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:

New on My Patreon: Advice & Tips from Veteran Second Life Merchants. Please Join to Read & Subscribe for More!

Free to members of my Patreon,  I've collected quite a lot of valuable advice, experience, and insights from veteran Second Life merchants. And while you're there, please consider subscribing to help fund more articles like this on New World Notes/my Patreon, plus get a number of benefits including free copies of my books and ads on NWN!

Here's a favorite point of advice from this new post -- which is actually advice for customers:

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:

SL Vlogger of the Week: Firestorm Optimization Tutorial & Opinion from Prisqua Newall

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Prisqua Newall is a vlogger who gives good advice and broaches some of the big issues of Second Life. She posted A Second Life Guide to Optimizing Your Firestorm Settings which seems timely as many eagerly await the release of the Firestorm PBR Viewer. 

However, if you can’t wait, you can download the Beta version by joining the Phoenix Firestorm Preview Group in-world. In this video, Prisqua Newall gives reasons why she chooses certain settings. 

For more from Prisqua, click here:

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:   

Second Life Tutorial: How to Create a Mirror Effect With the New PBR Upgrade

With PBR graphics launched in Second Life a couple months ago, we're starting to see it appear as a feature in commercial products available in the virtual world economy.  One of the first I happened to notice was the Physically Based Rendering-based mirror effect in this bathroom sink vanity from longtime sponsoring partner Dutchie Design.   

For SL content creators, here's a tutorial for adding the mirror effect to your own content, with a YouTube walkthrough from Feorie Frimon (above) and some tips from Dutchie:

Tutorial: How to Make Your Second Life Avatar "Real" With Leonardo AI

The woman in this picture doesn't exist, but the embedded Second Life avatar does. SL fashionista Gogo of Juicy Bomb used it as the base for creating the startingly life-like simulacra. 

To do this, she uploaded the Second Life screenshot into Leonardo.AI: 

Reader Tips for Using LLMs Like Microsoft's Copilot for Second Life Content

Reader Nadeja concurs with Linden Lab staffer "Soft" on the value of using Large Language Models to help with creating/exploring Second Life related content -- and has further tips, especially for Microsoft's LLM Copilot: 

I was doing similar things for months. For small scripts and functions, GPT-4 is a time saver, it can also handle regular expressions (regex) well enough. Processing natural language is the job of language models, so it is commonly used for summarizing, making lists, revising and many other things. And it can also help with finding ideas and brainstorming as he said.

Note that GPT-4 was available for free since early 2023 until recently on Microsoft's chatbot (now Copilot). Also, unlike the free ChatGPT, Copilot can search the web for the latest information. Moreover, in the Precise mode (teal color), Copilot provides more concise responses and with reduced hallucinations (the Creative one is the opposite, but it's meant to create, invent things).

However, now the free version of Copilot has GPT-4 only during non-peak times. Also the default mode, Balanced, didn't use the best model since a long time (and I'm not sure if Precise is still GPT-4 either).

On the other hand, ChatGPT may be more versatile with custom instructions, regenerate answers and has other features. The free version of Copilot, other than web search, can also create and analyze images, has voice, and so on.

Nadeja also provides some more background on LLMs avoiding some of the "spicier" questions that Grok will answer:

Watch: How to Upscale Second Life Machinima with AI Program Stable Diffusion

Problem: Machinima is an amazing use case for metaverse platforms, enabling people to create high quality narrative videos on a low budget -- if only, that is, the "high quality" part wasn't so challenging. Because any time you capture video in a multiplayer virtual world, you inevitably encounter lag, frame rate drop, and onscreen mesh files that don't fully display. That problem is especially acute with Second Life, where everything in the virtual world (including other people's avatars, logging in from around the world) is streamed to the machinima maker's computer in real time.

Solution: Generative AI! Specifically Stable Diffusion from Stability AI.

Watch this tutorial from Pryda Parx (above) to see what I mean. Using Stable Diffusion and Comfy UI (a graphic user interface for Stable Diffusion), Parx is able to convert footage captured from Second Life with a low frame rate and poor image quality into something approaching professional quality -- upscaling it from 15 frames per second  to 60 FPS with a 4K display.

Parx tells me the conversion process is not especially difficult:

Beautifully Lit Second Life Home Decor Images by Svelte Blessed, Who Shares Details of Her Technique

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Svelte Blessed takes the most amazing landscape and decor pics. She also lists her credits. I love “The Tom Cat” who is sleeping on that battered, old nailhead chair. I love it. 

I asked her how she got such intense color and detail:

“I start with a clear large image using Black Dragon and adjust the WindLight for every picture to create the angle of light and shadows I desire,” she told me. “I use Photoshop for post-processing and often spend a long time on each image, starting first with composite work, then tones, and finally refining details. My key piece of advice is to not be afraid to change things as you go. If something isn't working or [not] ‘popping,’ try something new, go back a few steps and try something new.”

For more fantastic pics, click here: