The Trouble with Change

Cosmopolitan had a facelift this week.  It is dramatic and glowing and pretty sexy.  For the most part the places that I have seen under PBR seem either mysterious or sexy. They don't HAVE to be of course; we learned that from Sansar. Still I expect the world to get a bit more dramatic and that's not a back thing. It also seem to go well with the Linden plan to acknowledge and promote the steamier side of SL.  hmmmm. 

But change often comes with downsides so here is a explanation of what most of you may be seeing in the coming months. 

This is the new Cosmo build in the most recent Firestorm viewer --- the one that most of you are using.  It uses the same sim designated EEP.  Note that the buildings are flat white --- the naked look of mesh just rezzed with no textures.  This is because one needs a PBR VIEWER in order to see PBR materials (what has replace the term that used to be materials and is a composite of several texture and maps in one cohesive "material"). 

Now the builder can go back and add default textures for the great majority that will shop in this sim in the coming months -- or not.  If "not" is the decision then I suggest you learn to embrace minimal flat white as you will be seeing it for awhile hither an yon.

I have been working in PBR these last weeks and I think it is a good thing on many fronts. There seem to be some issues still with making your own textures or perhaps I just don't have software that will work.  And as the Firestorm devs have mentioned a few times, they consider the current Linden PBR viewer still in "alpha".  So we have a ways to go but it should be exciting when everything is as it should be.

There is at least one great release at Cosmo this round so stay tuned.