It’s All Bling-Phong to Me! in Second Life

It’s All Blinn-Phong to Me! is a new and relatively light-hearted art exhibition by EtaMae (Etamae) and being hosted at Akiko Kinoshi (A Kiko) at her Akijima arts region with her Akipelago chain of Islands.

For those who may not be familiar with the term, Blinn-Phong is a reflection / shading model which, in terms of Second Life has been the mechanism by which materials and their reflectivity worked exclusively prior to the arrival of glTF / PBR in SL (and indeed, still work – they haven’t gone away with the arrival of PBR).

While Blinn-Phong is the correct name for this type of shading / reflection model, the fact is that for many, it is another odd term being ushered in alongside a tonne of others as glTF makes its presence felt in Second Life. There’s glTF and PBR themselves, together with metallic roughness, base colour, emissive, transmission, index of reflection, and so on. All of which can start to sound like a foreign language and seem quite frightening when really all they signify is an effort to bring SL graphically and technologically in line with modern rendering engines and the toolsets and standards used in content creation.

And that’s something of the “message” behind this art exhibition: don’t worry about all the terms; they are either just new ways of expressing what you’ve been doing all this time, or indicating there are new ways of doing things you’re always done, whilst offering new little tweaks you can make to things.

On offer are a series of beautifully abstract pieces by Eta, 15 in a larger format, created using Blinn-Phong materials and seven smaller pieces (including the one at one of the entrances to the gallery space) created using PBR materials. Each set incorporates subtle animations, and both look very similar – emphasising the fact that whether you call them Blinn-Phong, PBR or just “materials”, nothing has changed in terms of what the finished results can be – or might be; we can still build and create and display – and have a few new treats to boot, such as the mirror elements Eta has added to her PBR art (and which could have been as easily built using Blinn-Phong materials).

It’s an elegant, simple statement; as Eta notes: it’s not profound, it’s not deep – but it it is illustrative. Just because the terms are new and the technology is changing, there’s no need to be frightened or object to what’s going on. SL is still a place where we can express ourselves (physically and artfully). So just chill, have fun – and enjoy!

SLurl Details

• It’s All Blinn-Phong to Me! (Akijima, rated Moderate)