Have you heard? Andrew is introducing the use of PBR within 3D coat. Here is some more information I found on The Foundry websites about other things coming someday -
He supposedly hired 3 additional programmers (not counting the guy who handles the MAC and Linux builds, and Raul, who handles the LiveClay tools) earlier in the year, and one of those is supposed to be working on expanding the Retopo room to be a more full-fledged Poly modeler, and they plan to implement NURBS mainly for export to Manufactuing standard file formats (ie., STEP, IGES, etc).
After PBR, I think Andrew plans to add true Sculpting layers (per object) in the "Sculpt" workspace. You can already do that with the image based sculpting toolset in the Paint Workspace, but most people are going to do most or all of their sculpting in the Sculpt room/workspace. Then he will likely handle the poly modeling tools. So, I think that is the progression.
I haven't heard, nor do I know what PBR is or does. However, I do know they have wanted to move towards more poly modelling in the retopo room.
If it's usable, it'll be great, as 3D coat is pretty terrible to use for geometric objects right now.
Some useful explanations of PBR -
http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory
http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/136389
physics and beyond me - http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~cutler/classes/advancedgraphics/S13/papers/lafortune_94.pdf
It's becoming more popular in many texturing applications, like Allegorithmic's line and Quixel.
I'm watching this closely since I have 3D Coat and the Allegorithmic's tools. Substance Painter looks really interesting though I haven't tested it much (yet!)
I think I understand the basics, but correct me if I'm wrong, but is this to mean that it will only improve the rendering in the render room of 3D Coat and not exported objects? If so, I think I'm more interested in the new modelling tools in retopo.
Quote from: Upon Infinity on October 29, 2014, 03:10:39 PM
I think I understand the basics, but correct me if I'm wrong, but is this to mean that it will only improve the rendering in the render room of 3D Coat and not exported objects? If so, I think I'm more interested in the new modelling tools in retopo.
Yes exactly!
I don't believe in apps which "can do it all" but I rather believe in highly specialized/niche apps.
PBR is nice for turntable presentation of your creation, but it is completely lost as soon as it goes outside of 3D Coat.
Unless the whole industry starts to standardize their shading/texturing methods I see little use for a modeller to have a PBR-er.
No, PBR is useful outside of 3D Coat, which is the only reason to do it. The Allegorithmic set of tools, including Painter, can all use it. The maps that can be created using PBR can be used in any application and have already been used in some games. It's taking off, because it's a different way (and seem a better way) to do materials and texturing. Quixel uses PBR. Marmoset uses PBR. Unreal Engine uses PBR.
Allegorithmic's Painter is pretty amazing and so much less money than other similar painting programs. The Allegorithmic staff is very helpful and I think you would find their texturing and materials through any of their applications are top notch.
An example for UE4 - https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/physically-based-shading-in-ue4
They are all doing the *same* PBR?
I think the biggest concern right now is from what I've read, PBR doesn't have a well defined spec. So I'm not sure about Andrew's implementation, but I'm sure he's privy to more information than I can get with general searches on PBR.
But yes, TU has a good point -- apps like 3D Coat or Zbrush are usually not the end of the creation chain, so it needs to be implemented in a way other apps can take advantage of it.
As long as 3D Coat's PBR isn't the same PBR as anyone's PBR (did I just say...PBR?) then it isn't adding much, because you would still need to convert stuff to make it work in other parts of your pipeline.
As long as such, among many others things in CG, isn't standardized, I see little use and desirability for such functions.
Frankly I still don't see the fuzz about this?
PBR may not be standardized (but then again nothing in CG is) but EVERY studio (ILM, Weta, DD, MPC etc etc etc) are moving in this direction as are ALL the major rendering tools (PRman, Mantra, v-ray etc etc)...
and there are some pretty standardized BRDFs (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Functions) - these define how light interacts with different surfaces.
basically PBR removes all (most/many) the hacks that renderers have had to use to approximate how light interacts with a surface - Phong is a hack, GI is a hack etc etc.
for truly photorealistic imagery you have to replicate how real light interacts with real materials (note I say 'interact' and not 'reflect' or 'bounces' - very different things).
check this out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbiased_rendering
So if PBR is not standardized then why would the big players move to PBR? What's their advantage? Just so that assets come in 90% OK from another studio?
I see no big advantage if it won't be standardized eventually.
Anything which does not compute the render equation by Kajiya brute force is basically/essentially biased rendering, right?
it's not about transferring assets it's about the efficient (read cheap and easy) way of rendering an object with real world light and real materials - true photrealism.
the difference is the same as rendering human skin before subsurface scattering and after - no one would think to render human skin these days without sss...so soon PDR rendering will become the default method - you'll always have the opportunity to render in the traditional ways, and in some cases this might be better (faster or more suited to the style you're after) but anyone doing VFX and rendering elements that need to integrate with live action footage will need to use PBR.
and when I say PBR isn't 'standardized' that really just means that there isn't one single method/implementation, it's a young technique and is improving all the time...PRman 19 will mark a big change in the way most studios render, Mantra will have an unbiased option from what I hear, and Arnold is getting more popular.
as for Terragen, there isn't any reason to feel that it isn't 'keeping up with the industry' ot that it needs to change anytime soon - but a physically based render out of Terragen would be pretty cool, given all of Terragen's other abilities.
Yes I see your point Michael, but why oh why would 3DCoat need a PBR and what is the fuzz about it?
