Physically based rendering in games
ngon master
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NINJA ADMIN EDIT
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Some of the recent conversation in the UE3 thread has centered around physically based rendering for games, this is really a topic that deserves it thread so here we go!
First, some links:
Image based lighting, which is essential for a PBR workflow - Paul Debevec, Debevec's research is probably the basis for most IBL implementations out there today: http://www.pauldebevec.com/Research/IBL/
Adopting a physically based shading model (mostly math) by Sebastien Lagarde: http://seblagarde.wordpress.com/tag/physically-based-rendering/
PBR in Remember Me: http://www.fxguide.com/featured/game-environments-parta-remember-me-rendering/
PBR in UE4: http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course/karis/s2013_pbs_epic_slides.pdf
Kodde's PBR Maya shader: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1505129
Let me know if anyone else has good resources and I'll link them here as well.
I've pulled some posts out of the UE3 thread, and combined them in this thread, so some comments may look a little confusing.
(Sorry zac, since this is the oldest post it will always be up top, hence the editing)
-EQ
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I would like to get a head start on learning how to create assests for physically based lighting, since is seems like many major next gen games are going to start focusing on it.
NINJA ADMIN EDIT
*******
Some of the recent conversation in the UE3 thread has centered around physically based rendering for games, this is really a topic that deserves it thread so here we go!
First, some links:
Image based lighting, which is essential for a PBR workflow - Paul Debevec, Debevec's research is probably the basis for most IBL implementations out there today: http://www.pauldebevec.com/Research/IBL/
Adopting a physically based shading model (mostly math) by Sebastien Lagarde: http://seblagarde.wordpress.com/tag/physically-based-rendering/
PBR in Remember Me: http://www.fxguide.com/featured/game-environments-parta-remember-me-rendering/
PBR in UE4: http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course/karis/s2013_pbs_epic_slides.pdf
Kodde's PBR Maya shader: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1505129
Let me know if anyone else has good resources and I'll link them here as well.
I've pulled some posts out of the UE3 thread, and combined them in this thread, so some comments may look a little confusing.
(Sorry zac, since this is the oldest post it will always be up top, hence the editing)
-EQ
*******
I would like to get a head start on learning how to create assests for physically based lighting, since is seems like many major next gen games are going to start focusing on it.
Replies
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=120093&highlight=unity+shader
There is also a shader for maya by kodde
http://www.kostas.se/?p=30
When I heard about it, I also tried to make on for UDK, but my knowledge in shaders is/was a bit to limited to get it working properly, maybe if someone can/wants I can throw it online to fix it/get it working as it should.
That's basicly the only things that are out there as far as I know untill the new unreal/udk4 comes out or a new version of cryengine
and the Fox engine demo. I kinda wish I used maya right now
I've been reading everything I can(and watching all of the videos), but it's almost useless if I can't try it out in an engine. I'm gonna give the Maya plugin a shot though.
CryEngine 3 is closest thing to PBR but it still quite off. You can start using CE3 right now. Although remember that default ToD have nothing to do with PBR, and you will need to create your own from scratch.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=116169&postcount=10
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117463
read also that blog entry on how to chose vales for textures.
Apparently there is some standard of how materials are defined, that their roughness and what not is measurable in the real world.
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Siggraph presentations http://blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2012-shading-course/
Database of BRDF materials http://www.merl.com/brdf/
http://seblagarde.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/feeding-a-physical-based-lighting-mode/
Its measurable. IMO having worked with a PBL system - in a 8 bit workflow its ridiculous to clamp the values like they typically are. You end up with maybe 15 values to express the variation in spec and there are very few materials in the world that can fit into that standard.
http://seblagarde.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/dontnod-specular-and-glossiness-chart/
Here's another link while we're at it! I really liked the setup here. It seems to be very intuitive and easy to work with from what I can gather.
http://disney-animation.s3.amazonaws.com/library/s2012_pbs_disney_brdf_notes_v2.pdf
On a side note they offer a solution for what you are talking about radiancef0rge in that paper. I've run into this myself aswell, painting a specular map in terms of 1 -15% brightness value is a real pain in the ass because thats where the human eye has a terrible time distinguishing between value shifts.
