Salt Peppermint

Not solely 🤣

For real lol. We have enough threads about that . Partially my fault too. Sooorrryyy

If we include software subscriptions into this my spendings for SL business and personal use are roughly 1K USD monthly

Technically PBR is less workload than the previous baked textures with their materials. Of course for those who just start to learn PBR will of course take a little time to adjust and gain some experience but if we compare the blank workload of what has to be done for PBR or legacy texture creation, PBR takes less time. What is time consuming for sure is finding proper documenting that is actually useful for creation. Bits and pieces are scattered allover the place and that indeed takes time but that’s a temporary effect. When people include both, yes then it is of course more work and that totally justifies a higher price imho. Does it make sense to include both? That’s a whole different topic and a big can of worms lol. I would not expect anyone to work extra time for free.

I would believe I know quite a few creators in various fields but not once have I heard that they increased prices because of PBR. PBR lowers the workload of texture creation and doesn’t increase it so it seems strange to do that. I guess someone did though or you wouldn’t have said so but definitely not the majority

I believe that by these definitions I am personally finding myself in between all of those. Maybe the issue is rather trying to label people. Pretty sure things are more fluid and not that catagorized but of course that’s just my personal perception

Hmm I think it’s actually exactly the same between RL and SL. Like you said , you have an idea, you can make it, you can sell it. Both worlds require skills for the making and the process. In fact , generating ideas is also a whole skillset on its own. I could totally mesh and sell a birdhouse in SL but I don’t know how to make a bird house in RL so I would have to invest time to learn that. so thats not really limiting I believe, rather a matter of what lays in one’s personal interest to learn and the willingness to invest the time

I am happy if I get to just unpack the box that I just bought.

I'm still lost at the part of what is wrong with being a "platformista" as you called it. which actually sounds kinda cute! lol

I totally did! even with more than 100K @Cloud Python

some people have click bait links in their profiles that do exactly that. Often the look like "click here to see a pic of my "insert whatever you want" , followed by something that looks like a link, which when you click it, turns your avatar into a rabbit, unicorn, zombie you name it. so maybe while you lost your avi out of sight and were reading profiles, this might have happened

You can make a single layer body shell and invert the normals. I don’t see why you would need it doublesided at all. The actual mesh body is then fully alphaed and younger your single layer shell with whatever details you want inside of it

Yes. If you do both, just make sure to apply the BP first and then the PBR . as for sales , myself and bunch of other creators who already went PBR only , didn’t have any dip in sales at all

For matte cotton I personally set metalness to 0.1 and roughness to to 0,7 - 0,9 in SP. the default midday inworld still gives me a little sheen , so I made a few neutral PBR windlights that helped me a lot. Also when probes and lights are set up correctly there is no sheen either. The downside currently is that we don’t have any influence over how the customer has their surrounding set up and a lot will depend on that. I include 3 neutral PBR windlights with my releases to help a little with a better start

yes. a metallic map set to 0 is black. I would use the sliders inworld only for little adjustment if really needed. but the main job is done before. when you do not need metallic, it is set to 0. but the map is still there.

sort of. I am sure, you will be soon able to require PBR materials and drag and drop those on your mesh that is mod. it will not always be ideal but it would allow to change the full material. But if you want to make your own PBR materials, you would have to do that either in SP and you would need the mesh for that, or in a software like PS and make the separate maps and then use another software to combine them into a gltf file. what you can do though if the mesh AND the PBR material is mod , you can tint it. so having something white will allow for nice tints and those tints will show light and shadow properly. that will work for any solid base texture. Caveat: when the base texture has multiple colors, the results can be not as desired.

thank you, that means a lot. I tried to keep it as little technical as possible but yes, it still can be a bit much. And yes, there are things that need improvement and some that didn't allow for a smooth implementation at all.

