I have a video ready showing some of main bugs I am running into. Are you guys okay with me posting it here, or do you rather want a simple text description of the issues ?
I have a video ready showing some of main bugs I am running into. Are you guys okay with me posting it here, or do you rather want a simple text description of the issues ?
No problems with that, please feel free to post text, images, videos, whatever you like.
We can't seem to reproduce this on our end. Could you email us your hardware specs, OS version, and maybe a simple .tbscene file that reliably crashes? Thanks!
OS: Win 7
GPU: 650m SLI
CPU: i7 3630
Ram: 16
Ill be posting the tbscene soonish in this thread.
Next I will also have a bullet point list of notes regarding the UI elements themselves, and other less crucial remarks. More on that soon !
Ok sweet, I look forward to seeing your notes. This just in: video bug reports are the best thing ever.
I've got everything in your video logged here, the only thing I had a question about was the sky-brightness slider issue on file reload. I can't reproduce this.
Does this happen with every scene, or only certain scenes? (can you get me a scene if its only specific ones?)
Next I will also have a bullet point list of notes regarding the UI elements themselves, and other less crucial remarks. More on that soon !
I'm experiencing the scene losing it's textures as well. Although in my scene ALL textures needs to be reassigned everytime I open it. Trying to move the textures to the root folder of my drive doesn't seems to work either, so the location doesn't seem to be the issue.
I'm experiencing the scene losing it's textures as well. Although in my scene ALL textures needs to be reassigned everytime I open it. Trying to move the textures to the root folder of my drive doesn't seems to work either, so the location doesn't seem to be the issue.
Pior: It looked like the spec map that wasn't loading was the only file name that had a space it in in your video (though I could be wrong), so try changing that to an underscore to see if that fixes the issue.
Here you are, anyone is allowed to download and mesh around if you feel like it. Clicks!
Here is also a quick workflow explanation for what its worth!
Hey thanks for the source files and the write up! I've loaded your scene up here but can't reproduce the visibility crash, which means it may be fixed already in our internal build here.
Just a note with your zip file: it looks like the textures were moved before you packaged everything up, so all of the materials load up blank.
Checked that one too but textures still fail to load, does this scene load up for you?
How about if you extract your zip file to a different directory?
Looking at the paths in the .tbscene file (loaded in a text editor), it looks like it should probably work if the .tbscene file is saved in the root dir (ie, above the /textures/ dir) but dropping it in there didn't fix it for me. Maybe try re-saving in there?
I've been playing with the beta and have been really enjoying it. I've been playing with the skin shader and have had some pleasing results. i've also put together my first weapon model, the Scar-H. both are still work in progress as I'm still experimenting with textures for the physically based rendering
some feedback:
love the clean interface and ease of use.
loading meshes, textures, HDRIs etc is all very quick.
loving the ability to simply pick any spot on the HDRI to create a realtime light linked to the HDRI rotation.
the specular cavity attribute is sooooo nice!
physically based rendering has been great, i'm generally getting results I'd expect.
some feedback / issues:
i would love to get the ability to turn on and off any attribute within the shader. it would be great to simply disable the color map, or the spec map without having to essentially disconnect the texture map and then reload it when I want it back. Going further with this idea, it would be great to have some basic override colors to select.
I often like to set my diffuse map to black or mid grey to see how my spec and gloss are reacting. it would also be great to have this functionality in the specular and gloss channels.
others have mentioned this, but I need a transparent shader with reflections for the corneas of the eyes.
I think i need a better indicator on the manipulator of lights so it easier to visualize their direction.
i enjoy the skin shader so far, but it doesn't seem like the subdermis map has a huge impact on the overall color of the skin. it certainly has an effect on the areas that are at the terminator of the shadow, but in my image attached with no diffuse map, you can see that not a lot of color is coming through from the subdermis. ideally i'd like to be able to paint veins, blotches etc in the subdermal and have it slightly come through. i'm coming from the point of view of having used the mental ray fast skin shader extensively. so I can clarify anything if needed.
it would be cool to have a control specifically for how much red bleed is at the edge of a shadow on the skin. the effect shows up when cranking the light intensity, but there are times i'd like to get just a little more edge bleed without having to drive up the light too high.
one last thing, I think it is a little confusing as to which textures should be in which color space. there is the toggle for SRGB or Linear, but I'm a little unsure which textures should be which setting. having experience with mental ray i would traditionally use gamma correct nodes on any map with color information to put it into linear space. gloss maps, bump maps, normal maps would all remain in SRGB because they're simply supplying the shader with numerical information.