For those who don't know, when working in a PBR system the specular values are not at all what you would imagine. For instance diamonds in real life are one of the things that reflect the highest percent of light and they are only about 15%)
Also I know that for the BRDF there are far more values of glossiness in real life then 255 so I'm curious to see how different studios will handle these sort of setups. I really love working with PBR though, as it really makes getting the end result I want a lot quicker.
EQ, any idea on when marmoset will add this type of shader functionality? Is it something you guys are even looking into?
Being able to visualize the BRFD will be key for the coming generation of games I believe. We're really going to need the ability to see this stuff in real time as we edit it.
I can't tell you anything concrete other than we're looking into it. Its something that I personally feel is going to be pretty important moving forward, so we'll see how it shakes out.
Any personal experience that people have working with this sort of shader setup would be great to hear, what you liked about it, and what you didn't, how easy it is to work with compared to a traditional diffuse/normal/spec/gloss workflow, and any suggestions that you think would make this sort of shader setup easier to work with.
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Watch the Kill Zone video, they use a combination of special cube maps with real time reflections.
There were realtime reflections in highly localized areas but I do not recall how they were done
Also, I'm unsure on the advantages/quality differences beween a PBL texture settup and fully utilizing Diff, Spec, Gloss and Image based Lighting with Cubemaps. Is the diffrence that profound?
Edit: OK, the Guerrilla talk explained quie a bit. I'm still not sure how much of the diffrence is their new lighting engine vs the material set up, but from the sounds of things it's actually quite the pipeline improvement once you get into it.
You could always just work in the 0-1 range, and then just divide the final value by (1/max specular value).
So for something that reflects 15% of the light, you'd get the final value by dividing the full-range image by (1/0.15) = 6.67. And its easier for your eyes too.
gloss maps (i really prefer to call this roughness) are technically the same as always, but since the specular term is now normalized, the roughness also affects the brightness of the specular highlight.
I've been digging PBR myself recently and it is much easier to setup than you think for first time.
Non-PBR will work. To some degree, but they will not look good.
In general making PBR textures is much easier and faster. You need to keep them as simple as possible. It's job of renderer to make them look good not yours. Yours job is to only provide information about material in texture.
Here is nice info about it:
http://seblagarde.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/feeding-a-physical-based-lighting-mode/#more-107
Tl:dr version is simple object should look good only with normal,spec and gloss map. Color map is nice addition that should enchance look, but shouldn't be needed to make object look good.
Another advantage is, once you made correct material you can use it in any other PBR setup.
As for cubemaps. I've been thinking about semi automated solution (in this case for cryengine), where we cloud add many Env probes and automate baking them. Let's say bake cube map for every hour (for night cycle), and then blend between then as the time pass.
Fortunetly IBL is not that intrusive like lightmaps, so it cloud be nice solution for day-night cycle, even with destruction enviroment. Doubt many players will see much of a diffrence if part of cube would be destroyed in world but not in cube map.
I remember seeing a post in WAYWO of a gun using different maps. If I remember correctly, they were Diffuse/Albedo(the flat color, with no AO/Cavity added), Substance, Gloss/Roughness, and one more that I'm forgetting.
If your geometry and/or normal/parallax map create an "edge" in the gbuffer, then yes it will "do it for you". In an ideal world you wouldn't be painting very much surface-geometry based (ala edges and indents) information into the specular MASK at all.
As Equil said, all that really changes is your specular level and roughness textures. Using the 0-255 range in the texture as your entire value ranges though means you're leaving (often large) parts of your histogram unused which is wasteful and likely won't compress as well. Coupling your PBR specular textures with a scalar multiplier value in your shader may be a better solution, albeit a little less simple to understand.
You wouldn't be painting highlights on edges unless the material was different in those areas, or the edge was worn darker/lighter/smoother.
thanks exactly what i wanted to know, so no longer have to fake thigns like edge highlights, if it is there on the mesh and in the normal, it will act like a edge would in rl
THIS. this was my biggest gripe unless you use some new compression the bands it creates are ridiculous. Although I ended up finding a work around by putting some shitty noise in the normal maps.
