhiadra]

16 minutes ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

It's very likely due to these data limits that PBR BOM will be mandatory going forward and that both body, clothing, hair, and accessory creators are going to have to learn optimization now or the hard way when their customers start getting "Maximum data reached" when attaching their horribly polygon dense hair or shoes.

What is the likelihood of LL letting creators know that this is going to be the case well ahead of time, in order to avoid the "hard way" option? And how would they do that?

(This is already starting to sound like a nightmare in the making . . .)

[Arielle Popstar]

37 minutes ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

I do hope that LL releases PBR BOM either right before or at the same time as glTF scene support.

(Also, it's probably going to be the naive method of using the basecolor's alpha on how to handle the rest of the layering)

Mostly because each alpha slice face adds more information to the scene, and there was a semi-confirmed comment from LL at a user meeting that there will be hard data limits put in place for glTF avatars. It's very likely due to these data limits that PBR BOM will be mandatory going forward and that both body, clothing, hair, and accessory creators are going to have to learn optimization now or the hard way when their customers start getting "Maximum data reached" when attaching their horribly polygon dense hair or shoes.

The data limits will be server side or viewer?

[Nagachief Darkstone]

27 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

What is the likelihood of LL letting creators know that this is going to be the case well ahead of time, in order to avoid the "hard way" option? And how would they do that?

(This is already starting to sound like a nightmare in the making . . .)

I sure hope so, though LL has a track record of not relaying major changes like this soon enough. Once glTF scene support gets far enough along that limits can start to be tested, I'll probably try to ask the question in CCUG or TPVD meetings so that there's something to refer to at least.

7 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The data limits will be server side or viewer?

If I would take a guess, likely serverside.

[Extrude Ragu]

14 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

The data limits will be server side or viewer?

We don't know the implementation details yet. LL themselves haven't gotten around to planning that yet, as they're still working on just making sure glTF renders properly before worrying about server implementation.

Obviously there will need to be some kind of limit in place otherwise people could upload a petabyte worth of geometry and attach it to themselves.

52 minutes ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

there was a semi-confirmed comment from LL at a user meeting that there will be hard data limits put in place for glTF avatars.

This is all speculation myself - But I think they really just meant upload size limit, similar to collada, rather than introducing a new avatar limit - Although I may be wrong. We don't know ofc.

Edited July 27 by Extrude Ragu

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

On 7/26/2024 at 10:36 PM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I liked your idea of auto-generated alpha masks.

I prefer the idea of manually created alpha masks that you can paint on in an "appearance editor" style pop-up window.

Something along the lines of this simple demo but with your avatar mesh instead of a torus so you can rotate around it hiding or revealing areas as required (of course camera zoom/pan and a brush size slider would be useful too).  As long as it's a floating window then you can compare the changes on your avatar in-world to make sure the mask works with what you're wearing.  If they wanted to be really nice they'd have a few preset slots to save alphas to, or perhaps the ability to save alpha masks to inventory.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 hour ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

there will be hard data limits put in place for glTF avatars

When I first read this I thought I might have fallen asleep and was just dreaming I was reading the forums, then I read this...

1 hour ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

creators are going to have to learn optimization

... and now I'm convinced this is all just a wonderful dream! 🤣

[Scylla Rhiadra]

14 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I prefer the idea of manually created alpha masks that you can paint on in an "appearance editor" style pop-up window.

Something along the lines of this simple demo but with your avatar mesh instead of a torus so you can rotate around it hiding or revealing areas as required (of course camera zoom/pan and a brush size slider would be useful too).  As long as it's a floating window then you can compare the changes on your avatar in-world to make sure the mask works with what you're wearing.  If they wanted to be really nice they'd have a few preset slots to save alphas to, or perhaps the ability to save alpha masks to inventory.

Big, if true!

No idea how feasible that is, but it sounds great.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

10 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Big, if true!

No idea how feasible that is, but it sounds great.

The theory and code behind it are pretty simple but I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to how difficult it would be to implement in the viewer, not to mention how difficult it would be to convince LL it would be worth implementing.  Maybe if they release PBR BOM and people are still using mesh avatars with alpha cuts they'll consider something similar (or something like Qie suggested)?

ETA: Even better a combination of the two, where you had preset "alpha cut" style buttons to hide and unhide parts of the avatar and then the option to refine the alpha by painting additional areas to clean up any parts where the alpha cuts don't quite match.  Perhaps it may be time for them to update the appearance editor? 🤔

Edited July 27 by Fluffy Sharkfin
Added even crazier ideas!

[Zalificent Corvinus]

10 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

The theory and code behind it are pretty simple but I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to how difficult it would be to implement in the viewer, not to mention how difficult it would be to convince LL it would be worth implementing.  Maybe if they release PBR BOM and people are still using mesh avatars with alpha cuts they'll consider something similar (or something like Qie suggested)?

So basically, we have a small group of ass-backward overthinkers, demanding that LL use PBR Git-Elf Scene Abuse, ass an excuse to BAN pre Git-Elf Abuse bodies, and FORCE unbelievers to drop L$ 5 k - L$ 10 k on BoM-Bigot futureness Cultist approved Git-elf Scene Abuse bodies.

 

And these Cultists actually believe that telling 140, 000 odd Maitreya Lara users, for example that "You must stop using that body and delete your entire wardrobe and buy a NEW Git-Elf Body from one of the over-entitled Futureness Cultist Bigots if you wish to stay in SL" won't be met with extreme pushback, and a fair number of rage-quits from the platform.

 

1 hour ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

It's very likely due to these data limits that PBR BOM will be mandatory going forward

1 hour ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

when their customers start getting "Maximum data reached" when attaching their horribly polygon dense

Yup, that sounds like a GREAT way to encourage people to abandon bom and return to using onion layers and appliers, that they already have in their inventories.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

3 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

So basically, we have a small group of ass-backward overthinkers, demanding that LL use PBR Git-Elf Scene Abuse, ass an excuse to BAN pre Git-Elf Abuse bodies, and FORCE unbelievers to drop L$ 5 k - L$ 10 k on BoM-Bigot futureness Cultist approved Git-elf Scene Abuse bodies.

 

And these Cultists actually believe that telling 140, 000 odd Maitreya Lara users, for example that "You must stop using that body and delete your entire wardrobe and buy a NEW Git-Elf Body from one of the over-entitled Futureness Cultist Bigots if you wish to stay in SL" won't be met with extreme pushback, and a fair number of rage-quits from the platform.

Yeah, that's 100% exactly what I meant! Curses, now me and my cultist buddies will have to find some other way to convert you all to our weird cultish ways... and we woulda gotten away with it if it weren't for you pesky kids *shakes fist theatrically*

While I always appreciate your melodramatic interpretations of completely innocuous statements and the eloquent little tyraids that accompany them, I don't recall anyone mentioning banning existing bodies.  I was referring to what LL's reaction would be to creators continuing to make new mesh bodies with alpha cuts (which would be a clear indication that PBR BOM wasn't being adopted or received well).

Given LL's reluctance to discard any old content in SL over the last 20 years I doubt anyone is expecting (let alone suggesting) that LL ban older mesh bodies.  Personally I'm just talking about ways to improve the awkward alpha mask system and make it easier and more usable/accessible, but I do appreciate your input and am flattered that you think I'm worthy of "cult status", even if it is an imaginary one. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

24 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

return to using onion layers and appliers, that they already have in their inventories.

Of course they do, Grandma...

Edited July 28 by Theresa Tennyson

[Rowan Amore]

3 hours ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

I do hope that LL releases PBR BOM either right before or at the same time as glTF scene support.

(Also, it's probably going to be the naive method of using the basecolor's alpha on how to handle the rest of the layering)

Mostly because each alpha slice face adds more information to the scene, and there was a semi-confirmed comment from LL at a user meeting that there will be hard data limits put in place for glTF avatars. It's very likely due to these data limits that PBR BOM will be mandatory going forward and that both body, clothing, hair, and accessory creators are going to have to learn optimization now or the hard way when their customers start getting "Maximum data reached" when attaching their horribly polygon dense hair or shoes.

There is no need for hair to have over 1M triangle.  I've passed on a few from some popular creators who don't seem to have a clue on optimization.  

[Extrude Ragu]

I don't think alpha cuts are going away any time soon. They're just too convenient. I've yet to jump aboard the bom alpha layer train.

Basically the current alpha cuts vs bom alpha layers boils down to user friendliness vs performance.

What really needs to really happen is some way to do something that is functionally the same as alpha cuts, right down to being able to control it with a Hud, but without the performance penalty of alpha cuts.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

1 hour ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

I don't recall anyone mentioning banning existing bodies

Well, apart from certain Futureness cultists who for example, have already stated that they want alpha cuts to vanish, and that the system is broken, because they don't like it and use a badly made body where the system doesn't work well, and claiming that OBVIOUSLY 2k PBR BoM, will eliminate the need for "obsolete mesh clothing" in a Futureness rant-post that reveals they devoted exactly 5 seconds to actually thinking how any of their BS will work in practice..

 

Also, when is a ban not a ban, when it's a Zen-Ban.

 

They won't "ban" Lara, but the limits on "data" might mean that you cant wear it because "adding that mesh attachment would exceed your data limits".

 

Remember these are the same people who chose 80kk as an arbitary "complexity cutoff" number, without actually checking the typical complexity scores of avatars at the time, and kicked off a whole rats nest of complexity drama, with idiots screaming that 80k should be the maximum permitted, anywhere, ever.

 

We've also seen Cultist statements that "new super duper Git-elf scene bodies" will deprecate all existing bodies, so we'll all have to rebuy our avatars and clothes.