By the way, I was wondering if you guy were gonna put back the mesh turntable option. Because I set up this three point light set up and I would like my mesh to turn to keep it and not my whole scene or light setup to turn. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?
I've been playing with the beta and have been really enjoying it. I've been playing with the skin shader and have had some pleasing results. i've also put together my first weapon model, the Scar-H. both are still work in progress as I'm still experimenting with textures for the physically based rendering
some feedback:
love the clean interface and ease of use.
loading meshes, textures, HDRIs etc is all very quick.
loving the ability to simply pick any spot on the HDRI to create a realtime light linked to the HDRI rotation.
the specular cavity attribute is sooooo nice!
physically based rendering has been great, i'm generally getting results I'd expect.
some feedback / issues:
i would love to get the ability to turn on and off any attribute within the shader. it would be great to simply disable the color map, or the spec map without having to essentially disconnect the texture map and then reload it when I want it back. Going further with this idea, it would be great to have some basic override colors to select.
I often like to set my diffuse map to black or mid grey to see how my spec and gloss are reacting. it would also be great to have this functionality in the specular and gloss channels.
others have mentioned this, but I need a transparent shader with reflections for the corneas of the eyes.
I think i need a better indicator on the manipulator of lights so it easier to visualize their direction.
i enjoy the skin shader so far, but it doesn't seem like the subdermis map has a huge impact on the overall color of the skin. it certainly has an effect on the areas that are at the terminator of the shadow, but in my image attached with no diffuse map, you can see that not a lot of color is coming through from the subdermis. ideally i'd like to be able to paint veins, blotches etc in the subdermal and have it slightly come through. i'm coming from the point of view of having used the mental ray fast skin shader extensively. so I can clarify anything if needed.
it would be cool to have a control specifically for how much red bleed is at the edge of a shadow on the skin. the effect shows up when cranking the light intensity, but there are times i'd like to get just a little more edge bleed without having to drive up the light too high.
one last thing, I think it is a little confusing as to which textures should be in which color space. there is the toggle for SRGB or Linear, but I'm a little unsure which textures should be which setting. having experience with mental ray i would traditionally use gamma correct nodes on any map with color information to put it into linear space. gloss maps, bump maps, normal maps would all remain in SRGB because they're simply supplying the shader with numerical information.
i think that does it for now. more to come!
Nice work, and thanks for the feedback!
RE: Skin shader stuff, the skin shader is scale dependent currently. This means that if your mesh is large by Toolbag standards the skin shader effects with be really subtle. Try scaling your mesh down to .1 or .01 and see if you are more happy with the control you get with the various skin shader functions.
RE: Color space, really this is down to your exact workflow, how you authored the content, what the end goal of the content is (will it go in a different engine?). By default, the sRGB setting per texture is set based on the type of input you're loading and we try to make a logical choice there, ie: normal maps should be linear space.
By the way, I was wondering if you guy were gonna put back the mesh turntable option. Because I set up this three point light set up and I would like my mesh to turn to keep it and not my whole scene or light setup to turn. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?
So you want the turntable just 1 mesh (or one group would probably be better) instead of the whole scene? IE: you want the character model to rotate but not the base/environment?
We are not currently planing to do this but if there is enough interest in it we will consider it.
If you want to rotate all meshes but not lights/sky/camera you can use the scene rotation, I'm pretty sure this only does mesh rotation, maybe that feature is a little confusing in how it is labeled.
RE: Skin shader stuff, the skin shader is scale dependent currently. This means that if your mesh is large by Toolbag standards the skin shader effects with be really subtle. Try scaling your mesh down to .1 or .01 and see if you are more happy with the control you get with the various skin shader functions.
Can you guys put up a little dummy character online with the correct size or something so that we can look if our stuff is the correct size?
hey Joe, thanks for that scene file but it crashes toolbag while loading. is it just me or can someone else check please ?
may be it was saved in a newer build than the one we have access to ?
Doh, yes that makes sense. This was saved in a newer build and will likely crash for anyone else. I'll post a new link when the next update is released I guess. Sorry!
Out of curiosity, is that some newer/upcoming version of dDo you used (if you can talk about that ) or do you just like that way of presenting the textures.
Either way looking forward to the writeup/the scene when the update gets released.
is that ok to make diffuse colors that bright?
metal color should be darker imho
If I recall, the Metalness "mask" tells the computer to use black as the albedo for any areas marked as white (metal); and to instead use the colour from the albedo to define the specular colour of said areas. So the diffuse colour of the metal isn't really that bright.
