Scylla Rhiadra

Surely if one is producing a PBR/BP hybrid, one doesn't need options 1 and 2?

Not in triplicate??? /me frowns disapprovingly

Extrude, who is also the author of the PBR materials packer most of us are now using, has never been anything other than helpful here. (Except I know she doesn't like the name "Extrude," and I'm not sure offhand what she prefers to go by.)

Oh, I do in a general sense, yes. And, again, as I said, I think that LL's decision to modernize is a good sign about their intentions for the platform, if nothing else. The question has to be, surely, how compatible newer technologies are with what SL was designed to do, and to what degree will it impact on the user base. I'm a photographer, and one who actually makes her own backdrops (including, very often, textures and materials), so I'm very keen on the potential of the direction we're heading. But I do worry somewhat about the impact on the platform if we move too fast and leave too many people behind -- or if the proposed changes accelerate what is admittedly the long term trend of reducing the options for creativity within SL by those who wouldn't know a glTF node if it slapped them on the LeLutka cheek. But forward I think we must go. Cautiously and intelligently. (And recent events have not affirmed my faith in LL's ability to manage change intelligently.)

Complicated, but that all makes sense. If you're not making your materials for someone else's lighting setup -- that is to say, you're selling it to other people -- then you can't count on a static light source, or even know where it's coming from -- for instance, an overhead light vs. a table lamp. What this does suggest, though, is that baking a PBR occlusion map into an Albedo texture in order to produce a sort of makeshift BP diffuse texture isn't going to work very well, at least often.

One only needs to watch the speed with which new trends, such as different mesh bodies, "juicy" add-ons, and so forth are eagerly embraced by consumers here. It's definitely a thing.

But surely only if you have "shadows" enabled in your viewer? I can see how an occlusion map might produce dynamic shadow effects in, for instance, a creased garment, but it's surely not going to project a shadow onto the floor under a chair.

It does make some differences: on shiny or metallic objects, for instance. And reflection probes (which are, unfortunately, the one part of this that the users themselves are often going to have to produce) make a very real visual difference, and mostly a good one. Of course, these visual enhancements aren't going to matter to a great many people, so for them, you're right, this may seem like a lot of pain in exchange for little of value. The counter argument to that is that the shift to PBR, deferred rendering, and a glTF standard for texturing will mean, in the future, enhancements that are potentially much more dramatic, such as glTF scenes. Basically, this is about SL staying at least relatively "current" with technologies so that it can continue to move forward, rather than remaining stuck as we were with limited avenues for improvement. The nice thing about that is that it demonstrates that LL isn't simply going to stand pat and milk the platform until it falls apart: they are thinking about the future.

Thank you! This is sort of what I'd thought, but needed to hear it verbalized in a straight-forward way. Which means, surely, that an occlusion map for BP is going to look rather different than one for PBR, as they have very different functions? Very much this. My experiments with, for instance, bricks in both BP and PBR suggested that BP actually looked better, even under a modified PBR-friendly EEP.

This. I think that for most things, there is no very discernible difference between BP and PBR materials. The one technical aspect of this I don't understand is the difference between baking an occlusion map into a diffuse texture, and packing it in the ARM map for PBR. Poorly baked shadows are a pain (especially in buildings and other structures), but I don't understand how putting them in the ARM map makes a visible difference to baking them. Anyway, I am in no rush to replace older BP textures, for two reasons. One is that there are still a lot of people who want be able to see PBR, and the other is that I really don't think in most things it makes a visual difference.

I wasn't the one saying that, nor do I believe it's true. I think Rowan has got it right.

Oh come on, Arielle. For real? I'm all for acknowledging the realities of domestic and sexual violence, but if you imagine that that's why 99% of the people sporting bruises, abrasions, and other injuries are wearing them to clubs to go dancing, you're just coming from another planet.

Yes, it is, but that's sort of the point. Anyone who is interested in explicit sexuality in SL is necessarily also going to be exposed to representations of extreme violence, including things like Dolcett, snuff, and r*pe play. And apart from being merely kind of objectionable, those things are also potentially triggering for some people. (I mean "triggering" here in the technical sense, rather than the more usual "it will upset them.") I should be able to explore sexuality in SL without also having to worry about tripping over torture devices and amputated body parts.

Fortunately, none of this matters nearly so much anymore, given the developments of the last couple of weeks. I'm not at all interested in naming and shaming individuals. I'm really hopeful that the next updates to the LL and FS viewers make all of this irrelevant and academic, because they render those viewers far more accessible to everyone. Fingers crossed.

That's a not unreasonable way to consider fashion generally. But fashion, like any other form of "art," communicates things. And what is being "communicated" if signs of physical abuse and violence are worn, out of context, as fashion accessories is highly problematic. It suggests that things like domestic violence are actually kind of "chic," attractive, and even sexy. I have never asked for "bans" on such things, and wouldn't do so. But I'll call that sort of thing out where I see it -- just as I'd call out the political subtext of a "high art" film like "Triumph of the Will." "Art" and fashion don't get a free pass to say whatever they want merely because they are "art" and "fashion."

Absolutely. I have two good friends in FS support, one of whom is actually a mod for the tester group. They are both sweethearts, and they do what they do because they want to help people. The less helpful ones of which I spoke were mostly not official FS people (although one, who insisted that performance on the then-Beta version of the PBR viewer was not an issue "unless I had stats to back up" my contention that many people were having trouble was). Your mileage would definitely vary according to who was participating in the group at any given moment. Definitely true. The sheer amount of content using Blinn-Phong out there will mean that the conversion to PBR is going to take some time. Most content creators are not updating old content (or at least not offering free upgrades), and people aren't going to suddenly pitch everything they've got out using BP materials. It'll be a slow and gradual process of replacing individual bits and pieces. I suspect that anyone choosing to stay on a pre-PBR viewer is going to be just fine for at least a year or more. The one unknown is the conversion of terrain textures to 2k PBR. And even in that case, I think it'll take a long time for that to happen to the Mainland (if LL gets around to upgrading the Mainland at all, which I'm still sceptical about).

So would I, and worst of all is the two combined as sexual violence. And I don't think we're alone in that regard. Which is why I'd like to see a separate category for "Extreme Violence," as distinct from merely "Adult" (i.e., sexual).

For what it's worth, my own experience is that Zali and Coffee are most often (but perhaps not always) right about the people who are adopting the cuts, bruises, and bites. My own objections to these things were never about RP (and, for the sake of this context, I'd include a BDSM scene in that category) anyway, but rather about the way in which some people used or showcased them as "fashion accessories." "Abuse chic," if you like, along the lines of "Heroin chic." When one then-popular skin brand came out with her "Battle Royale" skins years and years ago, my objection was not to the skins themselves, but rather to her cheerful use for promotional purposes of blog pics showing pretty, smiling girls in cute little sun dresses and bonnets sporting black eyes and open lacerations. (I am sure you remember the incident.) That represents a kind of normalization of violence against women that is not actually implied by standard "combat" RP or BDSM.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're getting at here. My main point is that the label "porn" is a highly subjective, that is going to vary from person to person, generation to generation, and culture to culture. One person's erotica is another person's porn, and the definition of "artistic" is also highly variable. These are not really, for that reason, very useful classifications. "Porn" is also a loaded term, and very often (indeed, until relatively recently, almost always) used as a way of denigrating something: calling something "pornographic" was and often still is an insult that implies a moral failing of some sort. "Porn" is often "erotica" or "artful nudity" that, for whatever reason, a person doesn't like. I don't think that basing a classification system on anyone's private moral code is a good way to proceed. It's more useful to talk, in at least reasonably concrete terms, about what particular body parts and/or behaviours are being represented.

/me shrugs I can't speak to what others have experienced in that group, but on numerous occasions I experienced or witnessed the kind of push back that I've described -- and ended up in IMs with a few people about it. I'm pretty sure @BriannaLovey was there for some of these at least. So was at least one other person on these forums who actually contributed to the push back by declaring that the SL forums were a "clique" of whiners and complainers. That kind of thing is a lot less frequent now, because the focus of the test group is now mostly on WebRTC, and people upset about PBR are being referred to the main FS group chat. I suspect too that there's less now that many people know they have options (as for instance not updating) that they didn't have before. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I suspect a lot of people on FS will not be updating until their experience of SL has been sufficiently degraded by the growth of PBR that it seems necessary to do so. At the same time, we'll hopefully be seeing these promised performance improvements soonish, so maybe a lot of the churn and turmoil will subside as some discover that the PBR enabled versions of FS are now tolerable.

And they now can. They can use the pre-PBR Firestorm forever! Or Henri's viewer, or other TPVs that haven't updated. So, what exactly is the problem?

That's a performance issue, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether they like the look of PBR. You're conflating the two. You've decided you don't want PBR, which is just fine. A lot of those struggling with performance issues would like to experience PBR.

I think in truth the pro-PBR crowd -- and in this context, that includes me -- doesn't really care if you use PBR or not. How your SL looks is between you, your computer, and your graphics card. The people who concern me are not those who dislike the look of PBR, and don't want to use it. You be you! The ones I care about are those who are having a difficult time with low-end computers, and those who want it to look better, but don't know how to make that happen.

And this is the frustrating thing. PBR really can look better -- done properly, with a good EEP and reflection probes. And the former was largely missing from the equation initially (although thank goodness some decent PBR-friendly EEPs are starting to filter out to people), while the latter is clunky to apply and probably more than most people are willing to do. Introducing PBR still really feels like a job half-done.

Yeah, reflection probes really are the key to making PRB look good -- or at least noticeably different and better than Blinn-Phong maps. And unfortunately, as you note, they are not particularly easy to set up (especially if you're trying to cover the interior of an building with multiple rooms and an even slightly irregular shape). Most residents are going to have no idea what a reflection probe even is, yet alone how to make and configure one. Hopefully builders will start to incorporate them into all new builds. Charlotte is already doing this, as well as providing good EEPs to go with. Will most do it? Good question. And will they do it well? And so I return to my brilliant commercial idea and opportunity of a couple of months ago: "Scylla's Reflection Probe Installers." I'll hire college students, and they'll travel around in a van adding reflection probes for the low low price of . . . not sure yet. I wonder what the market will bear? Probably not much.