Porky Gorky

I think I am starting to see the bigger picture thanks to the last 2 posts, so thanks for that! So far all my PBR tests have been done in sandboxes where I can’t control the EEP. The PBR reflects the sky color too much so I have compensated for this by using the reflection probes to make the materials look more accurate. I seem to have got into the mindset that the Reflection Probe volume has to encompass every PBR material in order for it to look correct. I think the way forward is to explore a balance between more suitable EEP settings and more strategic use of Reflection Probes. More testing required.

I look forward to seeing the PBR buildings that creators produce however I fear they will be too restricted by the limitation of the Reflection Probes to be that interesting, I like curves and organic and unconventional architecture but I cannot see how that can be achieved right now if probes need to be included.

Yep that is true. I meant that only PBR materials within that volume would be affected by the reflection probe, compared to PBR materials outside of the volume. I wasn’t considering non PBR things.

According to the SL Wiki PBR page the Reflection Probe needs to encompass any PBR surface that you want to affect. It says: “Select an appropriate probe shape for your scene. For example, if you want to create a reflection probe that covers a room, select a Box shape, or for other objects a Sphere shape is recommended. Move the reflection probe and resize it as necessary to fit your desired purpose. For the room example, resize the box so the probe just touches the walls, ceiling and floor of the room.” It also discusses using multiple Probes to fill a complex space: “At times, you may wish to place a reflection probe in an area where the reflection probe types (Sphere or Box) do not conform to the shape of the area. For example, a Box probe in a loft room has a triangular shape, which results in "probe bleed" wherein the influence volume affects an area larger than what is needed, and thus bleeds out onto the exterior roof, which is undesirable. In these cases, you may need to place multiple probes in order to blend together the sample volumes to achieve the desired result. In the loft room example, it's best to start with 3 box probes, which cover the floor, and each side of the roof. Then, use an additional box probe as "fill" to cover the gap inbetween the 3 probes. The main fill probe may need to be rotated at an angle to get the most coverage possible. If it is not possible to fill the gap between the 3 probes with this fill probe, you may wish to add more box probes to act as "secondary fill". It seems we need to use the Reflection Probes to create a volume and only PBR materials within that volume would be affected by the probe/s. If our avatar (or camera) is placed outside the volume then we can see the effect the probe is having on the materials. If our avatar is actually wearing PBR materials then they would need to step into Reflection Probe volume in order to benefit from it. These “volumes” need to perfectly fit interior spaces to avoid them bleeding into undesired areas, which I think is what I was moaning about in the first place. 🙂

Yes. I envision a SL in which 18 months from now, all the top prefab creators are competing to see who can make the best looking box shaped house. 😀

Yeah, it seems that if you want to sell PBR houses they need to be made of rectangular rooms so the Reflection Probes fit, they need to include lots of built in lighting to account for the Reflection Probe darkness at night or in enclosed spaces and you need to include a set of optimized EEP settings. It’s pretty game changing. Here is something worth thinking about. 6 months or a year from now when more people are on PBR enabled viewers, they are likely to start buying PBR products, maybe avatar accessories or home furnishings. They take their new PBR shinies home to their Blinn-Phong house that they purchased from you. Those PBR products likely won’t look like they did in the store because they are not being viewed within a Reflection Probe or appropriate EEP. So your customer has 3 choices: 1) Forget about using any PBR products at home 2) Set up their own Reflection Probes into the “legacy” house you built and change their environment setting themselves. 3) Go out and buy a new PBR house with preinstalled reflection probes with customized EEP settings i.e the optimal environment in which to view PBR materials. I guess my point is, if someone purchases ANY PBR product, they will need Reflection Probes and the correct environment settings at home to view it correctly in your Blinn-Phong house.

Needing to use Reflection Probes in interior spaces is a real hindrance. Completely ignoring the issue of needing lots of additional lighting, using the probes seems to be extremely restrictive. We have either a sphere or cube to choose from and they can be scaled and rotated and that is it. You can’t seem to overlap them either without undesired results. So if you want to use them in a conventional house with rectangular rooms they work ok. But what about tapered walls, curved walls or a curved roof or even just a corner that is not a right angle? Maybe I am missing the bleeding obvious here and I really hope I am, but it seems to me this completely stifles creativity when creating PBR buildings and designs will need to be restricted in order to conform to the limitations of the Reflection Probe’s shape. Also, is any creator who sells PBR prefab buildings expected to include the Reflection Probes positioned into the final product? It would seem like the right thing to do and would offer the best result for the end users.

I think we should be encouraging people to adapt their environments rather than the PBR materials reflectivity. The whole principle behind physical based rendering relies on surfaces approximating the way light behaves and reflects in the real world, generally relying upon data values derived from real materials. If a PBR material is well made then it should reflect the light in an environment realistically. If it doesn't then the fault lies with the environment and not the PBR material. Re. the OP’s problem, have you tried using a Reflection Probe and possibly a bit of local lighting? It can make a nice difference.

Would it be practical to provide demo versions of PBR products for customers to test first? Or would they ignore the demo just like they ignore the description?

It turns out this image was taken in a sandbox that had some sort of atmospheric fog effect in the environment which I am guessing is what caused both the light bleed and the extreme level of darkness shown. I’ve tried and failed to replicate the problem on the Beta Grid and in other sandboxes on Agni and it is now working as expected. The last time I was active in SL we were using Windlight. I’ve been reading about the EEP and I want to test how it works in relation to PBR materials as I'm relatively clueless. I assume in order to access the environmental settings I need to own or rent land. Back near the start of SL I used to own a parcel on the beta grid that persisted for years but it seems to be gone now. Is there any way to buy land temporarily on the beta grid? If not, can I just buy a small parcel on the mainland in order to get access to EEP or are environments controlled at a region level or something? Thanks for any advice you might have.