ok then lets do both. this will be longer - sorry in advance 1. previous PBR process of making items: Previously we would have 3 main maps inworld while we had a different set up in the software: 1.the diffuse for color information, reflection, light and shadows 2.The Bump map - we would use a normal map in that slot, to fake additional bumps and dents in the surface and 3. Shine - the specular map that would add reflection which could be from little to a lot and also could hold different colors of reflection. To create a nice base you ideally have a high poly model and a low poly model and use a program like substance painter to "bake" the high poly visual onto your low poly model, so you can upload an optimized low lag model to SL. That bake gives you an AO (Ambient Occlusion map) that has shadow information that then is layered on top of your base texture. Then you would paint in more details into your base texture (that process could take up from a few minutes to days, depending what outcome you wanted), set up light, fake reflections (either painted or set up in a scene depending on the software) to have as much visual info as possible there. In Substance we have multiple maps that influence the Bump map (mainly a combo of height and normal) as well as multiple to create the Shine inworld. I could write a paragraph for each single map but I believe this post will be already long enough. If even more indepth is interesting, I would suggest my youttube tutorials as they cover various SL specific methods for previous workflows as those differ from any industry standard. In short - you fake all light, reflection and shadow on the base texture. now using materials (in this previous way that means normal and spec maps) was sort of optional as was turning Advanced Lightening Model on or off that needed to be on to be able to see "legacy materials". Since AML was optional, the goal was to have as much visible info in your diffuse map as possible and use the material as further enhancement. At the same time, materials could also ruin an item completely if they weren't properly understood (using blank specs for example) you could create your base texture in various software like Photoshop, Substance Painter, some did it even in Blender or Maya, all that is/was personal preference and of course the workflow varies through the different programs. I would say most used a combo of software though - now that's me assuming from what I read from other creators than having actual stats of course 2. current PBR process of making items we do not need to fake any of the light/reflection/shadows on the diffuse anymore. The viewer renders that for us in real time. For the creation process this means that the base texture remains very flat because it literally holds just color information (and transparency). Here an example of the difference between legacy base texture and PBR base texture for some metals https://gyazo.com/a1b7b5e2cce3007041691af1b370f907 all the details you see, all the placements of the lights in the legacy one are placed in their specifc spot with intent and they would not move inworld and stay exactly where they were drawn on. in real life the way light and environment reflects will vary and change when you move the object. so to stick with the metal example, turn a piece of jewelry in your hand and you see the light playing on the surface. That is part of what PBR does. So the light is not stuck to one spot but gets to move which now - here it comes - is beneficial to create a more realistic visual of surfaces and that applies to all surfaces not just the shiny ones. Now the tricky part for creation here is to understand metal and roughness maps because the combination of both of those are now read in the viewer. And it becomes more sensitive especially for matte surfaces roughness: is more of a diffuse reflection, means the light reflects over various angles no matter what angle it hit the surface. think of imperfections on a surface. 0 means no imperfections , 1 is a lot . metalness: is more of a specular reflection, meaning the light bounces off in the same angle it hit the surface . The more metalness something has the more directly reflective and more shiny it gets . For a matte cotton for example your metalness would be close to 0 and roughness at 0.7 and higher. For a shiny metal, the metalness would be around 1 and the roughness rather low, depending if you have little scratches or other kind of subtle imperfections on the surface. you can even have matte metals which then would mean higher roughness and high metal parameters Hopefully soon we will also be getting refraction which then will be a game changer for gems and glass and stuff like that, those currently are still a little issue. now if I would have used 0 metal and super high roughness in my previous way of texturing, my diffuse would look dull and the "faking of light" would look boring, so even the material set up changes simply because in the previous way everything was kinda "backwards" to make it look good in SL. So in summery for PBR the different maps play a much much higher role and therefore are more sensitive in their creation. now with PBR we not only change the process of creating textures but also need a different set up inworld aside from having a PBR enabled viewer of course. As many times already mentioned in various threads and posts, previous windlights/ EEP are not suitable for PBR. They were basically meant to kinda "fake" pbr with the previous materials but now we can actually render it. That basic midday windlight is suitable while I absolutely agree that it is everything but ideal as it still has a very strong blue hue that often tints the items way too much. However it does allow actual visual depth. It's definitely not my preferred set up but a better start for those who have not gotten any proper PBR light settings yet than previous windlights. For indoors (and higher altitudes) we need to set up reflection probes to block out the blue sky light and actually light the room inside. Again here, think of RL light behavior. If you come into a dark room you need to turn on the light to see something. same in SL There is definitely a learning curve for creators as well as for residents/consumers and with the little and poor guidance we currently have on PBR it's causing lots and lots of (understandable) frustrations for many. Tons of misinformation spread doesn't help the case either. Change is rarely or I dare to say "never" easy and can be a rocky road. so how does it benefit the consumer? PBR allows us more up to date graphics, allowing for more realistic visuals (and you can create stylized looks as well of course), a more immersive feel. The caveat is that everyone also has to adjust things to have that experience and that causes frustrations. If you read through all this - thank you. And I hope it helps a little

