Making sense of Marmoset's Albedo into Unreal Engine 4?

JordanN

So I think I understand most things about how to make a physically accurate diffuse/albedo texture, like not painting any shadows in the diffuse or leaving out most detail for the roughness/gloss maps . But what I've always struggled with getting right was what the actual color/values, that doesn't end in a hundred trial and error experiments.

Before I made this thread, my usual method was to just look at overcast photos and sample values from there. But then I remember users pointing out that my diffuse colors were too dark, or it wasn't in "linear space". I also used those measured values Epic Games listed in their docs, especially for the metals.

But now that I look at the above infographic, I'm wondering if there's a simpler way to all of this. For example, the chart depicts a range going from black to white. My guess is that materials that line up with colored spheres, will always appear that way in the diffuse?

So any brick material should have the same value as very dark grey whereas something that is very ceramic is suppose to be much much brighter?

Also, assuming the above is correct, does this mean I never have to create new textures for any range of lighting setups I go after? For example, I see this image:


It depicts the one camera lens. But what if I have a multitude of props I want all to look very close to a photo? Will I still get those results?

EarthQuake

The albedo textures listed in that tutorial are merely examples, not absolute rules you need to follow. The albedo of a a surface type, like brick, will vary hugely depending on any number of factors, but especially the simple color of the brick. No you should not make the value of every brick texture match that chart. The purpose of all the charts in the tutorial is to act as reference, so you can contrast and compare the material values of various surface types.

As to the comment on linear space, whoever told you that gave you either misleading or incomplete advice.

As to your last question, if you set up your materials well, you should not need to make any changes to suit different lighting environments.

ZacD

Generally, you'll want to look up what general range that material should have as it's albedo, then if you are using and sampling from a photo, adjust the colors of the photo to match the PBR values you looked up. And when your using a photo, you want to make sure you are only sampling variation in the surface colors, and not shadows and highlights.