Kitely Introduces PBR Materials and Larger Texture Support – Hypergrid Business

This week, Kitely excitedly revealed some impressive updates: support for physically based rendering (PBR) materials now enhances both its virtual worlds and the Kitely Market. Alongside this, they’ve upped their texture size capacity, allowing for a generous 2,048 by 2,048 pixels.

PBR materials are a game-changer in terms of visual realism. By simulating the interaction of light with surfaces—think of the gritty texture of mud or the gleaming sheen of metal—it gives digital textures a tangible depth, showcasing realistic light reflections and shade variations.

To fully enjoy these new visual enhancements, you’ll need to have Firestorm 7.1.11 or later installed. Kitely has positioned itself at the forefront of this innovation, being among the early adopters of PBR materials in the virtual world space. They achieved this by integrating features from the upcoming OpenSim 0.9.3 into their currently operating OpenSim 0.9.2.2 framework.

“Not every OpenSim grid is ready for PBR just yet,” explains Oren Hurvitz, Kitely’s co-founder and VP of R&D. “This capability is slated for OpenSim 0.9.3. However, since that version is still in development, many, like us, are running the latest stable release, OpenSim 0.9.2.2. Our edge comes from having ported the PBR features into our grid from the unfinished version.”

The Kitely Market has also adapted, renaming its “Textures” category to “Textures and Materials.” Merchants are advised to highlight PBR usage in product descriptions due to potential display issues on grids that don’t yet support this feature. Another recommended approach is to offer standard textures as alternatives, ensuring broad compatibility.

Ilan Tochner, Kitely’s CEO, shared with Hypergrid Business, “As Kitely Market is a leading hypergrid marketplace, we were keen to integrate OpenSim 0.9.3’s latest graphic advancements even before their full rollout.”

The update further supports reflection probes through LSL scripting, broadening possibilities with new PRIM_REFLECTION_PROBE parameters within GetPrimParams and SetPrimParams.

While you can use PBR materials for terrain textures, Kitely has run into a few hurdles. For instance, while world maps will show objects with PBR materials, they don’t represent additional PBR features like normal or roughness maps—only the primary color is visible. Currently, PBR terrain textures aren’t visible on world maps.

Kitely has thoughtfully organized a new “Materials” inventory folder for content creators, offering a dedicated space to store PBR materials. For those eager to dive into creating PBR materials, Second Life offers some excellent documentation to get you started.

Hypergrid Business’s editor Maria Korolov, who wears many hats as an award-winning tech journalist and novelist, invites readers to connect with her on social media or through email. She continues to explore innovative realms in technology and speculative fiction through her works and editorial efforts at MetaStellar.