3D Coat - PBR and more

Started by rcallicotte, October 28, 2014, 05:04:52 PM

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Oshyan

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

Upon Infinity

#16
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.

goldfarb

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
--
Michael Goldfarb | Senior Technical Director | SideFX | Toronto | Canada

Upon Infinity

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

Upon Infinity

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.

Matt

#20
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
Just because milk is white doesn't mean that clouds are made of milk.

Upon Infinity

#21
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

Of course, this assumes I'm exporting them correcting, which may not be the case.  And this version of 3DC is still in Beta.

Upon Infinity

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...

Upon Infinity

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.

Upon Infinity

#24
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

Am I really the only one interested in this stuff (because I can stop posting)?  ;)


Kadri


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?  ;)

Upon Infinity

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.