I remember some guys asking for camera animation and PBR-like rendering for World-Machine. I only agree with such proposals/reqeusts if the software itself is very mature in regard to its functionality and possibilities.
So to get back to 3D Coat, I agree with Upon Infinity then who says it would be more interesting then to have new retopo tech.
Ghehe sorry for derailing this topic, but I just can't wrap my brain around pushing software outside of its own niche/strengths.
(Better standardize surfaces (OpenSubdiv) volumes (OpenVDB) etc. and everybody really use that to THEN create niche applications with highly specialized functionality and allow the standards to allow for easy exchange and production.
The CG industry is so counterproductive and constantly re-inventing the wheel.
Given the huge recent discussion on CGSociety it seems that this won't change anytime soon, because they actually seem to like it.)
ah well now we're really talking about a company adding a trendy feature just to say they have it...
I agree that developers should really stick to fixing bugs and solidifying their feature set, implementing things that are becoming more 'standard' (alembic, openSubD, VDB, bullet etc) than adding things that don't really contribute to the core of their application...
I can see the use of having PBR in 3DCoat if you were using it for look dev - but frankly NO ONE is using it for that - this isn't a criticism of 3DCoat, just a fact of the industry - but it may have been easy for them to implement and may not have taken any developer time away from their main features...
I agree Martin, but I would imagine they're going to leverage some existing open source code to accomplish it. It would be foolish not to.
- Oshyan
Just received a newsletter from the company confirming 3DC's PBR implementation, although they didn't elaborate. However, the screenshots they provided were in the Paint Room, not the Render Room, which is interesting as I assumed it would somehow change the way things are rendered, not actually implemented. It makes me wonder what is actually being changed in the typical 3d process. Is there something in the mesh itself that's changing, something in the maps, or is something new being added? This might be an exciting development.
QuoteI assumed it would somehow change the way things are rendered, not actually implemented.
it's both.
PBR changes the way you render - but this requires a different way of creating shaders and textures.
this is why the examples are given from the Paint Room - because you'll be painting different textures in a different way than before.
this link has some very good info:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fb9_KgCo0noxROKN4iT8ntTbx913e-t4Wc2nMRWPzNk/edit?pli=1
Been dabbling with 3DC's PBR tools...they are actually kind of neat. The chatter on the 3DC forum is that most node-based renderers should (or already do) support PBR. I guess this means it might be reasonably easy to implement Terragen to do this?
Also, I find the term Physically-Based Rendering to be a little misleading. I think Physically-Based Texturing to be more accurate. However, given my past inability to get an entire industry to embrace my more accurate labelling of technology, I'm afraid I'll have to let it slide. :P
For Planetside:
I was speaking with Andrew over YouTube and apparently, a renderer does not need specific PBR support. It sounds like you need a gloss map and a coloured specular map, which are not familiar to me. Does Terragen support these under different names or by using the existing maps in a certain way or through functions? Thanks.
A coloured specular map is simple; you can plug that into the Default Shader's reflectivity image or perhaps the reflection tint image. I'm not sure which is more appropriate in this case, but they should both do the same thing if the diffuse is black.
Gloss map can be imported as the specular roughness image, with "invert specular roughness" turned on. Glossiness is the inverse of roughness. Set the roughness slider to the max (0.8 ).
I don't know how well this will work with the assets you're testing. Terragen won't render properly diffuse surfaces when the roughness slider is at the max, and these assets you're working with might expect them to. But I would start with these settings and see how well it works.
Matt
Thanks, Matt. Although I couldn't find the reflection tint image input, I did get much better results than my first try. It may just be a question of the right work flow in 3DC and the right settings in Terragen. It doesn't quite look as good as it does in 3DC, but I think we're on the right path.
I'll give out the files to anyone else who's interested in PBR and wants to do some testing.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g96j8qmxtexfyeb/PBR%20test.zip?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/g96j8qmxtexfyeb/PBR%20test.zip?dl=0)
Of course, this assumes I'm exporting them correcting, which may not be the case. And this version of 3DC is still in Beta.
Also, I'd be interested to see how other renderers will render this out. I think Maya has good compatibility, so if anyone who has Maya is feeling adventurous...
Getting closer, although I did cheat a little bit on this one by doubling up my gloss map as the diffuse map but with very little strength. I think I see why this gets used in games, as the textures seem to fail at the near point. Not sure yet if there's a way to get higher resolution out of the default PBR textures.
Effect of gloss in animation. It's good, but not great, although a lot of the subtlety was lost in YT compression. The non glossy parts (colour specular) should be reflective (at least they are in 3DC). No idea of how to accomplish that. The fact may be, it just might not be possible in TG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoj0beP5j88&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoj0beP5j88&feature=youtu.be)
Am I really the only one interested in this stuff (because I can stop posting)? ;)
Nah keep posting. Someone is still reading but have nothing to post maybe. I am reading at least.
I tried some things very fast.
The only thing i can say isn't much constructive regarding Terragen.
Why have we always load nearly all textures and have to make adjustments?
I know that loading different objects in different programs are always in this or that capacity problematic.
But i think there is much room for enhancement in that aspect.
Especially if you think that we have very few object types to import.
Feel better? ;)
Quote from: Kadri on January 22, 2015, 01:13:05 PM
The only thing i can say isn't much constructive regarding Terragen.
Why have we always load nearly all textures and have to make adjustments?
I made a post once about what's in an .mtl file. It's here: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,18664.msg181553.html#msg181553
And yes, I do feel better.