New World Notes

The Subtle Power of PBR in Second Life is Much More Than Mirrors

Now that PBR graphics are fully launched on Second Life, we're seeing a barrage of pics and videos showing off reflective/mirror effects made possible from physically based rendering. But it's this video of a swimming pool created by SL content creator Bhad Craven which recently caught my eye -- watch. It's not so much the mirror effects per se, but how the light reflecting on linoleum tiles and metal surfaces adds a subtle sense of realism and immersion.

"PBR is a game changer," Bhad affirms, laughing. "I hope people start to like it as much as creators. It's so much faster since baking isn't a thing. It makes my items actually shine, not having to fake reflections is great."

Not that developing in PBR is easy -- here's some notes of caution/advice from Mr. Craven:

How to Optimize PBR Era Firestorm: Notes & Tips from the Lead Dev

As noted yesterday, quite a few SLers are having a poor experience with the new PBR upgrade to Firestorm, by far the most popular viewer for Second Life. Fortunately, as Firestorm project lead Beq recently detailed for me, there are a number of fixes and perspective shifts available. The starting point is understanding how the new viewer works with some WindLight/EEP modes, and (as Beq puts it),  first "[getting] past the denial and screaming stage."

Heavy technical details ahead -- in fact, if you're not highly familiar with the terms mentioned, I'd highly recommend reading them with a friend who does before tinkering with your viewer/worlds settings:

SLer Survey: Firestorm's PBR Upgrade Generates Firestorm of Mixed Reactions

Here's the results of my survey on the PBR upgrade in Firestorm, which brought in 177 responses. (A pretty large sample size, as these things go.) Asked how it's changed their overall Second Life experience, a plurality -- nearly 1 in 3 respondents -- chose "Much worse than before". That's compared to 20% who said Firestorm PBR has made their SL experience "much better".

Overall, the reaction is about evenly split between the Somewhat/Much Worse camp (45%) and the About the Same or Somewhat/Much Better (42%).

My initial read of these results is there's a hiccup of adjustment as SLers get accustomed to the virtual world lit by PBR. More on those later, but meantime, here's some readers' decidedly mixed reaction to the PBR update:

Survey: How Has PBR in Firestorm Changed Your Second Life Experience?

Now that PBR graphics are officially part of Firestorm, the most popular Second Life viewer by far, please take this survey about how that's impacted your virtual world -- use a mouse/trackpad for best results.

Survey reactions published on New World Notes later this week/early next!

Firestorm Team Finally Adds PBR to Second Life's Most Popular Viewer; User Reaction Is Firestorm Of Its Own.

Image featuring PBR by Terry Fotherington

A week after Linden Lab added PBR-based mirrors to its own Second Life viewer, the third-party Firestorm Viewer has added physically based rendering to its latest build:

It is time! After nearly seven months of testing and seeking bug fixes and merging improvements and features, we are unleashing the Firestorm PBR viewer today. PBR was first released by Linden Lab back in November 2023. We have been working with them to help ensure that bugs and glitches in those early releases were addressed before we passed it on. Since then many improvements have been made

Much more info here. Since Firestorm is overwhelmingly the preferred viewer of most active Second Life users, this update essentially means PBR is now a core feature to the virtual world.

For regular SLers, as Firestorm project lead Beq tells me, that means being ready for some major adjustments:

With Real Time Mirrors Officially Part of Second Life, Here's a Tutorial for Reflecting Your Virtual World

In the run-up to its 21st anniversary, Second Life is officially a virtual world with mirrors:

Step into a more immersive world with real-time reflections. Our new mirror functionality uses reflection probes, providing stunning and dynamic reflections. Perfect for adding realism to your virtual environments, whether it's for a sleek modern home or a bustling cityscape. You will find the options to make a reflection probe on the Build window, under Features.

More than just a fun visual effect (as amply demonstrated by Gogo of JuicyBomb above), mirrors are likely to alter the culture of Second Life. We've already seen that happen in VRChat, where mirrors are central to the social experience.  

That said, setting up your own Second Life experience for mirrors takes some work.

