Massive Free Collection of PBR Materials

[Cristiano Midnight]

I didn't see this posted anywhere. There is a set of 2900+ PBR materials available for free on the Marketplace, all Creative Commons licensed from several sites that offer free PBR materials.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Creative-Commons-CC0-PBR-Materials-Pack-2964-Free-PBR-Materials/25543879

They are packed in themed rezzable texture browsers. Very useful for new creations or updating existing builds with pbr materials.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 minute ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

I didn't see this posted anywhere. There is a set of 2900+ PBR materials available for free on the Marketplace, all Creative Commons licensed from several sites that offer free PBR materials.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Creative-Commons-CC0-PBR-Materials-Pack-2964-Free-PBR-Materials/25543879

They are packed in themed rezzable texture browsers. Very useful for new creations or updating existing builds with pbr materials.

If you don't want to load all of that into your inventory, but would rather cherry pick (and don't mind paying the upload fee), you can also find this (I think it's the same collection) here:

https://ambientcg.com/

You can search by type of material.

I've got the in-world one, and although I'm dreading what it will do to my inventory as I gradually unpack it as needed, it IS very convenient to just test what it looks like on the platform itself, by dragging and dropping it onto a prim.

[Cristiano Midnight]

22 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

If you don't want to load all of that into your inventory, but would rather cherry pick (and don't mind paying the upload fee), you can also find this (I think it's the same collection) here:

https://ambientcg.com/

You can search by type of material.

I've got the in-world one, and although I'm dreading what it will do to my inventory as I gradually unpack it as needed, it IS very convenient to just test what it looks like on the platform itself, by dragging and dropping it onto a prim.

One major difference in doing it that way is you have convert the materials from ambientcg into gltf or upload each map manually. It is convenient to do a one off, but having all of them in one collection that has already been uploaded will save costs if you have an upload fee.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

56 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

One major difference in doing it that way is you have convert the materials from ambientcg into gltf or upload each map manually. It is convenient to do a one off, but having all of them in one collection that has already been uploaded will save costs if you have an upload fee.

Oh yes, absolutely. The PBR packer is great, but it's annoying having to use that AND then the materials creator in-viewer!

[Cynite00]

Be advised that many of those textures are inefficient, and I have found them to simply be replicated 512x512 textures in many of them, including  the 4K textures available on these CC0 sites. If I liked the material enough, I take it into Photoshop and double check that it isn't a repeat (Most of the time it is) and downgrade it to the original 512x512 (or 1024) that it was originally. Strange to me that these sites (and even paid sites like GameTextures) are willing to waste their bandwidth/storage and yours just to have the appearance they have 2k-4k texture available, but they do it.

[Cristiano Midnight]

8 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Oh yes, absolutely. The PBR packer is great, but it's annoying having to use that AND then the materials creator in-viewer!

I am not sure what you mean by having to use both?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

5 hours ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

I am not sure what you mean by having to use both?

The online site doesn't generate a .glb or .gltf file that you can simply import as one thing into SL: it instead gives you separate colour, alpha, metallic, etc. maps. It also doesn't produce an ORM map.

So you first have to load the individual maps into PBR packer to generate the ORM map (and a colour map, if you're using alpha). Then you upload the three or four resulting maps in SL, and apply those to the "create / edit material" dialog box in-world to edit the actual material file.

Two steps. It means that if I edit, for instance, the roughness map in Affinity, I then need to reload the whole thing into PBR packer, re-import the materials generated therein into SL, and apply the new ones again to the materials creation / editing dialog box.

[Frionil Fang]

43 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

So you first have to load the individual maps into PBR packer to generate the ORM map (and a colour map, if you're using alpha). Then you upload the three or four resulting maps in SL, and apply those to the "create / edit material" dialog box in-world to edit the actual material file.

I'm not sure what "PBR packer" you mean, but MakeGLTF and glTF Packer from this forum produce a .gltf file ready for upload with all the materials populated, on top of packing the textures. Just use that as a local material, do edits on the textures (this is why I use MakeGLTF, glTF Packer locks the files in a way that my image editor can't resave them unlike the former program), repack, and the material is updated inworld. Once satisfied, save the material and the textures are uploaded.

Edited September 4 by Frionil Fang

[Aethelwine]

16 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

If you don't want to load all of that into your inventory, but would rather cherry pick (and don't mind paying the upload fee), you can also find this (I think it's the same collection) here:

https://ambientcg.com/

You can search by type of material.

I've got the in-world one, and although I'm dreading what it will do to my inventory as I gradually unpack it as needed, it IS very convenient to just test what it looks like on the platform itself, by dragging and dropping it onto a prim.

The one I got from there came in one of those texture viewers you rezz or perhaps can wear as a hud? I rezzed mine anyway. Took me back to the good old days of building where my textures came in those things.

I played around with that one and changed some planking texture .... but honestly I prefered the old flat texture. My experiments ended there.

