PBR when avatars and textures don't load?
complete
Eren Padar
I appreciate improvements in SL graphics as much as anyone... but one would have to question the added load of PBR when for YEARS avatar rezzing has resulted in orange clouds that sometimes never disappear (directly traceable to textures failing to load)... and similarly 2D textures taking 30, 60 or more seconds to load into the viewers.
Get the 2D basics fixed before adding huge modifications. Work before toys. Base functionality before shiny. I am getting VERY tired of going to events like FANTASY FAIRE and seeing nothing but orange clouds all over the place. Frankly, I preferred the days of the default texture. At least we could tell the basic shape of what was there.
We need avatars to rez. We need textures to rez. PBR is nice... but basic texture loading would be nicer.
Log In
SL Feedback
Merged in a post from FijiLove Resident:
Title: Basic functionality needs to work before you add new things
Details: I just want to TP without crashing every 3rd time. I want inventory to load. I want to not be a cloud. I don't care about PBR and some of the new things (perhaps this is only photographers and designers that really care about it). Every time you roll out something new, something old gets broken. After 14 years, I don't think it's too much to ask for the basic functionality to work. Perhaps you should offer the basic with high functionality and then a different version for those who want the bells and whistles where you toy with things.
Eren Padar
SL Feedback This agrees with the OP and is spot-on. What LL seems to not understand is that top-level graphics are not needed to enjoy SL... and those top-level graphics require increasingly sophisticated (and costly) computers. SL is the ONLY app I use that requires a "gamer" level computer.
As an example... in addition to my gamer desktop, I own an ASUS laptop: Ryzen 7 with Radeon 10 graphics. It's not a top-level gamer computer, but it's no slouch. Prior to PBR this computer could handle SL okay. It still experienced the common SLag and other issues, but graphically it functioned. After PBR it became practically a brick. To use SL at all I have to set graphics to their lowest settings... and what good is that?
What good is PBR if I can't see even functional everyday graphics because I had to set the graphics setting so low? PBR pretty much destroyed the value of that ASUS laptop for use with SL... so now it just sits here.
This is the result of bringing in new "toys" when the foundation is still buggy. (Texture loading, avatar loading, rezzing, etc.). And it's not "computers" being disabled; it's the USERS LL is alienating. When a Ryzen 7 / Radeon 10 system can't handle SL properly, I'd say LL has crossed the line.
SIMPLIFY. That is the key. There are far less graphically-intense programs that are far more popular. We've all see the graphics on World of Warcraft. Yet they have 2.3 million PAYING members. That makes SL income look like peanuts.
So Linden Lab, as a retired business consultant I'm going to lay the cards on the table: you're going the wrong direction. You don't need "real life perfect" graphics on SL. We need FUNCTIONAL SL. (Look at the popularity of MINECRAFT.) SL is a social / creative platform, not a graphics design class. SL should cater to normal creators like it used to... not professionals who know how to use Blender and Maya. Your "improvements" over the years have taken a lot of the FUN out of Second Life... and are now making the platform impossible to use for many residents. Even my gamer desktop sometimes struggles under the burden of SL requirements, and server system response is slow.
cont
Eren Padar
With due respect: time to wake up. As the above post states: the demands of graphics designers and merchants do no reflect the demands of the everyday resident. You're turning SL from a fun creative platform to a marketed community... and in doing so have lost the creative vision that existed when Second Life first began. LL is putting increasing profit ahead of customer best-interest, and killing creativity in the process.
Paradoxically by doing so, you are killing growth and actually lowering the potential profit and popularity of SL. You're trying to pull your profit from existing residents instead of making the platform itself more popular. The key is to make the platform available to MORE people, not just those with pricey gamer computer systems.
I like mesh as much as anyone; my primary Dinkie Dwagon avatar is mesh. But you didn't give us mesh-making tools in-world... so that killed the creative spirit (except for those in this to make a buck and don't mind working off-world using uber-complex programs).
I had thought creating in-world was the original concept of Second Life. To me, creating doesn't mean plopping down a building I bought on Marketplace. Where's the fun and creativity in that? Second Life doesn't need to be a mirror of real life. It's a VIRTUAL, FANTASY environment. Toys like PBR and MESH without in-world tools to create them really detract from Philip's original vision. This was a vision thousands of people gladly shared-- until we couldn't.
KazumaYamane Resident
I agree. I'm here because the newer faster fix viewer for PBR is as bad as the bad first one. Now, none of my outfits images load. Any sim with more than five avatars lags me terribly, and I had to turn my graphics from between high to ultra down to low. Things are nice and pretty if I don't mind being extremely short sighted and nothing loading beyond 5 yards.
Holocluck Henly
Is this where I need to use the Rebake Textures maneuver to load my avatar everytime I arrive somewhere since having a PBR viewer? I guess it's a thing eh?
This post was marked as
complete
Atlas Linden
tracked
Eren Padar
Honest question: I can only wonder what "This post was marked as COMPLETE" means. Has this issue been fixed... or tossed in File 13? Or does it mean something else?
Wulfie Reanimator
Eren Padar See your issue on Github: https://github.com/secondlife/viewer/issues/1379
Also, about avatars never seeming to load, there's a viewer setting to "show avatars that haven't finished loading." This way you can see avatars even if some textures may never load.
Eren Padar
Wulfie Reanimator Yup am aware of that and have it on... but it doesn't really seem to work very well.
Atlas Linden
Hi Eren,
The imported issue was closed as a duplicate which automated the status of this Canny post. This Canny will be reverted back to Tracked and linked to its duplicate: https://github.com/secondlife/viewer/issues/799
Eren Padar
Atlas Linden Thanks for the explain, Atlas. Appreciated. : )
BTW... what zactly is a "Canny"? ;D
This post was marked as
complete
Spidey Linden
tracked
Issue tracked. We have no estimate when it may be implemented. Please see future updates here.
