Second Life PBR – Resources

Example PBR Materials (Chrome and Brass) on Door Knobs

Physics Based Rendering and glTF materials use is coming to Second Life and a project viewer already exits for testing things using the Beta Grid. This blog post is to gather resources relevant to using PBR in Second Life.

• PBR needs OpenGL4 or later, though systems without that will see normal rendering.
• Physically Based Rendering Wiki: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/PBR_Materials
• How to create a Metallic-Roughness! YouTube video by Medhue Animations
• PBR – An Introduction/Authoring Guide by studio-397.com.
• Download the latest GLTF PBR Materials Project Viewer – or watch for it being incorporated into the main viewer
• Interested in checking out the upcoming materials features? Visit our Support site’s Accessing Aditi page to get started by requesting access to our Beta testing grid, Aditi.
• PBR is currently an early Alpha Project stage and only available for use on the Second Life Beta grid (Aditi) and then only on specific regions: Materials1, Materials Adult, Rumpus Room 1 (through 4).

Second Life University – PBR Materials with Runitai and Kyle Linden – 9-Feb-2022

Sample PBR Materials

• https://polyhaven.com/textures – Format GL not DX.

PBR Specifications for Second Life

• Base Color [RGB] + Transparency [A]
• Occlusion [R] / Roughness [G] / Metallic [B] – 3 unrelated grayscale images stored in 3 different colour channels of an RGB texture.
• Emissive [RGB]
• Normal [RGB] – Uses Mikkelsen Tangent Space (MIKKT) as usually used in Unity.

In order to be compliant with the GLTF specification and conform to industry norms, Alpha blending and atmospherics have been moved from sRGB Colour Space to Linear Colour Space

Creating PBR Materials in Blender

Create your materials within Blender using Principled BSDF Shader Nodes. Export them according to the Blender Documentation (see here). Note: Second Life does not support BSDF Clearcoat, Subsurface, Anisotropy or Transmission parameters at this time.

• Blender Documentation for glTF Mesh Objects and PVR Materials

Sample glTF Mesh Object with PBR Materials – Water Bottle

Initial Tests of PBR Materials on Second Life Beta Test Grid (Aditi)

Previous Mesh Content Checks

I tested out some of my previous complex mesh models, which use the old style texturing and shininess.

PBR Creation Tools

• Blender – Create your materials within Blender using Principled BSDF Shader Nodes. Export them according to the official Blender Documentation for glTF materials. Second Life does not support BSDF Clearcoat, Subsurface, Anisotropy or Transmission parameters at this time.
• Material Maker – Export using the Godot 4 ORM preset.