I need a refresher! 8th Gen Environment Art Pipelines/Workflows/Techniques
polycounter lvl 10
I'm an environment artist, and I started my professional career during last gen where the asset creation pipeline was pretty straight forward and revolved around the following:
- Props with unique diffuse/spec/normal textures, all within 0-1 UV space.
- Tileable textures with or without vertex color blends (and blend maps) for variation.
- Decals for details
I've worked on Disney Infinity which due to style and engine constraints had a very limited texture workflow that relied heavily on the above techniques. Currently, I'm working on a browser-based title that again relies heavily on last-gen techniques, so I'm very afraid of falling behind this gen. I would like to create some current-gen stuff to add to my portfolio.
As I look more and more into current-gen engines (Unreal 4, et al) I'm seeing a shift into new technologies, workflows and methods of texturing and building worlds, so I'm wondering if anyone has a view or opinion on this and could direct me to explanations or training materials that I could dig into? I do not want to be left behind but I don't have the team or the time at work to really explore the new stuff, so I have to do it on my own. I have done some initial searching, but I guess it's all so new, so there isn't much that explains things really well.
Some things I have run across:
-PBR rendering (among the new tech, I have the best understanding of this one)
-Multi-tile UVs (stuff like what is featured here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flsJcwYN3H4 )
-Modular texturing with multiple, tiling texture files
Also, any information about more advanced Unreal 4 material workflows would help. I open scenes like the Reflections Subway scene in Unreal 4 and I have no idea what's going on in their material set ups despite having worked a good amount in UDK, haha. Thank you for your help, and if I run across anything, I'll post here.
- Props with unique diffuse/spec/normal textures, all within 0-1 UV space.
- Tileable textures with or without vertex color blends (and blend maps) for variation.
- Decals for details
I've worked on Disney Infinity which due to style and engine constraints had a very limited texture workflow that relied heavily on the above techniques. Currently, I'm working on a browser-based title that again relies heavily on last-gen techniques, so I'm very afraid of falling behind this gen. I would like to create some current-gen stuff to add to my portfolio.
As I look more and more into current-gen engines (Unreal 4, et al) I'm seeing a shift into new technologies, workflows and methods of texturing and building worlds, so I'm wondering if anyone has a view or opinion on this and could direct me to explanations or training materials that I could dig into? I do not want to be left behind but I don't have the team or the time at work to really explore the new stuff, so I have to do it on my own. I have done some initial searching, but I guess it's all so new, so there isn't much that explains things really well.
Some things I have run across:
-PBR rendering (among the new tech, I have the best understanding of this one)
-Multi-tile UVs (stuff like what is featured here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flsJcwYN3H4 )
-Modular texturing with multiple, tiling texture files
Also, any information about more advanced Unreal 4 material workflows would help. I open scenes like the Reflections Subway scene in Unreal 4 and I have no idea what's going on in their material set ups despite having worked a good amount in UDK, haha. Thank you for your help, and if I run across anything, I'll post here.
Replies
PBR Encyclopedia
A collection of a ton of information compiled by 3py0n (respect).
Marmoset PBR Tutorials
Perfect place to start, they're simple enough to understand even if you have no background on PBR. There are two tutorials, one about the practical implementation of PBR and another about the Theory. Both are very important to understand.
Sebastian Lagarde - PBR in Unreal 4
Sebastian Lagarde - Feeding a PBR system
Sebastian Lagarde - PBR from a programming side
Sebastian is a Zeus among men and he kindly provided the rest of us mortals with his knowledge.
Andrew Maximov - PBR texturing(Videos)
A solid theoretical and practical overview of PBR by Andrew Maximov, pretty legit stuff.
Unite 2014 - Mastering PBR(Video)
A talk given at the most recent Unite conference, about half theory and half practical use with Substance.
The Game Dev Cast - PBR Special(Video)
Some lovely Polycount users talk about PBR and answer a ton of questions from the moderator and audience.
John Carmack talks about light and rendering for an hour and a half(Video)
This is more of an overview of rendering and lighting but he touches on a lot of subject that are related to PBR and gives a super solid history of rendering and how we got where we are today.
Start reading the Unreal Engine 4 documentation. They even have a section that explains the Reflections sample (alongside other samples released by Epic).