First, you need the official viewer (7.1.8), then need to adjust some settings in Advanced Graphics:   

PBR Coming to Firestorm "In Weeks" -- And It Will Make Second Life a Much More Game-Like Experience, Explains Firestorm Dev

Image featuring PBR by Terry Fotherington

After a much anticipation, the Firestorm viewer -- by far the most-used Second Life viewer --  will very soon going to add PBR:

Since Linden Lab released the PBR viewer last November, we have been working with them to identify, prioritise, and squash numerous bugs and usability issues. Our team called out the issues we felt were show-stoppers as part of that effort. That list can be found linked deeper in this post, but suffice to say that over the last 5-6 months, Linden Lab has been working on those bugs alongside their continued enhancements programme.

To get to the front of the crowd and try things early, join the Phoenix Firestorm Preview Group in-world and grab the download links from the notices there.

By soon, Firestorm development head Beq tells me, she means "weeks not months". Physically based rendering will greatly enhance the Second Life experience visual experience, giving it much more vivid lighting. (And yes, mirrors.)

Interestingly, Beq tells me the update will also make Second Life feel decidedly more like a AAA game:

"The mantra 'SL is not a game' has and I guess always will apply in the sense that SL itself has no progression, no score, no plot, but the underlying software is very much a game engine," she elaborates. "Modern game engines expect you to be focused on them, they own the system while you are playing, and the viewer is now a bit more like that than it ever was before."

That means Second Life will more immersive, but as Beq notes, that runs counter to how many power SLers experience the virtual world:

Alchemy Third-Party Viewer Now Includes PBR Graphics Features -- Watch These Demo Videos, Read More Details!

Alchemy, a third party Second Life viewer with a cult following of a few thousand users (by the developer's estimate), recently added the new Physically Based Rendering (PBR) graphics effects. With Firestorm's PBR update still in the works, I believe Alchemy is the first TPV to do so.

If you're experienced with installing and running executables, go here to download Alchemy.

The Alchemy team shared these videos with me (above and below) full of sweet reflective/lighting coolness, but PBR is not just about being able to achieve mirror effects:

"The metal shine is the easiest thing to show off," as the team's Tech Artist, Zanibar Pixelbottom, notes, "but it's a lot more than just that, even nonmetal and non shiny PBR materials get 'grounded' in the scene as they'll get the ambience of the scene casted on them."

Updating to PBR so quickly is on-brand for the Alchemy broad, lead developer Rye Cogtail tells me:

"[Alchemy updates tend] to follow the Linden development of new major and featurette branches rather closely, merging in what is ready or nearly so into Project or Beta releases. If memory serves, we were at Beta with PBR before Linden Lab had chosen to move it past their Project viewer phase.

"Having seen regressions in how the new rendering impacted legacy content diminish substantially as the Linden PBR project matured, and overall crash stability with Alchemy at nominal levels; the decision was clear to release PBR to the wider (non-Project) userbase."

Along with PBR, unique features to Alchemy include a lightbox floater with the LUT/sharpening/tonemapping adjusts and options. Or as Cogtail puts that in somewhat less non-technical terms:

How to Get the PBR Mirror Effect in the Black Dragon SL Viewer

Here's a handy PBR mirror effect tutorial for users of Black Dragon, the third party Second Life viewer optimized for high-end graphics. As presented by SL YouTuber Macmilow, it's a fairly straight-forward process. And as you'll see above, the term "effect" is doing some serious heavy lifting, as the "reflection" is very much not real time and not a genuine one-to-one reflection. Still useful (as Macmilow notes) for use with fashion and water images where you want some reflective coolness.

Compare and contrast with this tutorial for setting up a PBR mirror effect in the official third party viewer.

Firestorm Update: Linden Lab Still Tuning PBR Lighting Issues Upstream

Got another quick update from Firestorm project leader Beq, on reports that the Alpha version of the viewer integrating PBR is displaying objects too brightly. Beq says the problem is being addressed by the Lindens:

"Visuals are still being tuned upstream (Linden Lab); ultimately, the Lab is going to drive that agenda because it would make no sense at all for one viewer to render a scene differently; the poor creators would have kittens." (I.E., panic.)

"The current release notes have a standing 'Known issue' that states something along the lines of 'Yes it's too blue, we're working on it'. Any difference between Linden Lab and Firestorm, in terms of lighting, when examined side by side, same settings on the same hardware should vanish once the upstream changes stabilize and flow down to us."

I.E., PBR will run well in Firestorm once the Lindens nail down that known issue. 

Speaking of which, longtime SLer Estelle Pienaar comments that the addition of PBR may create a divide with established Second Life users who can afford to upgrade/buy new devices, and those who cannot: