What is Reddit's opinion of
Toolbag?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
45 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
PBR isn't "really resource intensive", not per definition anyway.
In games especially its a really loose definition, generally describing homogenized material shaders combined with an universal Metallicity/Roughness art asset workflow.
>(especially now that the latest game engines is moving into PBR)
Whats PBR?
Edit this Could somebody please explain Physical Based Rendering to me
> Do you know any publication that explains many things this way without going overboard with university-level calculus?
You could look into some high-level overviews of physically-based rendering (such as here and a more in-depth article here). It's the "best" rendering technique we have currently for real-time graphics (i.e. games) and produces stunning results for what is otherwise a relatively simple technique.
I've always found the approximations used in real-time rendering to be endlessly fascinating. That the rendering equation is this crazy computational monstrosity that can't currently be solved in real time yet we keep coming up with better and better (yet still somehow relatively simple) approximations for it blows my mind.
Sounds like it's making the surface of things look realistic in how they would interact with light and be rendered. Like glossy, dull, translucent, blurred, etc.
In terms of NMS (or possibly just procedural generation in general) probably on the lines of generating a tree that has a very sappy trunk and then the graphics engine will know to make that surface more glossy and reflective but not mirror like because of the impurities.
Awesome stuff!
Physically Based Rendering and Physically Based Materials: http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice and https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Rendering/Materials/PhysicallyBased/index.html and of course my favorite sculpting, retopo, uv and painting software, that now includes PBR too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqZQRxQ7ehU
Edit: also supported by UE4 (Unreal Engine 4 :P )
PBR is essentially the same thing as Unity's new Global Illumination System. No offence, but that statement is not correct. GI and PBR have next to nothing to do with eachother in this context.
I've been transitioning to pbr myself since the introduction of UE4. This might help a bit. My understanding is that you need to seperate your AO from your diffuse (maybe put that in the alpha channel) and create a roughness (or gloss map) instead of a spec map. You can pack this in the alpha of the normal. So with pbr or the earlier method you still need 2 textures for a normal mapped shader.
Blender can do that. Just have each model in a different layer, then go through each layer with hotkeys 1 through 0, and Alt+1 through Alt+0. If you need to show more than twenty models you can add different scenes and switch between scenes, or you can keyframe the viewport visibility of the models and go to the next model with the right arrow key. You can hide most of the interface with Shift+Space, go fullscreen with Alt+F11, make sure that the T and N panels are off with T and N, and show rendered objects only with the "rendered only" option in the N panel.
If you need a renderer with more graphical fidelity than Blender's viewport you could use Marmoset Toolbag although I don't think that has the ability to quickly switch models with a key, so you'd have to put each model in a group and switch each one on and off in the outliner by clicking on the eye icon.
I work in the industry as a 3D artist and its the first time ever I hear the term PBS. Even if you are right about the shading part, the term PBR is the standard one used as far I am aware.
For reading:
PBR Practice (for artists who want to learn the texturing process of PBR ready materials).
Two great resources. (:
Not sure what demos or shaders you've tried but our new custom SSS shader runs at over 200fps with Unity. With our other more advanced screen space subsurface scattering shader we get about 60fps.
Check out Marmoset's Toolbag 2.0, their new beta skin shader is VERY fast! You can have about 7x characters on screen at once, 200k meshes, with multiple 8k textures, at a consistent 75fps.
Listen to Ace, he makes the same points I was going to touch on. What you have is alright so far. But it's got some work ahead of it. A lot of what's going on here is really strong normal maps and way too glossy, giving everything a covered-in-gel kind of look. But with a bit of tuning it'll come out looking even better.
Here's some good intros to physically based rendering, which is the current way to think about materials in games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1A0YqdRhe4 http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
Well, I don't know much about lighting but physically based rendering (PBR) is a new standart for engines/artist. All you have to do (if engine is capable of PBR), is to make Albedo (diffuse without shading/ao/lighting etc), Metallic (if surface if metallic -> white, else black), Normal (basic normal map, nothing changed) and Roughness (if surface is smooth -> white, else black/grey etc.)
