[PBR] EEP Sky color and sun color tint too strong or intense on materials.
closed
Andred Darwin
The new Midday is a very close match to Substance Painter "cloud skies" recommended to be used with creating materials for Second Life, the object in-world looks very close to what it was intended if not identical in some cases.
The problem or bug is... that Midday Sky/Sun color may not fit in several scenes, as a matter of proof, I have not seen any sky using those colors in the most popular regions like the ones being promoted at the destination guide, they all use different tones.
The effect of EEP Sky (Blue Horizon / Blue Density) and Sun color, is way too strong on the overall scene... when as a user, my goal is to have that Midday light effect (for a day setting), with a different tone of Sky color as an example.
There has to be a way to render the sky color in a way that does not affect the light it casts that much (maybe just a small tint over the nice new Midday light/effect casted )... maybe separate color used for light/reflections which can be tinted and another just for the sky itself, rendered but ignored for light/shadow/ambiance purposes.... At the very least make it not so strongly tinted on metal materials (in fact on all materials, but most noticeable on shiny metals)...
If this is the spec... my 2 cents... to hell with the spec, maybe bend it a bit! SL is not a professional game studio, but at least until PBR, a quite fun environment, and 20 years after is still here! (This beginning of the PBR launch is not very much fun at all, way too many quirks)
This same strong EEP effect makes it really hard to setup scenes... its not desirable to have to choose between a blunt sky (somewhat ugly) with perfect lights or a personal choice nice sky with freaking strongly tinted materials specially in open sky scenes ... what is the middle ground?
More details @ Jira
Log In
Atlas Linden
closed
Andred Darwin
Please close this ticket, things changed a lot since then.
Atlas Linden
Thanks for letting us know Andred!
Andred Darwin
Hi Atlas and Dan, I'm sending both of you a set of EEP PBR settings... (any, where the sun/sky colors are different than the current default Midday, also can be used ...)
I also setup an area: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Taber/109/190/1501. The landing point at that area will arrive at my ongoing PBR store. You may need to manually set the "altitude" at the top bar on the viewer to get there...
There are 2 sets of 2 objects... with different PBR materials, one set is surrounded by a box probe, ... another open within whatever probe the region generates (open sky... its observable on both... ), I attached another screenshot to this that shows exactly what I'm trying to bring to attention... the effect of sky/sun/clouds on all reflections is way too strong when outdoors without point or projector lights.
I'm around if I could do anything to help.
Another thought... SL allows the user to set its own environment, a less intensive effect light/color effect on materials (or more "selective" if separated into 2 settings), could make it much easier to match whatever they intended to do. The current implementation makes it much more restrictive...
Ps.: Thank you again for looking at it!
Andred Darwin
Hi Atlas, the fix, I'm not sure if it was really a "fix"... seems like all that changed was a tweak to the default Midday EEP sky blue tint to a gray color... so I would say, no its not fixed... (I sincerely cannot remember the difference of what it was before... I've been using the latest build from github for the gltf-maint-2, as soon as they are built...).
Did you guys had a chance to discuss if it was possible to tweak or separate the rendered sky color and light/influence it casts?
Right now, there's a bit of a honeymoon with PBR, in a bit that will fade and full PBR scenes will come to play... I believe you get a lot of feedback... if not already about how much of a pain in the neck is to deal with reflection probes / lights / projectors / EEP, etc...
Not counting.... performance is much lower now from a standpoint of login and play.... ( of course the new rendering engine does a lot more, may be even faster if considering apples to apples... but who cares about apples to apples... )
Ps.: Thank for looking at it, and for all you do!
Atlas Linden
Andred Darwin: We're having trouble getting a clear repro for what you're seeing on the latest GLTF Maint 2. Are you able to send the EEP settings to either Dan Linden or I?
Atlas Linden
Hi Andred Darwin,
A fix for the blue tint being applied to objects has been added to the GLTF Maintenance viewer here: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/7.1.3.7821226606.html
Does your issue still occur on this viewer?
Atlas Linden
Comments from copy of BUG in Jira https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-235001:
Jenna Huntsman added a comment - 23/Jan/24 4:08 AM
If you're updating EEP settings to be compatible with PBR, then this is expected behaviour. This is because the sky color influences the scene lighting in the same way that all PBR renderers do - however, the old Windlight system makes it too easy for users to create implausible skies.
When https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-234644 is implemented, you will be able to see the same effect in other PBR reference viewers.
For some guidance on creating good presets for use in the PBR viewer, see this wiki entry: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Jenna_Huntsman#PBR
If you're having problems with old (unmodified) settings, then file a new Jira to prompt tuning of the auto-conversion process.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Andred Darwin added a comment - 23/Jan/24 6:09 AM - edited
If that this is really the expected behavior then that is exactly the problem.
Thank you for the link at the Wiki... I do respect your opinion on choosing what is a "plausible" sky, and at the same time, I have the opportunity to listen to and deal with several users in SL... and all that good info on the article sincerely will sound more like blah blah blah for many. Btw, I've tried your EEP settings, they are too dark for many scenes... and for sure are awesome for quite a few other scenes, specially dark ones.
None of the snapshots attached to the ticket were taken using old EEP settings...
What I hear is, "I just want the same blue sky... I don't want a blue skin, I dont want a blue everything!" Hehehehe (For a scene with PBR Materials)
Does it really matter if that is expected, or that is spec if many are complaining? The only ones I hear that like it are the ones @ discord, which is probably why I look at it quite often... it's really disappointing to ask others about PBR (day to day in SL as a merchant, I have the opportunity to meet great people, that are enjoying, "paying" a lot of money, making SL what it is today.... ) and hear mainly negative comments specially on how it renders their current content (which got much better than it was since the development started), they are not even experiencing how hard it is to light up indoor scenes yet... keep in mind... they just want to enjoy SL... (me too....)
EEP is a fantastic tool to allow users to see SL as they wish, tweak their scenes to express whatever they are trying to either showcase or enjoy, as it is today with PBR, and more specifically EEP, what was already hard, became almost impossible to tweak, its way too strong to make it work... add probes and lights to it... hehehe, go explain that to a user... ( I have to deal with that with quite a few users, how about you? )
My view as a merchant, is that, it really doesn't matter if I think something is better or right, the customer opinion matters most to me... and I try to do the best I can to make my tools to work for them, it is important and matters to them, even if when I think something is irrelevant. (I did pretty well with this mindset for my expectation so far..., not only in SL)
Anyway, for EEP as it is right now, I'm sure we can find many scenes where it will work just fine, at the same time we can find many where it simply doesn't ( and it used to ), in fact now its super restrictive, that matters to me and many others. I do believe Davep and that team of awesome developers can help find a middle ground, like they have done so far, hence why I opened the ticket.
We cannot do this anymore: (also keep in mind, how much money they spent building those scenes...)
For many, including me, that looks like a Midday (with the understanding, that its a personal choice...)
Those are users which also pay a lot of money to use SL every month, so should we just refer than to the Wiki article? (Common sense)