Scylla Rhiadra

/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.

All automatic probes really do is permit mirrors to reflect the entire scene. They aren't adjustable, and so their impact is entirely dependent on the EEP used.

/me resists the all-too tempting political joke.

Indeed. I have been told that my feet are so beautiful as to be nearly pornographic!

Except for couples dances, I invariably use my own dances. I get around the script / HUD problem by not using a HUD. On the whole, I kinda hate synchronized dancing, except for those shared by one DJ when she's just playing for a smallish group of friends. She has excellent taste in dances, and it's sort of a "community" thing in that case.

So, non-sexual nudity? You seem to have a very clear idea of what constitutes "porn." Unfortunately, others will have very different ideas, possibly either more or less liberal than what you mean by it. The artist Klimt has a number of sketches showing a woman masturbating. Rembrandt did at least one cartoon that I know of showing himself having sex with his wife. In the 16th century, Guilio Romano and Marcantonio Raimondi did a famous series of very explicit engravings showing different sexual positions (using classical gods and heroes as models). Gustave Courbet's "The Origin of the World" is a closeup of a woman's genitals, with her legs wide open. Etc. Are these "porn"? What about the pics posted here in the "Adult" section? It's not a very useful term, especially when applied without a definition.

Can you define these things? Surely they are a bit subjective? What do you mean by "of an adult nature"? Just nudity? Or sexuality?

Yeah. If LL has a "marketing plan" based on demographics, they sure aren't making it obvious. The additional wrinkle, of course, is that almost all of the content generated here is by us, and we, collectively, appear not to be very good at optimizing it. Creators will produce insanely graphics-heavy stuff, and we'll all line up to buy and wear or display it. The only real answers to that, probably, are to deliberately throttle the kinds of tech available to creators, or produce tools and mechanisms that enforce limits and optimization. LL does a bit of the latter, but probably not enough, and it's clearly not at all interested in doing the former: one of the justifications of PBR is that it will open the way to even more shiny in the future. We're told by some that new shiny (e.g., glTF scenes) will actually work our computers more efficiently, but they said that about PBR too. The answer, I'm sure, is that it will make things better for those with good machines, and worse for those without. Same old same old. The decision to regroup a bit and focus for now on performance suggests that they are trying to find a balance between moving forward on the tech side, and keeping the platform available for non-gamers. And ultimately, that IS probably the best and most viable route, although it may end up as a compromise that fully satisfies none. The reality, however, is that SL does have a lot of people on older, non-gaming computers. And we can't afford to lose too many of them.

AITAH? Yes, because you posted an AITAH story? I've actually thought, half-jokingly, of creating an AITAH in SL thread here . . .

Hello Marigold, and welcome back! (And why are you looking as though you just deliberately pushed that poor woman over?)

Oh, I don't know about that! I keep sticking my hand into the fire here, don't I! Look, this is easy. The higher and more complicated the barriers and obstacles are to getting into a game of any sort, the fewer the number of people you'll attract or retain. And god knows SL needs to attract and retain. HOWEVER, the key point with which I began this entire thread is that LL has at last seen the light, recognized that they've endangered or at least potentially damaged the platform by making it tougher for people with old or low-end machines, and they are, apparently, doing something about it. If they do it well enough, relatively fewer older users will have to stare at YouTube videos working out what a "dual core processor" is (always the most fun part of playing any game, amirite?) or a "discrete GPU" (one that won't tell your gf that you've been watching virtual porn), and newer users will be more likely to not find the obstacles to trying it out off-putting. All the while retaining SL's move into PBR and a bright, shiny new future! So it's all good, really.

You're getting child support at least, right? Yeeesh. Men.

I've noticed this on occasion too, Juls, and it's generally because I'm using an older EEP, designed before PBR was a thing. And of course there are some EEPs that are specifically made NOT to cast shadows. Are you using a newer, PBR-Friendly EEP? There are a number of free ones now available if you're not, on the MP.

Not big on them. Uncanny valley stuff, really, and they just don't visually work with SL avatars well. I derender them if I'm taking a photo near them -- although I did include them in a pic once, because it was set up by a friend. I carefully framed the shot so that their faces weren't visible.

Well, sure. But neither I, nor probably about 80% of SL's resident population, possess the specialized knowledge necessary to understand that the way that GPUs are used by different kinds of software have anything to do with how my computer performs. Nor, even if we did, would we know how to go about measuring that. And of course, all that would tell me is that my computer isn't suited to run a PBR viewer. And I don't need a special diagnostic test to determine that, do I? Knowing that my GPU is being used inefficiently isn't actually going to help my computer run SL better: it'll just tell me what I already know, which is that it doesn't. All I'm really getting at here, really, is that you and some others here aren't finding PBR as much of a problem as some others because you have a kind of understanding of computers that most of us just don't possess. For most of us, computers are "magic boxes" that do things. I doubt that many of my friends understand the difference between a dedicated GPU and an integrated one. They're working on something that was recommended by the guy at Best Buy. Not at all. I'm delighted, for instance, that my desktop runs it quite well. I'm glad that yours apparently now does too. I'm not against PBR. I'm actively learning how to make materials for it now, and using those in-world, with my PBR viewer. What I'd like to do is find ways of helping those who need help, without having to do a college course in computer hardware first.

*takes a can and opens it* Pust' bol'she ne budet oshibok. *drinks* Hmmm. It is true what they say about American beer . . .

*raises an eyebrow, and makes a note in her booklet*

*lights a cigarette* "This is good. It gets very cold in Vyatka. Vy ponimayete? But I am sure that Komissar Kuznetzov can be . . . convinced." *eyes your canned goods* "Those are PBR, I hope, tovarisch?"

The Central Committee has been watching you, Comrade Katz, and we have our suspicions about your sincerity. Your attitude has been noted, oh yes, yes, it has.

@Love Zhaoying -- I think, coming from Zali, Queen of Night and Dark Horror, that this is actually intended to be a compliment.