Here's a cool article explaining it for Toolbag 2 http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice
PS: Now, texture mods for FO4 will be harder and if the author of the mod can't do PBR, it's a waste of effort/downloading.
There's a side by side comparison of input maps and renders in the PBR in Practice article on the Marmoset site. (I don't know the exact differences between Unity's Metallic workflow, and other Metalness workflows, but they seem similar enough)
Different input, same result. Metalness is just a higher abstraction level. Easier to learn in exchange for slightly less control.
Not super-intentional, no. Here is the second article that I wanted to link.
I do think that you'll get the most out of Cycles if you have some technical knowledge under your sleeve. If you look at some of Andrew Price's tutorials, he NEVER uses a Fresnel node, and sometimes uses a diffuse BSDF only. His renders aren't physically plausible, and his work generally suffers for it.
Anyway, you should start thinking about how you could put together a shader that has some of the properties in the articles I linked you to, which has inputs for albedo, specular roughness or glossiness, and specular color. I can give you some hints as you go.
As an artist, the Marmoset Toolbag is one of the best rendering tools you can have. It used to be free but unfortunately it isn't anymore - you can at least get the 30 day trial and give it a go.
Other than that, I don't really know of any tools. You can use Unity itself or just get one of your programmers to write you a small OpenGL viewer; for a seasoned developer it shouldn't be too much of a hassle to do.
Well I'm not a developer but,
as far as I understand PBR is really just how light is reflected and refracted from materials and using certain algorithms to determine how materials should look under any given circumstance and using consistent materials throughout the design process. Sure that looks complicated but once you've plugged the algorithms into the engine (which you don't need to write from scratch, that stuff is available), you're pretty much good to go. You implement it into the engine and then you just use it, you don't need to change your workflow.
Double precision seems a bit more complicated to me since every bit of coding, or at least most of it, needs to be done with double precision in mind and there are hurdles that still need be overcome. Double precision is going to play a vital role in the physics and in how everything moves and is synced between each other. Again I'm no programmer but that seems a bit more significant than a bunch of shaders.
I was under the impression that physicaly based rendering is kind of a broad term for multiple different lighting solutions, including sss, but how exactly pbr is used will vary between developers.
This is a good read on the topic http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
No. Luxrender does spectral rendering and Cycles does not.
This type of PBR is a loose collection of standards that really describe material surfacing, as being implemented by game engines like UE4, Unity5, and real-time viewers such as Marmoset.
FO4 uses Physically Based Rendering which has much different texture maps than the standard diffuse/specular/normal everyone is used to with previous gen.
This will give you some insight into the difference between previous gen shaders and new PBR shaders: http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion
Still possible but would be a bit of work.
Depends on what kind of textures do you want. Right now PBR textures is all the rage. You can find info for PBR texturing from Marmoset's blog and Allegorithmic's guide and forums. The industry standard is Substance Painter though (and for a very good reason, it makes your life waaay easier) and there's the Quixel Suite. Although they are not necessary they are highly suggested over the regular texturing techniques, because with the traditional ways you will spend most of your time rearranging layers etc.
Physically-based rendering requires less "fudging" by artists to make things look realistic. Instead materials are set up by defining "realistic" values of albedo color, reflectivity, metalness, etc. This makes it easier to achieve realistic looking results.
Marmoset have a good series on PBR: http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
You may also want to read this, this, and this for more information about texturing. It's somewhat less important to get your textures in exactly the right place with Cycles, since you can easily adjust things up and down with RGB curves until they look right, but it's good to have a handle on texturing for Toolbag as it tends to translate quite well to Cycles. Marmoset Toolbag also comes with some neat sample textures that are edifying to look at. You don't have to run Toolbag to get a look at the textures, just look around in the install directory.
This page does a pretty decent job explaining how physically based rendering (pbr) materials work. This one is for the Marmoset engine, but Sketchfab is using the same standard.
Marmoset's guide on creating PBR content is a great all-around guide for what it is, how it looks, and how it differs from older methods. This article on it's implementation in the Unity engine is a bit more lightweight if you're still having trouble understanding it.
PBR is favoured in newer games over non-physically based rendering because it keeps the general look of materials consistent in different lighting environments. Since it's trying to mimic real-world details rather than fake certain effects it looks more realistic and it's easier to second guess how something's going to look in-game ahead of time.
Physically Based Rendering: Physically based rendering (PBR) refers to the concept of using realistic shading/lighting models along with measured surface values to accurately represent real-world materials.
I've seen that technique in one tutorial from Marmoset(Link), but I don't know how to do that on Substance.
I tried out what zelfit said (I disabled the Metalness channel in the water material), AND I set the Base Color channel blending mode to Multiply, with an opacity of 16, so that the water doesn't look too black and absorbs some of the color of the metal. It looks alright, what do you think?
PBR CGFX shaders were already used widely in 2011. I remember using them in Maya for example.
MarmoSet toolbag was one of the first tools to create PBR textures and shaders. I don't remember the release date but the picture of the Photo lenses was widely used in press articles about PBR.
It became the new standard for games/engines around 2010. Updated versions of engines hit the market around 2012/13 with UDK, Frostbyte and others.
So yes, not too long ago.
Search YouTube for "physically based rendering for artists" and you'll find some good intros on PBR.
Here's a link dump of lots of advanced technical articles. https://interplayoflight.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/readings-on-physically-based-rendering/
The Marmoset articles are a good starting point.
At least from a material point of view, not really so much a "UE4 look" as it is a Unity, Marmoset, Substance Painter, Mari etc etc look - the materials for objects, including all the specular and roughness maps, are authored in 3D painting programs such as Mari and Substance, so the general look and feel has already been created long before the model is imported into the engine.
And the "default PBR" in UE4 is the metalness workflow, there's also the specular workflow. There's really only two options, and you can essentially get identical results with each.
You look like you have exactly zero idea what you are talking about to be honest.
Let me explain the difference;
Normal models (like the old frames) are made with a diffuse map, specular map and normal map. You can "convert" those to be used as PBR textures by removing the highlights, splitting the content into different maps, adding a gloss map and taking care of the reflectance value while we are at it.
You make it sound like you have to re-do everything while you do not need to "code shader" or start from zero at all. Check out this for more infos.
From an earlier thread in /r/programming
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
I'm sure there are good books or intros. Honestly, this is one of those things where you're probably best off getting good at math too.
I think it has more to do with the rendering techniques they are using.
Remember, as a F2P game, they need to market their content to a wide variety of systems that might not be able to handle advanced lighting techniques.
In modern games, this is handled through a technique called PBR, or physical based rendering.
But this takes a lot of setup in comparison to traditional shading models and while a common practice in modern games, might be a bit too heafy for their min-spec audience.
And its not something you can just "flip the switch" on either. This is a fundamentally different approach to shading. Its amazing when you get it done, as physical based systems are better suited to variable lighting sets as it interacts with lights as real objects do, where traditional lighting tends to need much more "smoke and mirrors" set up to achieve, which might be what they are struggling with as smoke and mirror set up in a system that provides dynamic lighting is an utter PAIN.
I modeled it in 3ds Max and then it's rendered in Marmoset Toolbag 2.
I want to eventually correct the rows (currently all row3) and move all the coloration to photoshop, so that people can make their own mockups using it.
According to this article, diffuse can be both PBR and non-PBR and (I think) albedo is only PBR. While it isn't wrong calling albedo maps diffuse maps I think most people call non-PBR diffuse maps diffuse and PBR diffuse maps albedo to avoid any confusion.
