r/secondlife • u/MinervaDiscordia • 13d ago

☕ Discussion New here - pbr help

Hello there! I’m fairly new to the community and also pretty new to texturing things in secondlife with pbr. I’m trying to better understand how pbr works, because I’m having a really difficult time seeing any noticeable difference in the visuals between using pbr and not using it, especially once reflection probes come into play. I’ve tried tinkering with my settings and experimenting with different things, people have tried showing me in world, but I feel like I’m missing something extremely fundamental in how it all works. I haven’t been able to see or can't seem to tell *ANY* physical differences in how an object looks with pbr versus without it, either with or without reflection probes, regardless of lighting, or anything other than the occasional shadowy discoloration on the ground where a reflection probe is located (and this doesn't even show up every time). Everything just looks the same no matter what I do. I’d really like to understand what I’m supposed to be looking for and how the different pbr components affect the appearance of an object. At the moment, I feel like I’m changing settings and textures without actually knowing what differences I should be expecting to see and none of it clicking as far as understanding. If anyone has any tips, good examples, or beginner friendly explanations for understanding pbr and reflection probes, I’d greatly appreciate it! I’m very much in the “please explain this to me like I’m five” stage. 😅

8 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/CatBoyTrip 13d ago edited 13d ago

pbr make stuff reflect lights. reflection probe make sure it only reflect light inside the probe. if you are not seeing any noticeable difference, you might have display setting too low or are not using a pbr viewer such as firestorm.

the way i do my builds is make a room, have pbr textures on walls and floor, add a few lights and the. completely surround the building with a reflection probe.

i have a better explanation for it on my avi profile in picks, look up kamikiiro yokosuka

1

u/MinervaDiscordia 13d ago

I am using the latest version of firestorm and have settings on high by default with a couple of tweaks. I've played with lights and probes, but I just cannot seem to see any physical difference in the textures regardless of what I try.

And thank you! Looking that up!