PBR in Second Life

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Sorciaa said:

What EEP do you use? I have been grabbing any I can and most still don't look right.

It's an edited version of CaWL done for PBR.  However, all my photos are.done using region environments and most render my clothing just fine.

[Salt Peppermint]

3 hours ago, Sorciaa said:

 I have been grabbing any I can and most still don't look right.

I put a pack of 3 neutral PBR windlight on mp for free , I also shoot my ads with these : https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/SP-PBR-environment-windlight-settings/26370458

[Luna Bliss]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I'm actually a little reluctant, at this time, to buy clothing which is PBR only since quite a few people aren't using PBR viewers.  I'd just prefer not to wear white all the time to all.of them.

I didn't buy a PBR dress at a recent event for the same reason (thought about some who couldn't see it), but I've changed my tune.  I'm dressing for ME and not others, so my next clothing purchase will be a PBR one....heading to the dog and pony show...

[Charlotte Bartlett]

2 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

I didn't buy a PBR dress at a recent event for the same reason (thought about some who couldn't see it), but I've changed my tune.  I'm dressing for ME and not others, so my next clothing purchase will be a PBR one....heading to the dog and pony show...

I got to say the detail and work on these make it worth it.    Want to see another Gyazo of my butt?
https://gyazo.com/13d393a5643384b63b7b104f73839fd2

I think the person who posted about the rendered images owes the creator of these an apology....

[Scylla Rhiadra]

So, as it seems to be THE hip thing to do, I thought I'd better get in on @Salt Peppermint's PBR riding / cowgirl outfit. (I bumped into @Sorciaa at the event demoing this, so I expect her pics too!)

First, let me say that it's beautifully made. It fits very well, the mesh is detailed and lovely, and the textures are excellent. It's also nice that it includes a PBR-compatible EEP with it, although this highlights the usual problem that we all tend to use our own EEPs, and what I see isn't, for that reason, going to be what others see. (Also, as others have noted, it's odd to have EEPs for individual items or garments.)

I did find that, even with the supplied EEP, there was occasionally (depending upon which direction I was facing, the camera angle, and so forth) a bit of an issue with that "vaseline" look that you can sometimes get with PBR items, but this was restricted to the chaps, and is not, I think, the fault of the creator but rather a reflection (see what I did there?) of the fact that SL's lighting is still not really optimized for PBR.

Anyway, here's an unedited shot of me in it, from the front (yes, I had a nice looking butt wearing it, but really who wants to see that?), using the supplied EEP.

It's not really "my look," as I don't do "cowgirl." (Stop! Right now! Don't even think of making a joke!) But as I do go riding a fair bit, this was excellent value for the money, and I'm very happy to own it. (Except the hat, because . . . cowboy hats? Not for this urban girl.)

Edited September 15 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Salt Peppermint]

1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

It's also nice that it includes a PBR-compatible EEP with it, although this highlights the usual problem that we all tend to use our own EEPs, and what I see isn't, for that reason, going to be what others see. (Also, as others have noted, it's odd to have EEPs for individual items or garments.

 

First: Thank you! Super happy you like it

and as for the provided EEP, it’s not particularly for the garment , the whole set works with any windlight that is made for PBR, but since people told me they are struggling to find something neutral I included a base for general use. A bit later I added 2 more and put those 3 neutral windligts for free in MP ( link in previous post ) , just to help people to have something neutral to start from. Having to use a different EEP for different garments would not be very feasible so to speak. From what I heard from customers , many just didn’t even know where to start and were not aware that you even need a different light setting after updating . Cause turning down exposure on CAwL is not enough and not suitable for PBR at all. Hope this helps a little ❤️

[Charlotte Bartlett]

2 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

So, as it seems to be THE hip thing to do, I thought I'd better get in on @Salt Peppermint's PBR riding / cowgirl outfit. (I bumped into @Sorciaa at the event demoing this, so I expect her pics too!)

First, let me say that it's beautifully made. It fits very well, the mesh is detailed and lovely, and the textures are excellent. It's also nice that it includes a PBR-compatible EEP with it, although this highlights the usual problem that we all tend to use our own EEPs, and what I see isn't, for that reason, going to be what others see. (Also, as others have noted, it's odd to have EEPs for individual items or garments.)

I did find that, even with the supplied EEP, there was occasionally (depending upon which direction I was facing, the camera angle, and so forth) a bit of an issue with that "vaseline" look that you can sometimes get with PBR items, but this was restricted to the chaps, and is not, I think, the fault of the creator but rather a reflection (see what I did there?) of the fact that SL's lighting is still not really optimized for PBR.