Hello, I am stood in an enclosed rectangular space with a reflection Probe filling the volume. There are no lights, it should be dark. My problem is I keep seeing light bleeding in along some edges. Why is this happening and how do I stop it? Thankyou.

Excellent, thank you very much!

Hello, I used to create content in SL a lifetime ago and recently read somewhere that PBR has been introduced to the platform which has piqued my interest. My question is, can normal maps be used within PBR materials in SL in the same conventional way they are used in Unreal or Unity? Thanks

Thanks, thats very useful to know. I shall invest some in experimenting. Cheers.

Normal mapping has arrived since I last looked. Been reading though threads about the various problems/ issues people have with their creation. So I was wondering how easy/hard it would be to import some stuff I created for Unreal Engine. The normal maps are generated either directly from Zbrush or using a standard high poly to low poly bake process in Max, all set to a tangent world space. The normal maps all work as expected in Max, Maya, Unreal and Unity. In theory, can I import these maps into SL and expect them to work out of the box or will they require some level of optimization? Thanks.

BlueTrianon wrote: I do remember that it was said that they were especially looking for people who have created experiences in SL. Beyond that, I'm sure being able to present skills in areas such as mesh creation (earlier groups were required to know Maya specifically, I believe, but I wouldn't be surprised if the next group were expanded out to 3DS Max, Blender, etc.) or C# would help. Has there been any official mention that other packages will be supported? I animate in Maya but hate modelling in it. It would be handy to have Max supported too.

I think he did a good enough job considering the circumstances and the state of SL when he took over. When he was hired I would not have believed he would take the company as far as 2014. For a while there he seemed to breathe a bit of life and drive back into LL even if it was partially focused on products other than SL. Unfortunately LL and SL in particular needed someone to do more than just a "good enough" job. SL needed a visionary that would revitalise, if not revolutionise the whole product in order to regain the mass appeal we experienced during the boom years. Rod completely failed to deliver there. I wish him the best of luck. I will have been in SL 10 years this coming May. I have seen SL blossom and then explode into life only to be mismanaged into a long and apparently drawn-out death throe. I am really excited that once again we stand upon the precipice of change. Once again there is the slim chance that some "visionary" will come in and completely transform SL into a product that has an exciting future. On the other hand I am also very worried that we will just get some suit wearing, puppet-caretaker CEO that is only there to oversee the ongoing milking of their once great and glorious cash cow.

I got slapped in the face by Lily Allen, before she was famous. I was working as a bouncer at a club called the Camden Palace in London. Must have been 2001 or 2002 Lily and a group of girls were trying to get into the club. I asked for ID on the door as she was clearly under age. She did not have ID and immediately started ranting at me. Shouting things like, "Do you know who I am", "Do you know who my dad is?" and generally threatening to get me fired / beaten up / shot in the face. She then told me that her dad was Keith Allen (which retrospectively is how I now know she was Lily Allen). so I said "oh you mean that bald little **bleep** from the Vindaloo video". and then she slapped me in the face and stormed off. True story, In actual fact I knew exactly who her dad was and love a lot of the movies he has appeared in, He is even cool in Vindaloo.

Orca Flotta wrote: In every blog and every discussion about SL Prok is used as an example for the negative sides of SL. Over-exaggerate much?

I finally got mine, was 12 days in total. Not the end of the world I suppose.

11 days and counting for me.

Czari Zenovka wrote: What type of books would you be selling and would you be *only* selling books? I would sell the type of book that looks awesome and interesting and unique when sat on the shelf or put on display. As for the content of the book, that doesn't matter....can stick any old tripe in there. I would also sell funky bookcases that complimented the varying style of books.

Amethyst Jetaime wrote: A nice idea but one that will not be profitable. Challenge accepted. I bet you 1000 USD I could set up a book shop in SL and make it profitable in a month. :matte-motes-big-grin:

I was quite annoyed when they banned pick gaming after GSA 6 was rolled out. I had held the number one ranking on keywords such as houses, homes, and stores and had a good system in place to ensure I was attracting the majority of those people prostituting their profiles for a few L$. The ban came into effect, and as a good citizen who tries reasonably hard to abide by the TOS I stopped gaming picks. Overnight I lost my rankings and my listings were buried and I was left floundering around for weeks trying to make sense of the new search engine in an effort to successfully abuse it again. Maybe I am seeing the past through rose tinted glasses, but it was allot more fun doing business back in the days when the majority of business was driven by in-world search. The factors that determine ranking were constantly changing and gamers were constantly competing with each other, with allot more one upmanship going on. It added an exciting edge to doing business in SL and winning "the game" resulted in real financial rewards.

Man, having an automated system would have given me a decisive advantage, especially as it was little old me against a group of people. Unfortunately this took place before your time I think, I was at very start of my gaming exploits and I remember dwell was one of the things I was gaming. I rekon it was must have been late 2005, early 2006. By the end of 2006 I had left the mainland entirely and was on private estates. I hated mainland by then as that was when the spam fest was in full swing. Dickheads cutting up parcels into tiny plots and filling them all with massive ads boards. I returned to the mainland in 2011, all 4 brands, 7 stores in total, and I have to say I have not really had any negative mainland experiences since then.