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Scylla Rhiadra

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Everything posted by Scylla Rhiadra

  1. Scylla Rhiadra
    /me wonders if she should whisper in Inara's shell-like ear . . .
  2. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh, just a sitting pose -- at a vanity. It's not a big deal, but I almost never use a pose straight out of the box, and because my avi doesn't use "standard" SL proportions, I often also have to adjust for that (arms going into legs, and that sort of thing). I have a library of literally hundreds and hundreds of poses that I've accumulated over the years (yay weekend sales!) so I'm sure I can find something that will work. And I have the LeLutka Axis HUD to adjust my head and expression.
  3. Scylla Rhiadra
    Damn. I'd forgotten this. It means that I can either forgo use of the poser in order to get a larger shot without the interface interfering on Firestorm, or get the poser, but with a (relatively) crappy quality pic on Alchemy. Ok. Firestorm. I'll need to find a static pose that works without modification, or make one. Ugh.
  4. Scylla Rhiadra
    Other than that he's a deeply unpleasant idiot?
  5. Scylla Rhiadra
    Of course not. There's no magic bullet for this. But I didn't say there was. I suggested that FS could perform better than it does on older or weaker computers. The "hardware issues" that you're "removing" are precisely the issue, aren't they? AB testing notwithstanding, my experience of Alchemy -- and for that matter of both the LL viewer and Black Dragon -- is that they perform measurably better on my (relatively new) laptop. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. So, whatever your testing may be telling you, in "real world" conditions, the other viewers work better for some computers. That's based on the numbers actually appearing on my screen as I use them, and upon the comments of friends who've been testing out Alchemy.
  6. Scylla Rhiadra
    lol yes. Because he's made such a success of Twitter. According to a Guardian article from January, "The social media platform X has lost 71% of its value since it was bought by Elon Musk, according to the mutual fund Fidelity." And an online app monitor notes that it has dropped approximately one fifth of its users. The man's an undoubted genius.
  7. Scylla Rhiadra
    Oh great. Bound to be good news, I'm sure.
  8. Scylla Rhiadra
    I think you misread the tone of my post. Or perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I have no "ire" against FS, nor am I an "angry and entitled" end user. I am full of admiration for the team that put together Firestorm. It is the viewer of choice for a reason. And I am well aware that such issues as PBR has caused among some users -- ugly lighting and poor performance -- are very much the responsibility of LL. Firestorm took a long time to come out with this new viewer in large measure because they were fixing bugs that derived from LL's imperfect implementation of deferred rendering. In group chat for the Alpha (later Beta) testing group, I actually pushed back against those who wanted it released faster and sooner, because I wanted FS to get it right. Which they almost did. But this isn't quite as black-and-white as your post suggests. Yes, many if not most of the faults of all of the PBR viewers lie in LL's lap. And yes, I am quite sure that FS spent a great deal of time fixing bugs. I actually saw some of this unfolding in group chat. And I'm also pretty sure that the flurry of new Betas we got at the end, before the final release of FS 7, were the fruits of pressure from LL to get the viewer out before SLB21. 7 months may not sound "rushed," but I think the final implementation was -- and that's the fault of LL. But it's also true that the performance of FS 7, at least on older or lower-end computers, is markedly and quantifiably inferior to that of other TPV PBR viewers -- including even Black Dragon, in my personal experience. That's why some FS users have migrated to Alchemy and CoolVL. It's why I now split my time between three viewers -- FS, Alchemy, and Black Dragon. I'm not "angry" about any of this. Noting that there are problems with the new release is not "crapping on" Firestorm: it's noting that there are problems, which I do hope that the FS team can fix.
  9. Scylla Rhiadra
    That's interesting! I wonder if those are "real" mirrors, or the ones we had before, with the first releases of PBR? 512 is not enough! I must be CRISP! Fortunately, Alchemy does a very nice job of them.
  10. Scylla Rhiadra
    Peeve: Black Dragon doesn't have mirrors yet. (Unless I'm missing it, but I don't think so.)
  11. Scylla Rhiadra
    Ah. Well there you are then. And yes, it's been very clear from the outset that LL really wants everyone on PBR viewers ASAP, so I doubt they'd be flexible if this is, as you say, an "agreement."
  12. Scylla Rhiadra
    Yes, you're right: the WebRTC thing likely will speed up the process for this next release because people are suddenly going to find themselves unable to use voice when LL flips the switch. I'm half wondering if FS won't "bend" their three release rule this one time. It may depend upon the actual numbers of people who installed the new one and then abandoned it, rolling back to the previous release, or moving to Alchemy et al. But I'm not sure that the FS team even has a way of gauging that very accurately.
  13. Scylla Rhiadra
    Sorry, forgot to respond to this. Yes, but the last Firestorm update took . . . what, almost a year to come out? Some 7 months after LL's did, anyway. That's obviously in large measure because the switch over to deferred rending was a huge overhaul, and FS was also (apparently) fixing some bugs LL had neglected to address, but the Firestorm team works pretty slowly generally (which is fine), and I'm anticipating (and hoping) that the pushback they've received over this most recent release means they're going to be taking some time over the next one or two releases, in order to get them right.
