Firestorm version 7.1.9.74745

[Trouble Ahead]

Wow.. I could see my own shadow!! ( a feature that was asking too much from my graphics on the previous viewer) I really love the improvement in this upgrade ( as it is for me on a Mac).The shadows of the boom on my ship are so lifelike that I tend to dive when I change course!
There is in tab general , graphics, a mirror option. Thats interesting! My avatar stared in the mirror of her hairdresser, it looked more like a mirror.. but no new wrinkles to see!
Cheers on this upgrade. You might need to wait a bit until all textures load, but it worth the patience when you see how better the graphics are.

Cheers

[Zyzzyx Qinan]

Nice to hear a review of the new version on a mac and on Kitely, Thank you.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Has anyone tried adding any PBR textures with this viewer? Currently, when I interact with objects, I can see the PBR menu in the texture tab when I initially log in and first select an item, but I cant interact with it. Clicking on the material slots don't seem to do anything and the tab is greyed out. If I move to the old blinn-Phong tab, I cant go back to the PBR tab.

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PBR_Materials - I have trawled the wiki and didnt find any indication. I also notice our menu looks slightly different to that shown in the documentation currently. In firestorm, its tabs rather than a drop-down menu to switch texture modes.



Am I being a dimwit somehow? Its entirely possible.

I'm also noticing that old blinn-Phong specularity maps seem to be blown-out in some cases. You can see here that these cliffs and trees (which looked quite nice and subtle previously) now they look rather plastic. In a compressed image it does not look so bad, but in-world it is very noticeably way too aggressive.





A quick fix if you don't have access to the original texture is to open the texture tab and tint your specular channel slightly grey.

Here I did it on some of my new limestone cliff rocks....

Before
https://pouch.jumpshare.com/preview/QsN ... s_AmgI.mp4

After
https://pouch.jumpshare.com/preview/XB8 ... s_AmgI.mp4

So it seems like quite a few old objects will need at least their specular maps remade or tinted to look correct with the new lighting model.

Otherwise, its looking quite promising. Materials look much nicer overall. The lighting model feels slightly darker and colours are less saturated. And I also notice any object with just a diffuse map now looks VERY flat.

Id love to start uploading some of my actual PBR ready textures from substance painter and experimenting but I cant open the dang menu!

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Hi Ozwell,

PBR won't currently work on Kitely as our system is still based on an OpenSim version that doesn't support it. We're currently working on upgrading our system to OpenSim 0.9.2.2 (and adding our proprietary patched to enhance it). PBR should start working on Kitely once we roll out that upgrade in a few weeks.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Ah, that'll be it. lol. I assumed it was just the lighting probe/reflection stuff that was server side. So is it fair to say that what we are seeing in the viewer now is what people without PBR enabled will see in the future? Or will the coming changes impact that too and we cant currently draw many conclusions?

Well then besides that, this does seem to be a really good upgrade. I am getting about 30% higher fps and any issues with textures not loading or loading slowly seem to have evaporated. Just a few shockingly shiny specular maps to deal with. Might be a bit of a headache for those with densely built existing words.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Hi Ozwell,

I think that is a fair prediction but it really depends on what future changes are made to the viewer.

[Tess Juel]

I'm also noticing that old blinn-Phong specularity maps seem to be blown-out in some cases.

That can't be avoided unfortunately. I don't know all the details but LL had to make some very deep and profound changes to the render engine to make PBR work and it seriously affects how old style non-PBR content looks.

...
any issues with textures not loading or loading slowly seem to have evaporated.

Nobody ever figured out what caused all those texture thrashing problems with the previous version of Firestorm but yes, the brand new render engine should have fixed it all anyway.

I am getting about 30% higher fps

People might want to be a bit careful with that. I switched off VSync to see how high I could get the fps. I got it up to well over 500 (on High+ graphics) before my computer shut down. Apparently there is no automatic limiter to how hard the program can drive the GPU. Unless you have VSync enabled it just keeps pushing the GPU to the limit. I have a computer that is especially vulnerable to overheating (a HP Omen with a GeForce RTX3090 - God only knows what made HP think it was a good idea to put that powerhouse into a cabinet with such poor ventilation) but even if your computer don't crash, driving your GPU too hard is still not a good idea. (Pro tip here btw: What the VSync function does, is synchronize your GPU frame rate to your monitor's. There is of course no point in making your GPU produce frames faster than your monitor can display them so always keep VSync switched on!)

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There is one problem with the new Firestorm version on Kitely. The first time I tried to select one of the two Midday windlight options I got this error message:

EEP issue.png (12.7 KiB) Viewed 6128 times

I don't know what kind of asset it refers to but it's obviously something missing from Kitely's database. The solution I found was to log on to OS Grid and switch to the two settings there so I had it cached when I returned to Kitely. That's hardly a permanent solution though. Could you take a look at it, Ilan?

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Tess,

Please recheck this after we upgrade our system in a few weeks, it might be some PBR-related system asset that is included in the newer OpenSim version.

[Ozwell Wayfarer]

Nobody ever figured out what caused all those texture thrashing problems with the previous version of Firestorm but yes, the brand new render engine should have fixed it all anyway.

I have been having more of a play around this morning and I am seriously impressed by just how much better it is. Textures load in much faster and I have not had to refresh a single one yet. This was always one of my pet peeves so I am very happy to see the end of that.

People might want to be a bit careful with that. I switched off VSync to see how high I could get the fps. I got it up to well over 500 (on High+ graphics) before my computer shut down.

I have an RTX3090 too, but in a custom made case with a lot of fans and watercooling. I did have Vsync disabled but it didnt seem to cause my card to run away. I cap around 110/120. I hear my card working a lot harder when I have say: Opensim, Zbrush, Substance, Blender open all at once (and probably watching youtube too).

But thank you for the heads up, people should keep a close eye if their systems are prone to that.

There is one problem with the new Firestorm version on Kitely. The first time I tried to select one of the two Midday windlight options I got this error message:

I noticed that too. Oddly, the other presets work fine. It just seems to be midday and midady (legacy) that throws the error. All other lighting settings seem to work fine. If you need the midday setting, you can open your "my environments" and create a new sky. The default is midday and then just apply it to yourself or the region.

[Tess Juel]

It just seems to be midday and midady (legacy) that throws the error. All other lighting settings seem to work fine. If you need the midday setting, you can open your "my environments" and create a new sky.

Great tip, thank you!

Off on a tangent but since we're talking about the two midday settings, look at these two pictures:

Trees classic midday.jpg (56.5 KiB) Viewed 5955 times

Trees new midday.jpg (70.38 KiB) Viewed 5955 times

The first picture is taken with the classic midday setting, the second with the new one. It's a scene from the Welcome Center with Ozwell's trees but it's the same story with all vegetation I've seen so far. The willow to the left and the small shrub between it are the ones that suffer the most from the new midday setting, they're almost black! But the oak to the right suffers badly too.

How are we going to deal with this? There is no way we can replace or retexture all the vegetation on opensim and in Second Life. Are we supposed to just pretend everything is all right? I do understand that the changes in the render engine will cause issues with existing content but this is rather extreme.