 

They WANT to use this Futureness drek to screw over the userbase for their own commercial ends. Merchants supporting making your existing purchases unusable so they can sell you the same stuff, with a slightly different texture, for 50% more money.

 

And then there's all the insane ideas "paint your own alpha layers dynamically, in SL", well that's great for people who can paint, freehand, assuming that LL ever solve the "textures not loading, mesh not loading" problems.

 

What about people who are not experienced 3D painters? Screw them, right? Because Futureness.

 

Every new announcement from the Cultists, of all the un-cool stuff they are discussing with the devs at those stupid "5 fools and a Linden" meetings, seems designed to add a NEW subset of the population to the excluded from SL list.

 

 

[Nagachief Darkstone]

Oooh I'm part of the spooky PBR glTF cult!

I've been helping and explaining things to people who are receptive to it, and I'm grateful for those who want to learn and expand as users and creators. Those that aren't have been pretty good entertainment. It is getting a little stale and boring, though, but it's always a treat guessing what will rile up the angry mob this time.

If PBR and glTF makes SL better, it means I get more spending money. If it makes it crash and burn, well I can finally bury an addiction in the ground. I see that as a win either way.

So please. Do go on and continue to entertain me with the doomsaying and hilariously incomprehensible paragraphs and childish insults and phrases. Let me go get some more popcorn.

[Zalificent Corvinus]

32 minutes ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

If PBR and glTF makes SL better

Got an ETA on when this hypothetical "betterness" is supposed to start? doesn't have to be an exact date, to the nearest DECADE will do. 2030? 2040?

 

34 minutes ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

Oooh I'm part of the spooky PBR glTF cult!

Yes, I know, I've read your previous posts on the subject of "Unsuitable for SL" Pretentious Bloody Rubbish.

 

35 minutes ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

it means I get more spending money

Like I said, PBR is being pushed hard by vested interests.

 

[Nagachief Darkstone]

19 minutes ago, Zalificent Corvinus said:

Got an ETA on when this hypothetical "betterness" is supposed to start? doesn't have to be an exact date, to the nearest DECADE will do. 2030? 2040?

 

Yes, I know, I've read your previous posts on the subject of "Unsuitable for SL" Pretentious Bloody Rubbish.

 

Like I said, PBR is being pushed hard by vested interests.

 

Based on current progress I've seen? I'd say end of next year.

And yes, it turns out creators want more money. Turns out people need money in a capitalist system.

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Extrude Ragu said:

I don't think alpha cuts are going away any time soon. They're just too convenient. I've yet to jump aboard the bom alpha layer train.

Basically the current alpha cuts vs bom alpha layers boils down to user friendliness vs performance.

What really needs to really happen is some way to do something that is functionally the same as alpha cuts, right down to being able to control it with a Hud, but without the performance penalty of alpha cuts.

...which because of the need to still support asymmetrical alphas for arms and legs is not possible with the current system unless there is an additional "mesh harness" with alpha cuts to achieve it.

Lots of tops and skirts need one arm/shoulder or leg alpha'd out differently.

Edited July 28 by Gabriele Graves

[Jordyn McGregor]

On 6/22/2024 at 3:49 AM, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Tried it.

In short, a horrible "upgrade". Laggy, flickery/stuttering over-saturated glowing skies, water, terrain colours and textures. Not good.

I initially thought I might accidentally have some weird EEP settings enabled. Or conjunctivitus.  I had neither. Mirrored surfaces are unexciting and nothing new, as non-PBR viewers have already had them for years in their EEP and Windlight settings.

Thirty minutes after installing the PBR viewer, I wiped it forever from my PC and replaced it with the regular non-PBR one which worked perfectly again.

Why is PBR being made mandatory? I didn't ask for it.

I downloaded it last night.  

HATED IT!!!

After being blinded by my chosen EEP being brighter than the sun on a summer's day, an incredibly laggy walk, which ended with me walking right into a swimming pool, I spent about 10 mins trying to sort through my inventory to move folders around only for that to be an ordeal and a half, I deleted it and went back to my previous version.  I'll live without the added shiny new stuff if it means I am not losing my sanity more than normal.

[Luna Bliss]

3 hours ago, Nagachief Darkstone said:

So please. Do go on and continue to entertain me with the doomsaying and hilariously incomprehensible paragraphs and childish insults and phrases. Let me go get some more popcorn.

I started to gain weight from all the popcorn so I just scroll on by the posts for the most part.

[AmeliaJ08]

5 hours ago, Jordyn McGregor said:

I downloaded it last night.  

HATED IT!!!

After being blinded by my chosen EEP being brighter than the sun on a summer's day, an incredibly laggy walk, which ended with me walking right into a swimming pool, I spent about 10 mins trying to sort through my inventory to move folders around only for that to be an ordeal and a half, I deleted it and went back to my previous version.  I'll live without the added shiny new stuff if it means I am not losing my sanity more than normal.

Help > About Firestorm

 

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