Secondlife--> Opensim

[Gusher Castaignede]

Managed to setup OsGrid's opensim PBR version as standalone on my desktop for testing using Firestorm's alpha pbr viewer.... it wasn't complex at all... too easy to get pbr materials in there and you don't need expensive software at all. Just make your standard pbr textures as you always do then pack the AO, ROUGHNESS, and Metallic with this free channel packer you can get at https://defconnet.work/en/texture-channel-packer-en/ and add the textures in this order below then save as png..

Ambient Occlusion is on the red channel
Roughness is on the green channel
Metallic is on the blue channel

...upload your diffuse texture, normal map and the packed channel maps
and of course your mesh! After that just make a new pbr material in the
viewer and connect all your textures you just uploaded to it as depicted
in my screenshot below... tweak it a bit till your satisfied.

What I found that this pbr feature supports double-sided texture which
will be useful for foilage without using extra polys/tris!
For making standard pbr textures there are free and paid software
out there... I use PixPlant 5.

[Graham Mills]

Don't pretend to understand half of what's going on here but if you want to play around with PBR textures I found https://withpoly.com/ useful.

[Gusher Castaignede]

Diving deep, many many free pbr texture libraries out there but limited in some way that you
need to upgrade to get exactly what you need... for me it's the tweaking and adjustments that
I want when using ready made pbr... one of my favorite libraries is https://freepbr.com/ ..
and the other at https://substance3d.adobe.com/community-assets ...with most there in
.sbsar format you can open them in substance player to tweak and adjust the details..
you can grab substance player free at https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-player/home.html

The new pbr viewer supports glb and glTF for direct upload of pbr materials without needing
pack textures as I metioned above so if you use blender 3d it can export those formats.
For those who don't use blender 3d then the standard way of doing it applies...
Personally, I prefer dedicated texture authoring tools independent from blender 3d..
More info on the subject at https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PBR_Materials

Some cool tools that I tried in past but dropped them because required non ending
monthly sub to use include Substance Alchemist then later rebranded as
Substance 3D Sampler by Adobe..

[youtube]https://youtu.be/5tFoKjuRno0?si=Jw97paIuVHx0TIMH[/youtube]

Overall, yes in the best interest of creators and the community of casual builders
it is highly suggested to upgrade the servers to support PBR when the right moment arrives...
nearly every platform already uses it. Modernization is important to move forward as it will
increase the value of the virtual content with pbr and also bring in new potential members
to the community.

Don't pretend to understand half of what's going on here but if you want to play around with PBR textures I found https://withpoly.com/ useful.

[Ada Radius]

Another good free source is the BlenderKit addon for Blender. PBR and procedural textures that can be baked and, for any images included, downloaded.

[Graham Mills]

Don't pretend to understand half of what's going on here but if you want to play around with PBR textures I found https://withpoly.com/ useful.

Sadly the existing tool is morphing into a file system and will sunset on 21st December.

[Gusher Castaignede]

Second life officially launches PBR for entire grid... it's already enabled for all regions!
https://community.secondlife.com/blogs/ ... ontent=pbr

[Gusher Castaignede]

There was a new update for Firestorm viewer version Firestorm 6.6.17 but does not support PBR Materials yet, however will be in the next Firestorm update after this one...BOOM! Isn't that fast! Then it will be a matter of time till a stable update of opensimulator arrives...
https://modemworld.me/2023/12/14/firest ... -on-track/