I never really got on with materials in the first place. I now have a dock with one plank texture for PBR and another for non-PBR. I mostly use non-pbr viewer because the world looks better that way and will do until Linden Labs creates PBR EEPs for mainland. Using a personal EEP seems to defeat the point of having a shared environment.

Edited September 4 by Aethelwine

[Cristiano Midnight]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

The online site doesn't generate a .glb or .gltf file that you can simply import as one thing into SL: it instead gives you separate colour, alpha, metallic, etc. maps. It also doesn't produce an ORM map.

So you first have to load the individual maps into PBR packer to generate the ORM map (and a colour map, if you're using alpha). Then you upload the three or four resulting maps in SL, and apply those to the "create / edit material" dialog box in-world to edit the actual material file.

Two steps. It means that if I edit, for instance, the roughness map in Affinity, I then need to reload the whole thing into PBR packer, re-import the materials generated therein into SL, and apply the new ones again to the materials creation / editing dialog box.

gLTF Packer correctly combines the maps into a single file that you can import into SL:

https://aiaicapta.in/gltf-packer/

That is why I was confused - I was not sure what you were referring to.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Frionil Fang said:

I'm not sure what "PBR packer" you mean, but MakeGLTF and glTF Packer from this forum produce a .gltf file ready for upload with all the materials populated, on top of packing the textures. Just use that as a local material, do edits on the textures (this is why I use MakeGLTF, glTF Packer locks the files in a way that my image editor can't resave them unlike the former program), repack, and the material is updated inworld. Once satisfied, save the material and the textures are uploaded.

 

15 minutes ago, Cristiano Midnight said:

gLTF Packer correctly combines the maps into a single file that you can import into SL:

https://aiaicapta.in/gltf-packer/

That is why I was confused - I was not sure what you were referring to.

I am not sure why, but sometimes I get a .gltf file -- and sometimes it only gives me .usdc and .mtlx files along with the individual maps.

Or it may be that sometimes I'm looking in the wrong folder for it. Not sure! Does it resave OVER previous outputs?

Edited September 4 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Crexon]

You can also check out the pack from Crazy Kobold Creations, which i've found to be in some cases better versions. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/AmbientCG-PBR-Material-Megapack/25595913

 

Another note is I used to use GlTF packer for materials for SL but I've found bringing them into Blender first lets me see the material first to see if it will fit my needs or it's too shiny or bright or anything else then I do any fine tweaks I need in Blender then export to a GLB and do a local test in SL.

 

[Cynite00]

On 9/4/2024 at 1:37 PM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

The online site doesn't generate a .glb or .gltf file that you can simply import as one thing into SL: it instead gives you separate colour, alpha, metallic, etc. maps. It also doesn't produce an ORM map.

So you first have to load the individual maps into PBR packer to generate the ORM map (and a colour map, if you're using alpha). Then you upload the three or four resulting maps in SL, and apply those to the "create / edit material" dialog box in-world to edit the actual material file.

Two steps. It means that if I edit, for instance, the roughness map in Affinity, I then need to reload the whole thing into PBR packer, re-import the materials generated therein into SL, and apply the new ones again to the materials creation / editing dialog box.

I just upload each texture individually up into SL, then construct Materials from those. This allows reuse of common textures, roughness, normals, etc.

The SL Viewer also provides a way for you to tweak your roughness by editing the "Roughness Factor" itself.

Edited September 6 by Cynite00

[Frionil Fang]

8 minutes ago, Cynite00 said:

I just upload each texture individually up into SL, then construct Materials from those. This allows reuse of common textures, roughness, normals, etc.

For what it's worth, uploading a gltf material doesn't hide the texture assets from you, they'll get put in your textures folder so they will be reusable either way. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

4 hours ago, Cynite00 said:

I just upload each texture individually up into SL, then construct Materials from those. This allows reuse of common textures, roughness, normals, etc.

The SL Viewer also provides a way for you to tweak your roughness by editing the Material itself.

This is actually exactly what I do. I find that I usually have to tweak the Roughness Factor (and sometimes Metallic) because the materials often looky shinier in SL than they probably should.

Still trying to get a handle on what the Alpha Cutoff does with the alphas in the base colour. And the Alpha adjustment also seems a bit wonky.

[Frionil Fang]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Still trying to get a handle on what the Alpha Cutoff does with the alphas in the base colour. And the Alpha adjustment also seems a bit wonky.

Alpha cutoff is only for the masked alpha mode, it's equivalent to the old alpha masking threshold, only the range is 0-1 instead of 0-255. Has no effect on blended.

Alpha adjustment being wonky might be because the old system used sRGB alpha, but the PBR renderer changed to linear alpha (even for old materials, ugh) which means the curve of the alpha levels is no longer as we got used to. That also might be relevant for the alpha cutoff but not sure.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

7 minutes ago, Frionil Fang said:

Has no effect on blended.

Thanks, that would explain why it didn't do anything!

8 minutes ago, Frionil Fang said:

Alpha adjustment being wonky might be because the old system used sRGB alpha, but the PBR renderer changed to linear alpha (even for old materials, ugh) which means the curve of the alpha levels is no longer as we got used to.

That exactly describes my experience -- the curve was really difficult to pin down.

[Toothless Draegonne]

On 9/4/2024 at 6:35 AM, Scylla Rhiadra said:

If you don't want to load all of that into your inventory, but would rather cherry pick (and don't mind paying the upload fee), you can also find this (I think it's the same collection) here:

https://ambientcg.com/

You can search by type of material.

I've got the in-world one, and although I'm dreading what it will do to my inventory as I gradually unpack it as needed, it IS very convenient to just test what it looks like on the platform itself, by dragging and dropping it onto a prim.

Note that using the existing megapack has other advantages. If you're using the same materials as everyone else, the asset servers don't have to work as hard, the assets stick around in the fastest parts of AWS for longer, generally SL runs better. I'd be surprised if the Lab hasn't considered folding them into the stock library.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

Quote

 

didn't we discover those materials were using DirectX versus OpenGL normals.... memory escapes me it could have been other ones.

[Porky Gorky]

21 minutes ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

didn't we discover those materials were using DirectX versus OpenGL normals.... memory escapes me it could have been other ones.

It is easy enough to flip the normals but there is more work to be done. The CC materials are created for use with accurate PBR lighting  which we do not have in SL. Many of the materials require customisation for this platform in order for them to render accurately, specifically the roughness maps and the albedo maps to account for the ACES tone mapping. 

[Charlotte Bartlett]

4 minutes ago, Porky Gorky said:

It is easy enough to flip the normals but there is more work to be done. The CC materials are created for use with accurate PBR lighting  which we do not have in SL. Many of the materials require customisation for this platform in order for them to render accurately, specifically the roughness maps and the albedo maps to account for the ACES tone mapping. 

That was it thank you!   Now I remember - and then back to my older post about PBR materials as is are not SL PBR materials due to the revisions if taken from a generic third party source.  Plastic latex versus soft supple leather etc.
 

[Cynite00]

22 minutes ago, Porky Gorky said:

It is easy enough to flip the normals but there is more work to be done. The CC materials are created for use with accurate PBR lighting  which we do not have in SL. Many of the materials require customisation for this platform in order for them to render accurately, specifically the roughness maps and the albedo maps to account for the ACES tone mapping. 

1) Would be helpful to have a G Channel flipper built into the material editor, so if the need should arise, it can be flipped.

2) ACES... what a bold move, which isn't standard yet even on many engines, unless their focus is on CGI. Guaranteed most creators won't be retooling their entire workflow to an ACES workflow, and especially since SL decided on an older 1.03 model. ACES is quite the commitment to make, as it requires ACES to be loaded between ALL software on a creators workstation, AND even requires the adjustment of all old materials, that will now appear darker. I won't be adopting SL's custom ACES workflow anytime soon and willing to put up with the slight difference in appearance in SL - as my PBR workflow is just fine for every other platform and game engine that still expects standard RGB.

[Porky Gorky]

5 minutes ago, Cynite00 said:

I won't be adopting SL's custom ACES workflow anytime soon and willing to put up with the slight difference in appearance in SL - as my PBR workflow is just fine for every other platform and game engine that still expects standard RGB.

I use an ACES colour space when developing and rendering in VRAY  as I find I get a more satisfying depth of colour. I have not seen those benefits in SL though, I think it is a partial ACES implementation which was a required compromise to make the old content look “acceptable” in the new PBR lighting. I cant see any other reason why they would do it.

I just use an RGB workflow for SL PBR,  then at the end of the process apply a custom filter to the base color in Substance to make it look right in SL, in my chosen EEP.

[Ceka Cianci]

On 9/4/2024 at 12:30 AM, Cristiano Midnight said:

I didn't see this posted anywhere. There is a set of 2900+ PBR materials available for free on the Marketplace, all Creative Commons licensed from several sites that offer free PBR materials.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Creative-Commons-CC0-PBR-Materials-Pack-2964-Free-PBR-Materials/25543879

They are packed in themed rezzable texture browsers. Very useful for new creations or updating existing builds with pbr materials.

I went to buy it and seen that I already bought it back in early July..

I could almost swear it was you that posted about it.. It might have been inside one of the PBR threads back then.. hehehe

I was kind of disappointed that I already have it.. Cause I wanted more stuff!!\o/  LOL

[Porky Gorky]

37 minutes ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

That was it thank you!   Now I remember - and then back to my older post about PBR materials as is are not SL PBR materials due to the revisions if taken from a generic third party source.  Plastic latex versus soft supple leather etc.

At first I thought it was a good thing there were so many free CC PBR materials. It would give the average user free access to PBR to play with and drive up PBR adoption.

Having examined many of the materials I now fear the opposite. Many people's first experience of PBR will be of materials not optimised for use in SL. Some look acceptable but some look bad and some look terrible. It’s luck of the draw and depends upon the surface type. Not an ideal first experience of PBR though and it risks turning people off rather than on to PBR.