Well it certainly isnt magic. Looking at the Source of the source then it looks rather complicated nonetheless. Though it will be easier to define in multiple lightings, and in general looks more realistic. It might be easier to define how you want the material to behave without needing to look at it, if you have an idea about the material. Though the suggested methods is going to be to have a sample material and start defining things off of it. Though I predict this method will be more realistic regardless.
The texturing in FO4 is Physically Based Rendering, meaning that it isn't based on texture maps but rather they assign the properties of the material to each texture. Examples being the "metalness" of a material, (how reflective it is) or the material's "microsurface" (how rough or smooth it is) while other properties exist those are some common ones. This is useful in a development sense because they don't need to make dozens of maps for lighting, they just need to make one texture and the light is told to behave on the texture in X and Y ways. When put to use it makes things look magnificent as well, because it is far closer to how light actually behaves. I cant wait to see how it turns out in-game, though it hypothetically increases strain on the GPU (it is calculating the light a bit more on demand compared to the archaic method) but it does reduce strain on CPU and RAM because it doesn't have to remember as many light-maps. Some examples of PBR here: Chart of different materials
EDIT Source
Reflection capture actor in the scene? I'm seeing nothing reflecting in your scene view, and metal requires reflection to look decent. Notice that in the material editor it looks decent, because it's reflecting.
Marmoset has all you need to know:
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion
The maps he's using are roughness and metalness. You can use constants where a uniform value is desired, but generally roughness will vary.
For just eyeballing it, it can be summed up as:
- Soft material rubbing on soft material = smooth wear on both
- Soft material rubbing on hard material = smooth wear on hard material, rough wear on soft material
- Hard material rubbing on hard material = rough wear on both
So in a roughness map, the area around your keyhole will be rougher than the surrounding (metal key to metal contact). If it has a handle, the handle will be worn smoother (hand to metal contact, hand is soft). And so on down the line.
Ray tracing is not the answer to this problem. PBR is the current industry accepted solution to light modelling in a 3D environment and works incredibly well. The technique was originally developed by disney for use in their movies but has been picked up by a number of game studios including it's use in UE4 (assuming the artists use it properly, which currently most do not).
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn
is an excellent resource for using toolbag which is the best image based lighting system out there right now for game assets. It also has a lot of info on PBR theory and practice. If you're interested in making PBR textures and stuff, I'd look into Quixel Suite or Substance Painter/Designer
I often heard Physically Based Rendering without knowing what it meant, and assumed it was something more like Radiosity.
This introduction and its links to these two blog posts was really interesting to me. I'm pretty sure they cover the same techniques used in the OP.
One thing I'm uncertain of - do these methods give a valid solution to the Rendering Equation?
The free Cryengine is definitely not physically based. It's an old version before the update that added physically-based materials... You have to subscribe to it to get the physically based rendering. If you just want a physically-based renderer that runs on a graphics card but doesn't take forever to converge, you might look into Toolbag 2, it's state-of-the-art for rendering static scenes in real time, but it's not really a game engine. When Unity 5 comes out it'll have physically-based rendering available as well, but who knows if it's going to cost you money to get things lit in linear space or tonemapped... plus I hear that your objects can only be affected by one reflection capture at a time, which is really suboptimal and can create jarring transitions as objects move between areas.
You can get a UE4 subscription for free if you're a student here. If you're not a student, you can pay $20 for one month's subscription, cancel the subscription immediately so it doesn't charge you again, and use any version of the engine that was released during that month forever. You'll have to pay another $20 for an update though, if you want a particular new feature or bugfix, and if you don't have a way to pay online obviously that will be problematic.
Sigh, do you even know what the hell you're talking about, at all? Spec and gloss (or metalness maps in some pipelines) are essential in a PBR workflow. I'm a 3D artist in the industry, I think you should read up on PBR texturing before you comment any further. Here's a good resource.
The general idea is that things are lit by other things, not just light sources. Light bounces from thing to thing.
Physically-based means that it take into account the light sources and the things in the room, and reflects that light towards the camera in the way that real objects would, taking into account things like reflectivity, roughness, color, etc.