  14. Scylla Rhiadra
    I am aware of it. The new rendering system leans more heavily on the GPU than the older forward rendering does. That means that those with relatively newer computers, or ones with good GPUs with lots of memory, are likely to actually see performance improvements. It's got everything to do with the kind of computer that you have. So, yes, there certainly are people who are actually seeing better performance from the PBR viewer. But for those on older systems, or ones without good, up-to-date graphics cards, the change to deferred rendering is causing a real hit. On my laptop, which is a new computer (well, 8 months old), I'm seeing a 15 FPS drop using the same settings on the PBR viewer. Others with older computers or (god help them) integrated graphics are seeing worse. So the issue with "performance" isn't so much raising it across the board, but rather focusing on those who are getting hit because their computers don't work well with deferred rendering. In other words, to do something about raising all the boats -- or at least trying not to sink too many. I actually think that that is a soluble problem because it's really mostly about changing over to new EEPs that respond to the wider dynamic range in lighting that the PBR viewers bring into play. (Also, remove the tinting from Blue Haze, so as to reduce that ghastly blue tinge things are getting now under the old EEPs.) Once people have found and started using EEPs designed for PBR, a lot of those complaints are going to vanish. Which is why getting the word out about the cheap and/or free new EEPs that many creators are now distributing is important. (And why it's so incredibly stupid that LL didn't update more than just one of their library environments for PBR -- a great deal of the angst would have been avoided if they had). The one thing, other than using new EEPs, that people are going to have to get used to is the way that interior spaces are now impacted by environmental ambience. For that, there are two remedies -- reflection probes (which are frankly beyond most people to create, I suspect, but creators will likely start including them in new builds) and interior lighting. One of the things I've noticed buzzing around during the weekend sales is how many merchants still haven't clued into the fact that their stores are now either too dark, or washed out.
  15. Scylla Rhiadra
    I think there certainly was plenty of notification about the store credit, and lots of chat and questions about it in the group chat. I get that not everyone will be paying attention to that, but I'm not even a big Blueberry fan, and I knew about it. On another subject, Mishi is a really accomplished creator, but honestly the stuff Blueberry was putting out over the last year or two . . . meh. Except for a few relatively standard items, I barely bothered. The new group gift for Kiwi looks promising, though? Maybe she'll get away from the Sexy Soccer Mum look and start producing some really nice things? She's certainly capable of doing so.
  16. Scylla Rhiadra
    It's likely to be a year or so before the last non-PBR viewer is blocked by Firestorm. And an awful lot can happen in a year. Some people will have time to get a better computer. And I expect (and hope) that Firestorm will improve the performance of their current PBR viewer (which, yes, sorry, sucks) in their next two releases.
  17. Scylla Rhiadra
    That is good to hear. I'd honestly be surprised if they had: I think most people having issues are soldiering on in whatever fashion they can find that works for them. A survey I saw on Primfeed today (only 100 respondents, but still suggestive) suggested that 74% of residents are on PBR viewer now, with about half of the balance waiting to switch over, and the other half saying they will never do so.
  18. Scylla Rhiadra
    Peeve: I actually am feeling a little apprehensive about LL right now. On the other hand, there is no shortage of productive, interesting, and creative things I can turn to if things do suddenly go south. Ok, nvm. Feeling better now. 🙂
  19. Scylla Rhiadra
    Is this something you know for a fact? Or is it just speculation? I am wondering if they've seen a hit in concurrency and log-ins since FS released its new viewer. That, in combination with a pretty meh start for the mobile app, would mean that their two really big projects over the past year and a bit have fallen flat, or maybe even hurt the bottom line. (Of course, I'm pretty sure that there's been no real "blowback" or resistance to PBR. It's just a few whiners and complainers, right? Here, let me help you rearrange those deck chairs . . .)
  20. Scylla Rhiadra
    While I am not generally prone to panic . . . . . . and it may of course simply be the case that everyone is on vacation, we are witnessing a mildly concerning confluence of an awful lot of weird things happening all at once.
  21. Scylla Rhiadra
    Weary.
  22. Scylla Rhiadra
    Ok, so here's a VERY quick and dirty experiment using an older pic of mine. No roughness map (cuz I don't know how to make one properly yet!), but with a normal map that includes both canvas and paint strokes. It's a bit crude still -- you can see the paint strokes clearly on the right, and some of the canvas. I'll need to experiment to get the right depth. But it's suggestive! For some images, I bake the canvas and/or paint strokes in -- for instance, for posting on Flickr. I may end up making two versions of each pic using this, one for in-world, with materials, and one for Flickr and other 2D social media platforms.
  23. Scylla Rhiadra
    Of course. But I wear mine on the inside. 😁
  24. Scylla Rhiadra
    I've been looking at tutorials for Materialize, which looks well within my capabilities. At some point, when I have time (which is not really right now, but maybe a week or two) I want to experiment as well adding emissive and, more particularly, metallicness maps. For the latter, it might be worth experimenting with a Klimt. Or maybe I'll just try it with something of my own. Could be fun and cool and different!
  25. Scylla Rhiadra
    Agreed. We know the state of play now. There are at least partial solutions available, and in many cases it's just about educating people. In some cases it's a simple matter of throwing some new EEPs at them.
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