PBR vs non PBR - a direct comparison

[Rowan Amore]

4 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

No, you don't understand. There are extra steps that users will have to do to get the 'scene' to work correctly.

eg. Second Life - How to Set Up Reflection Probes for PBR

Users will have to set this up on their land. Also there are further posts and discussions that they will also have to be set up inside created buildings, and sometimes situations will need be enclosed in an entire box, like a skybox - depending on what is needed.

When I use the phrase 'work out of the box', I mean it. Sansar worked out of the box. A user had to do nothing but start plopping down stuff into their scene.

Everything takes skill, yes. But these forums are filled with techy nerds and game developers that couldn't make anything outside of SL who keep telling people 'all you got to do is buy a video card' and they're missing the point.

I'm not about to start adding probes to my builds just to suit SL. That's something I'll do in my own project in a real game engine instead. The average user in SL is going to be lost.

 

Actually, I was only addressing how the viewers run and how they will not always run optimally out of the box.  I didn't mention anything about reflection probes and whatnot.  I already mentioned not caring about probes and PBR content in another thread.  All my old stuff still works perfectly fine in the new viewer without any probes.so I'm good.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

There is so little PBR out there in-world right now, that you have to try hard to find a scene that would show it to advantage.

That kind of my whole point in various posts.  Right now, the only thing one needs to do is adjust whatever settings needed to run as well as you can and use different EEP settings so things can look as similar as pre-PBR.   We're a.long way from being flooded with scenes entirely PBR.  

[Scylla Rhiadra]

9 minutes ago, Codex Alpha said:

But these forums are filled with techy nerds and game developers that couldn't make anything outside of SL who keep telling people 'all you got to do is buy a video card' and they're missing the point.

Yes.

I think that making a viewer usable on an older or weaker computer is, in most cases, not terribly complicated. More complicated than it probably needs to be, but manageable.

Making SL look good, however, is going to be a challenge even to those on good computers -- unless they are inclined to learn how to do things like make (and configure!) reflection probes, adjust EEPs, etc. I've posted this elsewhere, but here are the instructions on LL's wiki about configuring a probe:

Quote

Reflection Probe Ambiance controls how ambient light (Found in your environment preset) affects, or does not affect, the contents of the reflection probe, and the intensity of indirect lighting (aka Irradiance). This value is influenced by the Reflection Probe Ambiance value found in the user's environment preset, wherein if the Ambiance value given in the environment preset is higher than the value defined by the probe itself, it inherits the ambiance value of the environment preset, or alternately if the ambiance value defined by the probe is higher, the probe's value is used.

There are 3 operation modes that are set with the Reflection Probe Ambiance value, in tandem with above:

• 0 will allow the Environment Ambient color to be applied at full intensity.
• Greater than 0 and less than 1 will blend the Environment Ambient color and probe irradiance (indirect lighting) in a ratio corresponding to the defined value (e.g. 0.5 is a 50/50 split).
• 1 or above will block the Environment Ambient color from being applied within the probe volume and irradiance is applied at full intensity (or with a multiplier for values above 1).
  • 4 or above works the same as above, however only indirect lighting received from the sky will be multiplied to a value above 4. Local lights are clamped at 4.0.

That's just going to make your average person's eyes glaze over.

Even the PBR enthusiasts are reaching the point where they're sort of shrugging, and conceding that an average user on a mid-level computer is going to just have to sort of muddle their way through this.

SL was never going to be simply "out of the box" -- and in a sense, that's one of it's strengths, that it offers so much scope for customization and creativity. But it's never been as unintuitive and user unfriendly as these new changes have made it. And again, it didn't need to be that way.

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Making SL look good, however, is going to be a challenge even to those on good computers

I've taken a picture almost every day since the FS viewer was released.  Using shared environment on all.of them except the one from today.  As always, the only thing I adjusted was sun direction and a face light when needed.  SL looks pretty good in all of them.  Shadows look good, colors look good.  I have had to adjust exposure inside one club.  

[Codex Alpha]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Yes.

I think that making a viewer usable on an older or weaker computer is, in most cases, not terribly complicated. More complicated than it probably needs to be, but manageable.

Making SL look good, however, is going to be a challenge even to those on good computers -- unless they are inclined to learn how to do things like make (and configure!) reflection probes, adjust EEPs, etc. I've posted this elsewhere, but here are the instructions on LL's wiki about configuring a probe:

That's just going to make your average person's eyes glaze over.

Even the PBR enthusiasts are reaching the point where they're sort of shrugging, and conceding that an average user on a mid-level computer is going to just have to sort of muddle their way through this.

SL was never going to be simply "out of the box" -- and in a sense, that's one of it's strengths, that it offers so much scope for customization and creativity. But it's never been as unintuitive and user unfriendly as these new changes have made it. And again, it didn't need to be that way.

With the caveat: PBR in SL... People who might have problems here may have no problems in other platforms that have long been fit for purpose in PBR. We really need to keep this in perspective in the context of PBR in Second Life.

These people are going to defend this platform until it has 5 users left.

Edited July 16 by Codex Alpha

[Scylla Rhiadra]

8 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I've taken a picture almost every day since the FS viewer was released.  Using shared environment on all.of them except the one from today.  As always, the only thing I adjusted was sun direction and a face light when needed.  SL looks pretty good in all of them.  Shadows look good, colors look good.  I have had to adjust exposure inside one club.  

That's good. I've not had the same experience, but YMMV.

And, after all, the two PBR shots that Marianne posted are not "bad." They are just not as good as the pre-PBR shot. And they are certainly not the "better looking" SL that we were promised.

That will come, with time: PBR, I'm sure, will make things look better, eventually. And the very fact that everyone on a PBR viewer now has materials enabled by default is one reason, although that's at a cost in performance.

[Ingrid Ingersoll]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

There is so little PBR out there in-world right now, that you have to try hard to find a scene that would show it to advantage.

True. Although Marriane's landscaping looks stunning in all 3 pics as usual. And Chic's. 

Edited July 16 by Ingrid Ingersoll

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Ingrid Ingersoll said:

True. Although Marriane's landscaping looks stunning in all 3 pics as usual.

Totally! None of these shots are BAD. (And the two PBR ones I could fix up in a photo editor in about 30 seconds.)