You could normalize the histogram in photoshop and de-normalize it with a multiply and add operation in the shader.
This way you would use the full range in the texture and still have the proper values in the shader.
I've been working a vehicle in here. They are still far off from what they want, but it's getting there. Visually is quite impressive so far, even at it's current state. But the shaders are still not near final and missing many features.
But it's super super easy to get assets in the engine, and it runs well.
They also push out a chunk of updates/new features pretty often.
EDIT: Here's the part of the video when he explains it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_29M8F-sRsU#t=830s
Does this only apply to next-gen physics based lighting or does it apply to this generation too? Should the only maps on a material that is metal be a specular colour map and a gloss map? I mean assuming that you're going for photo-realism?
So say that it was your typical engine like UE3 for example with a basic shader and cube maps, would you just use specular colour and gloss for say a sheet of steel with a rusty patch with variation in both maps to define those materials accurately? I'm actually tempted to go try it now that I'm typing this out.
Also, is a roughness map comparable to a gloss map?
EDIT: is an albedo map just another name for diffuse?
I think pretty much any system using a PBL lighting is also going to be using some sort of image based lighting for the specular reflections, so not sure this is really a concern.
roughness kinda equals gloss
albedo kinda equals diffuse
If you are using UDK or something similar, you might want to put some reflection in the emissive.
So really, I don't think you would want to do PBL without IBL, it just doesn't make much sense to try and get all physically accurate without doing accurate specular reflections as well.
Edit: Ah wait, nevermind. Misunderstood what he was asking. Disregard.
If you have a shader written (or built in UDK) to account for this setup then you could do it current gen for sure. In any setup where you can use a color specular and you have reflections (cubemap or realtime) I imagine you could make your diffuse black and have it setup to use the specular color in this manner.
Are you referring to the marmoset shaders that use IBL that you guys are bringing to Unity? Looking forward to seeing that!
Sorry to drift off topic. But yeah, Guerilla Games presentation does a really good job of illustrating things with their screenshot examples.
EDIT: Cool! thanks for the answers to my questions guys!
Yep, we should have some more info on it soon, we've got it running on iOS, which is pretty cool.
Sort of.
Image based lighting in games is generally composed of two cubemaps, one for the diffuse lighting, and one for the specular reflections. If you've got a good IBL system, you can control glossiness by saving various specular cubemaps with different levels of blur and then blending between them for the matte through mirror reflection spectrum.
So really you just need two cubemap lookups, which means you can do it on current gen, next gen, even some mobile platforms as well.
HDR refers to files with high dynamic range, and isn't really specific to cubemaps or IBL. A photograph can be HDR, a texture can be HDR, etc. Though generally high quality IBL systems will use HDR files for the cubemaps.
HDRI, Cubemaps, and IBL aren't really interchangable terms, though they do tend to hang out in the same whitepapers. =D
Cubemap for diffuse lighting is confusing me though - what's the craic with that? I'm not down on in-engine lighting methods.
Yes, the conclusion of that thread wasn't so much HDR = useless, it was Per talking about how he compressed an HDR image into the range of an LDR image, and used fancy maths to extrapolate it back to HDR-ish in the shader. Skyshop will ship with RGBM support for IBL cubemaps, which is similar (storing HDR data in an LDR image + alpha channel) and gives good memory savings over something like 16 or 32 bit float HDR files which can be huge.
If you've ever used Toolbag, the default lighting is from a diffuse (blurry) cubemap. The specular reflection cubemap is view dependent, but the diffuse cubemap is static (well, its tied to the sky direction, but you get it I'm sure).
I recently had the privilege of implementing this sort of setup in a shader for the ambient lighting. The results are quite good. You can create an irradiance map to use for diffuse lighting via the amd cube map generator found here.
The simple way I've always thought of it, is if you have a cubemap of a field with blue sky and green grass, it will use those colour values to ambiently light the model, so that the bottom lights slightly green, the top slightly blue. Much like 'bounce' light IRL.
EDIT: Found it out, of course. Right in plain sight. Sorry guys! I swear it's not my fault.
Interesting discussion so far.