Anyway, here's an unedited shot of me in it, from the front (yes, I had a nice looking butt wearing it, but really who wants to see that?), using the supplied EEP.

It's not really "my look," as I don't do "cowgirl." (Stop! Right now! Don't even think of making a joke!) But as I do go riding a fair bit, this was excellent value for the money, and I'm very happy to own it. (Except the hat, because . . . cowboy hats? Not for this urban girl.)

Rude.  I have posted mine twice now….  Your turn!

[Scylla Rhiadra]

42 minutes ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

Rude.  I have posted mine twice now….  Your turn!

[rasterscan]

27 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Windlight ? 😷

Edited September 15 by rasterscan

[Scylla Rhiadra]

Just now, rasterscan said:

Windlight ?

Ewwwwwwwwwwww

[Orwar]

   This thread is quite the roller-coaster ..

   I do approve of butt-snaps/gifs though. Too bad those chaps don't come in Neph's size, I have had a closer look at them in-world and the materials really do look amazing; I especially like the leather tooling detail. And it's so cool to see that and then, going to wireframe view, there's no geometry, no vertices-clusters, just .. Magic. 

   Of course, a still doesn't really make it justice .. And the lighting probably isn't optimal either. But it really looks like something you could run your fingers over to feel the shapes. 

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, Salt Peppermint said:

First: Thank you! Super happy you like it

and as for the provided EEP, it’s not particularly for the garment , the whole set works with any windlight that is made for PBR, but since people told me they are struggling to find something neutral I included a base for general use. A bit later I added 2 more and put those 3 neutral windligts for free in MP ( link in previous post ) , just to help people to have something neutral to start from. Having to use a different EEP for different garments would not be very feasible so to speak. From what I heard from customers , many just didn’t even know where to start and were not aware that you even need a different light setting after updating . Cause turning down exposure on CAwL is not enough and not suitable for PBR at all. Hope this helps a little ❤️

I do like it, very much.

One thing I've noticed is that reflection probes (which I've used above in my butt shot) make a big difference. Not surprising, I guess, but moderating or removing the glare, and especially the blue tinge, of environmental ambient lighting seems to reduce or remove entirely that sheen I spoke of. In the shot above, I have a projector light at full glare aimed right at my rear and the back of my chaps, but the resulting shine is much more realistic looking.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 hour ago, Orwar said:

And it's so cool to see that and then, going to wireframe view, there's no geometry, no vertices-clusters, just .. Magic.

It's that magic which has allowed games to run smoothly for the last 20 years while SL still chokes on billions of tiny triangles because a lot of creators are using thousands of polygons to add details when a handful with a normal map applied would probably look better. 

[Love Zhaoying]

3 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Gramma? The Wendy's manager seems concerned.

[Luna Bliss]

12 hours ago, Charlotte Bartlett said:

15 hours ago, Luna Bliss said:

I didn't buy a PBR dress at a recent event for the same reason (thought about some who couldn't see it), but I've changed my tune.  I'm dressing for ME and not others, so my next clothing purchase will be a PBR one....heading to the dog and pony show...

I got to say the detail and work on these make it worth it.    Want to see another Gyazo of my butt?
https://gyazo.com/13d393a5643384b63b7b104f73839fd2

I think the person who posted about the rendered images owes the creator of these an apology....

hahahaha we need to start a PBR Butt group!  Lookin good!  

[Jackson Redstar]

On 9/13/2024 at 4:58 PM, Salt Peppermint said:

"they definitely didn’t do a good job introducing and explaining it"

 

pretty much on par for every new upgrade in SL .......

But, this is just the beginning of PBR so as the code gets straightened out and creators start creating, should turn out to be a really nice update

Edited September 15 by Jackson Redstar

[Flea Yatsenko]

18 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Don't most people who create and sell anything, anywhere hope to make a profit?  

Whether something in SL is PBR enabled or not has no effect whatsoever on whether I'll buy it.  Making a purchase based on that only is kind of silly if you ask me.  I'm actually a little reluctant, at this time, to buy clothing which is PBR only since quite a few people aren't using PBR viewers.  I'd just prefer not to wear white all the time to all.of them.

 

It matters more for landscaping and structures. No one really edits mesh clothing items so if they are baked, PBR, and even BP it doesn't matter much.

