The struggle is real!

If you don’t know what PBR is, I’ll let Inara Pey explain it to you in A SIMPLE INTRODUCTION TO PBR MATERIALS, REFLECTION PROBES & GLTF IN SECOND LIFE .

As she says, “Second Life is about to undergo something of a revolution in terms of the viewer’s rendering capabilities”.

I switched over to the Firestorm PBR viewer a week ago and the experience has been challenging.  There certainly is a lot to learn.  Out of the box, some things inworld looked absolutely horrible.  On the bright side, other things looked much more realistic and beautiful.

I thought I would post links to resources that I find along the way and I encourage you to do the same.

Graphics Settings:    This video by DJVicious was a big help in adjusting my Firestorm settings.  My current machine is scheduled to be replaced and I used some of his suggestions to keep myself online for a few more months.

Environment Settings (EEP): All of my favourite environments look BAD with PBR so I was alternating between Midday and Midday (Legacy) while I searched for something better.

I’m now using PBR EEP Collection (Windlights) - Day/Night Cycle, Midday, Night  which is free on the Second Life Marketplace.

I’m looking forward to rebuilding my collection and this is a good start.

Lighting interior PBR Scenes:   Apple Fall posted some great information on interior PBR lighting.  For those of you not on Primfeed I’m including the chart with all credit going to Apple Pumpkin of Apple Fall.

 

There’s a whole lot more to say about creating PBR textures that I’m still wrapping my head around, so I’ll leave that for another day.

I anticipate that it will take ages for everyone to convert over to PBR viewers but I hope this helps as a start!

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

The journey continues!

First a look at a New World Notes post that doesn’t have many suggestions but does sum up my initial experience fairly well.

How To Optimize PBR Era Firestorm: Notes & Tips From The Lead Dev

Getting through to people that 'OMG it is too light' and 'OMG it is too dark' is not a fault in the viewer, it is a fundamental change in the lighting model. Many people live their lives with a flat toned WindLight/EEP, something like CalWL.

I cannot run shadows consistently on my old computer which makes PBR EEP settings blindingly bright when I’m outside.  Interiors are dark but at least I can fix this on my home turf with the proper lighting.

Pushed by this and the clunking noise now emanating from my old machine, I upgraded my setup and spent the last few days calibrating, testing, and adjusting.

I can now run shadows and reflections so things look more like they should with PBR EEPs.  I currently flip between three of these, LL’s Midday, PBR - Saberhagen 6 v152 IBL V4 ACES AP1 HDRiMatch (see link in original post) and JuicyBomb - Midday 1.

The next step was to calibrate my monitor , something I really should have done ages ago.  To do this without losing my mind I leaned heavily on the PBR MacBeth Color Checker Chart which is free on the Second Life Marketplace.

There’s compromise in the calibration as I’m way too lazy to change monitor settings when switching from my desktop to Second Life so any settings must work for both.  The current result is easy on my eyes and close enough to true colours (using Saberhagen gives a 3.3 delta E value as opposed to the target 2.3 or lower) that I’m not going to sweat it for now.  I will keep trying out new EEPs as they become available and tweak my monitor as I go along.

I’m hoping that all this fiddly technical work has pointed me in the right direction as I look forward to the more satisfying challenge of building.

How about you? Have you tackled PBR? What’s your experience?

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Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site