PBR Light probes in viewer causing terrain issues
Count Burks
Since the launch of PBR this issue is often noticeable in world when observing terrain. The PBR lighting model uses invisible light balls. These invisible light balls generated by by the system cast weird shadows on terrain. This can be clearly observed in the images I have posted in this report.
I have also opened a thread on the forums about this topic a while ago. https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/518565-the-weird-brown-shadow-spots-on-terrain-originating-from-the-pbr-lighting-model/
These weird shadows can be observed depending on your camera angle, however when observing such a shadow under a specific angle the shadow is not even static, it then appears to cycle through a variation of separate shadows which make it even more annoying to look at.
This is happening everywhere in world at random places. The shadows are most visible on beach terrain as can be seen here in this area. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dreamworld%20Victory/41/97/40
I also notice them on walls from time to time in the form of weird blinking lights.
I have a new PC with 32 GB ram and an RTX 4060 Graphics Card so it is not the computer.
Why should people pay all this money to have an island or land when there is such a massive bug taking place on their land? These flickering Christmas light balls need to get fixed. This is utterly super annoying for people. There isn't a single video game that is doing this and this is not acceptable.
No reflection probes are being used in this area that could impact or cause these shadows.
Log In
Dan Linden
open
Count Burks
I also include a screenshot of my graphics settings. Also a debug tip I will add. After having set my viewer to Ultra the blinking and shadows appeared to have halted and everything looked normal. I then teleported to another region and back to inspect and the blinking still did not reappear. This was with my viewer no longer set to ultra. To further test I did log out and relogged again and when returning to the place where the shadows issues take place the entire thing had restarted. So there is certainly a system glitch occurring related to PBR. As posted in the forums this glitch happens in various locations. It is a pattern that continues to cycle through some sort of programming loop as the exact same types of shadows return. You have a darker shadow, a couple of seconds later a lighter shadow at the exact same location, a couple of moments later another curved angle shadow can be noticed and the cycle just keeps repeating.
Count Burks
Hello Dan I did enable Shadows, sun moon and projectors and it still takes place. It appears it isn't triggering the glitch when I set the slider completely to ultra settings. Also setting the viewer completely to ultra without shadows also fixes the issue.
I normally have my viewer set to high or between high and ultra. The glitch does not appear to be related to shadows but to a lower quality setting below ultra in the graphics settings.
This is an image with shadows enabled where the glitch is still visible. The viewer is set between high and ultra for this particular image.
The screenshots are all taken under midday settings. I always have my viewer set to Midday, no shadows and graphics at high or between high and ultra.
I hope this helps.
Count Burks
Dan Linden
needs info
Dan Linden
Hi Count,
I was not yet able to see the issue shown in the screenshots. I noticed you have shadows turned off. Does this bug reproduce is you just use the High-Ultra settings (which should have shadows enabled)? If it does repro, can you open up World > About Land > Environment and include that in a screenshot. I want to see what time of day this is happening because it may be a factor in reproducing this issue.
Thank you.