Eren Padar
Spidey Linden With respect Spidey, this has been the response for years. How can a 3-D virtual environment company allow years to go by and still not have textures load in their system? What does that say about Second Life as a platform?
Imagine yourself a shopper, walking up to a vendor, trying to buy an item but the texture shown is either so fuzzy you can't read it or totally gray. I've walked out of stores in frustration because of this problem.
Imagine trying to talk to your friend... but all you see is an orange cloud floating in front of you. Going to a huge event and you can't see all the terrific avatars because there's a region full of orange fuzzballs.
You don't have to imagine this... because without doubt you've personally experienced it, repeatedly. I've been the only person on a region and still couldn't get vendor textures to load. What's with that? Does that say "professional coding" to Linden Lab?
So what we'd really like to see is something more than "this texture issue is being tracked". We'd like to see the texture loading bottlenecks FIXED. We'd like to see avatars REZ... at least within a reasonable period of time. And how about getting rid of the orange clouds and at least give us a general shape so we have some idea of who/what we're chatting with. Even if it's a medium blue or gray color... it would be better than now.
But BEST would be if the avatar textures would load so we could see them in the first place. BEST would be textures loading in a vendor within a time frame that the vendor is actually usable.
The best option we've seen so far is the RELOAD TEXTURES feature, but that is cumbersome and frankly doesn't work very well.
So perhaps "being tracked" should be changed to "extensive debugging going on now"... and after over 20 years online finally get this problem fixed.
Vincent Nacon
Eren Padar Might help if you could provide your PC's spec to troubleshoot. Open up your viewer, you don't have to log in, go to Help > About Second Life and click on "Copy to Clipboard" and paste that details here.
Eren Padar
Vincent Nacon I've got a moderate gamer system and have provided specs out the gills, but no one's ever found a problem. These texture issues have been a problem on SL ever since I joined in 2004. Linden Lab is WELL AWARE they exist, and have existed for two decades. Nevertheless... if you see a setting that might be tweaked, I'd be interested to learn of it, with thanks.
Firestorm 6.6.17 (70368) Dec 10 2023 18:36:33 (64bit / SSE2) (Firestorm-Releasex64) with Havok support
Release Notes
CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12600K (3686.4 MHz)
Memory: 16126 MB (Used: 504 MB)
Concurrency: 16
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 64-bit (Build 19045.4355)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660/PCIe/SSE2
Graphics Card Memory: 6144 MB
Windows Graphics Driver Version: 31.0.15.3667
OpenGL Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 536.67
RestrainedLove API: (disabled)
libcurl Version: libcurl/7.54.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1l zlib/1.2.11.zlib-ng nghttp2/1.40.0
J2C Decoder Version: KDU v8.4.1
Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 2.02.18
Dullahan: 1.12.4.202209142021
CEF: 91.1.21+g9dd45fe+chromium-91.0.4472.114
Chromium: 91.0.4472.114
LibVLC Version: 3.0.16
Voice Server Version: Not Connected
Settings mode: Phoenix
Viewer Skin: Firestorm (High Contrast)
Window size: 1920x1001 px
Font Used: Deja Vu (96 dpi)
Font Size Adjustment: 0 pt
UI Scaling: 1
Draw distance: 256 m
Bandwidth: 1500 kbit/s
LOD factor: 4
Render quality: High (5/7)
Advanced Lighting Model: Yes
Texture memory: Dynamic (1024 MB min / 30% Cache / 10% VRAM)
Disk cache: Max size 9984.0 MB (78.9% used)
Built with MSVC version 1937
May 02 2024 05:08:51 SLT
Beq Janus
Eren Padar I would suggest that you try the PBR Beta (join the Phoenix-Firestorm preview group inworld, check the notices and you'll find the download instructions there). I understand that what you are pointing out is that these kind of issues have been a perennial problem, but with PBR a lot has changed with respect to how textures are fetched, prioritised and rendered. I am not suggesting for a minute that it is fixed, you may find it worse for all I know, but it would help LL a lot if you were to check the behaviour either with our (FS) beta, or the latest official viewer.
Eren Padar
Beq Janus Ty Beq! FS beta coming up! :D
KazumaYamane Resident
Beq Janus but isn't that a good reason LL shouldn't have tried to push new shiny before they had old issues taken care of?
Eren Padar
KazumaYamane Resident You are correct Kazuma... and to his credit Philip Linden himself publicly apologized most sincerely about "rushing out" PBR for SLB21... long before it was fully tested and ready. As a result it took pretty much a YEAR for PBR to become reasonably usable even on top-level systems.
But your primary point is spot-on and one I've brought to LL's attention for years: WORK BEFORE TOYS. Their answer is "We need both. We need to present new items while fixing the issues." The problem is there are literally hundreds of issues that have been on the dockets for YEARS, and haven't been fixed. The obvious one, top of the list, is proper loading of textures. (On-demand textures, directly in front of avatars, should take priority over the 1,000 textures BEHIND the avatar). Avatar textures should take priority over most textures so that the avatars actually rez instead of taking the form of orange clouds. VENDOR textures (especially those being currently accessed) should take absolute top priority. (ON DEMAND textures... means "right now".)
So I surely agree with your one-line very-appropriate statement. Fortunately Beq is one of the best there is and she's done much to solve such problems in Firestorm. Unfortunately Firestorm was not the only bottleneck in this game, and much of Viewer code is undocumented. I hate to be rude, but I would say Second Life is the most professional amateur coding I've ever seen. And I'm a retired consultant of 30+ years.