Any sort of building or structure that has baked lighting basically can't be edited without leaving shadows or other lighting issues. Adding any objects into a baked lighting build doesn't follow the lighting that's there. So if you put a new object in the corner of a baked lighting build, and that corner is dark, the object is still light. The same applies to your AV. The best you can do is kind of fake it by making the baked lighting full bright then adding in world lights, but with ALM It never really worked that well.

PBR fixes that, by letting people avoid baked builds. PBR benefits some products a lot more than others, some are almost irrelevant improvements. But AVs have looked a lot better than environments in SL for a long time, I view PBR as more about getting environments (homes, sims, landscape, etc) looking better and not such a huge improvement for AVs. PBR builder's kits, homes, structures, etc should all be a lot more builder friendly and easier to modify.

That said, getting a PBR dress when you have a BP or even a quality baked one isn't going to overly impress anyone. But it's a huge improvement for people who like to build in world. I would even argue that since the time mesh was introduced until now, PBR and now, PBR is the biggest thing SL has done to bring building in world back and away from buying prefab baked lighting builds you can't do much with. (hopefully other creators join me in my thoughts and make edit friendly products).

It probably explains why people who make stuff and build in world like PBR and the people who are more avatar appearance focused don't really care about PBR or are actively against it. The net result is that a PBR build with lighting probes and in world lighting should be free for residents to rip apart and build and modify how they want and get way better results than they could building with prims and no PBR or by trying to edit a baked lighting build. PBR is a lot more in world building friendly than ALM disabled with everything baked.

[Cynite00]

4 hours ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

It's that magic which has allowed games to run smoothly for the last 20 years while SL still chokes on billions of tiny triangles because a lot of creators are using thousands of polygons to add details when a handful with a normal map applied would probably look better. 

This can easily be solved in a relatively passive way, by posting the specs of the asset on the product page - this would 'encourage' creators to optimize their assets. However, one could argue that LL might lose a lot of sales because of this, as most customers won't notice or know or even care about these stats.. but for those that do, and the creators that serve them, could change SL towards a more optimized direction.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

10 minutes ago, Cynite00 said:

This can easily be solved in a relatively passive way, by posting the specs of the asset on the product page - this would 'encourage' creators to optimize their assets. However, one could argue that LL might lose a lot of sales because of this, as most customers won't notice or know or even care about these stats.. but for those that do, and the creators that serve them, could change SL towards a more optimized direction.

Better tools for determining how resource heavy each asset may be would definitely be useful in helping residents identify "bad" content (although that's a pretty complex equation when you consider all the ways in which content can impact performance).

Something that would be a lot easier to implement and equally effective (if not more so) would be for LL to remove the rendervolumeLODfactor option from the debug settings so people don't keep cranking it up instead of avoiding buying from lazy creators that don't bother making proper LODs.

[Salt Peppermint]

28 minutes ago, Cynite00 said:

This can easily be solved in a relatively passive way, by posting the specs of the asset on the product page - this would 'encourage' creators to optimize 

That could be really a great thing to do and would maybe provide more awareness to customers as well in regards to how optimized (or not) the product they want to buy is 

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

1 minute ago, Salt Peppermint said:

That could be really a great thing to do and would maybe provide more awareness to customers as well in regards to how optimized (or not) the product they want to buy is 

For the more conscientious residents perhaps, but for many the only factors that matter are:

Does it look pretty?

Is it 1 LI?

Is it on sale for 50 L$?

[Salt Peppermint]

4 minutes ago, Fluffy Sharkfin said:

For the more conscientious residents perhaps, but for many the only factors that matter are:

Does it look pretty?

Is it 1 LI?

Is it on sale for 50 L$?

Currently for sure, but providing a few specs on regular bases could totally raise awareness for more than just the price. Many simply have no clue 

[Rowan Amore]

51 minutes ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

No one really edits mesh clothing items

Only because most clothing items are no mod.  I often tint my clothing/shoes, when an option, to match.  

[Luna Bliss]

Mystic Cowgirl!!   .........    The detail on this outfit is really something.  Love it, Salt.

[Charlotte Bartlett]

14 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

I do like it, very much.

One thing I've noticed is that reflection probes (which I've used above in my butt shot) make a big difference. Not surprising, I guess, but moderating or removing the glare, and especially the blue tinge, of environmental ambient lighting seems to reduce or remove entirely that sheen I spoke of. In the shot above, I have a projector light at full glare aimed right at my rear and the back of my chaps, but the resulting shine is much more realistic looking.

That's why you have to wear them in one of my PBR houses LOL.. probes already inserted.

Never gets old saying that re probes.