Sorry for the lag in getting back to you Matt. Hope this doesn't constitute a hijacking Cypher
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I realize that Physical Based Rendering (PBR) is a hot and sometimes loosely used term these days. While not a technical guy per se, I do try to follow the current trends in rendering. I know that the TG renderer already uses physically based rendering as in specular and roughness (and probably a whole lot more outside of my understanding). What I really want to accomplish is to use the increasing number of available scanned assets to their optimal quality in TG. The Quixel Megascan libraries are tremendous assets and relatively inexpensive. I now own virtually all of the 3D scan content from them and have used some of them in my last few TG renders. But, I know I'm not getting the most out of them. As in many things in TG, the inability may be entirely caused by my lack of understanding of how to properly use the controls. Using the Megascan assets as an example though, I'm left with a number of maps that don't easily plug into TG's texture map workflow. Megascans two PBR workflow options are the same as the Allegorithmic options of either Specular/Roughness or Metal/Gloss. The Specular/Roughness maps from Megascans are: albedo, bump, displacement, roughness, fuzz, normal, normal bump, specular. The Metal/Gloss maps are: albedo, bump, displacement, cavity, fuzz, gloss, normal, normal bump.
I've attached a couple of images to illustrate my current efforts using a Megascan asset. First is a comparison with my TG render alongside the sample image of the same asset from the Quixel website. It's a lovely asset and I think it looks pretty decent in the TG render, but to my eye the sample is clearly better. Discounting the different lighting and lens setting, the detail areas are worth comparing. However when I compared my test renderings in TG, I'm hard pressed to see much of a difference between no maps applied to all the maps that I could apply (given my understanding of applying texture maps in TG).
A simple (simplistic?) response to your offer is: if possible, create a texture loading template for the various map types for both Specular/Roughness and Metal/Gloss PBR work flows.
I suspect that the two normal maps play a big part in the final image quality. I don't know if those can be supported in the current TG render engine. Once again I only have a limited understanding of the technicalities involved.
If the current TG renderer indeed can accomplish that, I would truly appreciate a tutorial showing how, if not I'd love to see the capability added to the 'Roadmap'. Again, thanks for replying to one of my off hand comments.