A detailed explanation of old and new process - sure I absolutely can (I also made various in-depth video tutorials at least on various old processes cause there is more than one, PBR ones are in the plans) Does the making process (old or new) affect the consumer? The process of making an item has no impact on how beneficial it is for the consumer. For the consumer the outcome is important, in case of PBR - how they see the item, not how the creator got there.The consumer doesn’t care how the end result is achieved. (Maybe some do simply because it interests them or they might want to mod items) An average consumer will usually form their opinion by the visual they see. So if something doesn’t look good, the reason is often not even questioned and it’s „just bad“. And for PBR , since it’s a learning curve for the consumer and creators, there are multiple factors affecting the final visuals and with little to none explanation it will look bad for many on first log in on a PBR viewer. so before I write a detailed paragraph on the difference of those processes maybe - correct me if I am wrong - your actual question is how PBR is more beneficial to the consumer and average user instead of how the differences of the process of making/creating is?

To be honest, I‘m very indifferent to that. People who like the stuff I offer, buy it. Those who don’t, don’t. Sometimes I make decisions that changes their opinion and that’s perfectly fine, too. No matter what you do, you can‘t make it right for everyone anyway.

Ask away! I know quite a few of instantly recognizable creators that still think it’s a matter of good quality to use 8 maps on a pair of denim and others who think it’s a matter of good quality to upload a dress with 100K tris to have „details“. They also definitely have years of experience too. And of course being „an alt of an instantly recognizable creators“ makes you super super credible. My offer stands. I’m happy to explain. Ask away

I can multitask! I also did build some reputation over decades and made SL my RL job. Not sure if the stakes get much higher. I come and go on the forum. Do I have a fear of „some diva taking their innocent remark the wrong way and organizes a cancellation“ ? Not in the slightest. Not sure why one would even assume that

Most quotes of the downhill thread of what you @Prokofy Nevalisted are not snarky, (1 or 2 are) They are different opinions and different experiences. Disagreeing doesn’t equal being snarky. However some forumites definitely have some advanced snark skills often combined with being negative about absolutely everything and seem to enjoy to personally attack others especially if their own arguments couldn’t hold up.

That’s actually not what the Flickr statistic say. Aside from my own we had a poll gathering statistic (that Flickr provides at least for pro accounts, not sure about free ones) that tell you how much views you get from groups with a break down of each group. About 90% of the groups bring less than 2% of views . There are a handful of groups that actually make a difference but even if you post in 150 and cut most of them or even all, the impact on general views is very little. I cut my groups there in half for that reason So basically that’s drawing conclusions from assumptions that are simply wrong Accusing people to have mostly alts and telling them what their reasons supposingly are to be on this forum sounds more and more like some conspiracy theory to me

going by this thread though, most actually do use their main here?