Hey guys! 😊 Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Between planning my upcoming wedding and juggling a bunch of side projects, I've been keeping pretty busy! But just in case you missed it over at the SLinsider Guide, here's a 'Hey Roni!' installment for the archives. I hope you enjoy it! ❤️
Hey Roni,
I need your help before technology makes me a widow… in Second Life.
My husband absolutely refuses to update his viewer because he insists that PBR is some kind of conspiracy.
Every time I ask him to install a modern viewer, he launches into a speech about how “everything looked fine before PBR” and how “real residents don’t need fancy reflections.”
Last week I redecorated our house. I had spent days getting the lighting perfect. Beautiful shiny floors, gorgeous metallic accents, realistic water, everything.
The other day when he logged in, he walked around and said,
“Why is our house all gray?”
I said, “It’s not gray. Update your viewer.”
He said, “No. PBR is communist.”
…Communist? Is he serious??
Now every shopping trip turns into an argument because creators keep saying their products are optimized for PBR. He acts like they’re personally attacking him.
He keeps telling everyone that reflections are a government experiment and that shadows are “just a phase.”
Meanwhile, I’m over here trying to explain why his rusty old Firestorm build can’t even render half the things I’m buying.
I love this man, but I’m starting to wonder if our marriage can survive his dedication to outdated technology.
Do I keep trying to convert him… or do I just decorate exclusively in flat gray textures so he feels at home?
— Living in 2009
Dear Living in 2009,
Yikes.
I was fully prepared to tackle the age-old PBR debate. You know the one… “Everything’s too shiny!” “My FPS dropped!” “Bring back the old lighting!” That’s a conversation I’ve heard a thousand times.
Then your husband took a hard left turn into… communism??!?
I’m not even sure what highway exit he took to get there.
Somewhere between physically based rendering and Karl Marx, he appears to have missed several very important turns.
Look, nobody says you have to love every update Second Life throws at us. Plenty of residents have legitimate complaints about PBR. Some don’t like the performance hit, some prefer the older look, and some creators are still figuring out how to make materials that don’t resemble freshly waxed bowling alleys. Those are all perfectly reasonable opinions.
Declaring that a graphics update is part of some grand ideological plot?
Wow that’s… a new one.
Here’s the thing. Technology evolves. It always has. We went from DOS to Windows. Dial-up to broadband. CRT monitors to flat screens. Every few years our phones get faster, our computers get better, our graphics cards improve, and yes… our software gets updated. Updating isn’t some radical new concept, it has literally been happening for decades.
So before I officially decide he’s one sandwich short of a picnic, Let me ask a few questions.
Does he upgrade his phone every few years? Has he ever replaced his computer or graphics card? If so, then updating his viewer really isn’t any different and I am left to wonder if there’s actually something else going on.
Maybe his computer simply can’t handle PBR, and he’s embarrassed to admit it. If that’s the case, my heart genuinely goes out to him. New hardware isn’t cheap, and plenty of us have had to squeeze every last ounce of life out of an aging computer while saving up for an upgrade. There is absolutely no shame in that.
Or maybe he has vision issues or color blindness and honestly can’t appreciate what everyone else is seeing.
If either of those situations is true, then lead with compassion. Show him screenshots comparing what he’s seeing versus what the world actually looks like on a current viewer. Decorate with a mix of PBR and legacy-friendly items while you work through it together. Relationships are about compromise, after all.
However…
If neither of those situations are in play, and he sincerely believes PBR is part of some grand communist conspiracy…
Darling, your biggest problem isn’t his viewer.
It’s that your husband just boarded the Crazy Train, bought a first-class ticket, and apparently has no plans of getting off. (R.I.P. Ozzy)
Tell your husband this: refusing to update his viewer isn’t some noble stand against the establishment. He’s not preserving history, he’s sightseeing in the past.
At this point, I wouldn’t argue with him anymore. Just smile, nod, and whenever he asks why something looks broken, hand him the viewer download link.
One day he’ll cave.
Usually right after he visits a store where every vendor image looks gorgeous and every product in-world looks like it was dipped in gray primer.
Don’t you dare limit your decorating or your enjoyment of Second Life just to appease ideas that don’t make a lick of sense. Enjoy your beautiful home, keep decorating the way you love, and let him decide whether he’d rather admire gorgeous lighting… or continue living in his self-imposed grayscale universe.
P.S. Keep me updated…… I have a feeling this won’t be the last stop on the Crazy Train.