If I recall, the Metalness "mask" tells the computer to use black as the albedo for any areas marked as white (metal); and to instead use the colour from the albedo to define the specular colour of said areas. So the diffuse colour of the metal isn't really that bright.
I think I've pretty much got my head round PBR now, thanks to all the writeups and links posted recently. Looking at the diving helmet example, what's defining the index of refraction? The gloss/roughness map?
The whole zero diffuse contribution thing only applies to a theoretical "perfect" metal, not real-world metals, which can have quite high diffuse lighting contributions. Unfortunately a lot of people are caught up in the "black metal" idea, and I don't see it going away soon, just like a lot of people still think you need to use quads for everything.
While it's true that impurities exist in most metals which would give some diffuse properties, the impurities in the metal lead to such low BRDF values that they may as well be black anyway, that's the impression i've gotten from the disney BRDF software anyway.
The other thing to consider is that PBR is supposed to make things more consistent, not just more realistic. if you get good results 100% of the time by using the "black metal" technique, then why wouldn't you have that as your workflow?
Out of curiosity, is that some newer/upcoming version of dDo you used (if you can talk about that ) or do you just like that way of presenting the textures.
Either way looking forward to the writeup/the scene when the update gets released.
Hehe, the texture presentation style is actually something that we came up with at Marmoset (Andres Reinot, specifically), and those Quixel guys totally stole. Actually, we gave them permission.
This was textured in dDo though, it was a bit of an experiment to see if I could use the specular slot as the metalness mask, and yes you can, however a lot of the default values for effects/presets are not going to make sense. But you can sort of trick dDo into doing it anyway.
Fantastic work, the imperfections and the chunkiness of it all.
The rope doesn't seem like it's lit the same as the rest of the scene, you see what I mean, like it's floating off the page. Most likely because it doesn't have any fresnel. Missing fresnel on the rubber parts too, is that something which can't be controlled with maps (at least indirectly)?
Thanks! Yeah, the rope isn't quite there, I think it needs diffuse Fresnel (which isn't in yet outside of the skin shader) or something else to bring oring out the fibrous-ness of it.
There currently is not a direct input for specular Fresnel, it gets masked by the gloss content right now.
is that ok to make diffuse colors that bright?
metal color should be darker imho
As others have noted, when using the metalness mask type workflow the albedo map is essentially both the diffuse and specular map, with the metalness mask defining what is metal and what is not, and using black diffuse for metals, while pulling the specular color and intensity from the albedo map.
I think I've pretty much got my head round PBR now, thanks to all the writeups and links posted recently. Looking at the diving helmet example, what's defining the index of refraction? The gloss/roughness map?
There currently isn't a parameter for IOR, its a fixed value.
The whole zero diffuse contribution thing only applies to a theoretical "perfect" metal, not real-world metals, which can have quite high diffuse lighting contributions. Unfortunately a lot of people are caught up in the "black metal" idea, and I don't see it going away soon, just like a lot of people still think you need to use quads for everything.
For artists I think its essential theory to understand that pure metals have no diffuse, with the color coming solely from reflection. More often than not you see artists mistakenly use bright values in both diffuse and specular maps for metals, compounded with shaders that do not do energy conservation and you get really bad results. Whether you use a metalness workflow or a standard diffuse/spec/gloss/normals workflow (TB2 supports both, and both are physically accurate) understanding material properties is a great skill to have which I'm sure you'll agree (you taught me much of what I know about it so...).
Personally I feel like the standard D/S/G/N workflow is a bit more powerful, as the artist can set all of the values directly. However, I also think it requires more technical knowledge as far as what those values should be, and also results in more user error as well (common case: artists making specular intensity too bright for many materials types). I see the value in both methods though, and I think its clear that many game engines are switching over to the metalness type workflow, at least for some of their content, so we're going to do our best to support both methods.
Now, as far as impure metals, alloys, heavily worn metals, non-metals with metallic properties, variation such as oxidization, dust, dirt, etc I think this is a really good discussion to have. With a metalness mask you can use values other than 0 or 1, and if you have a surface that has a lot of variation or are creating something that isn't a pure metal you would certainly want to use values other than black and white. If anyone has more information on measured values for alloys, worn metals, metallic paints, faux-metallic plastics and things like that it would be great to see.
The other thing to consider is that PBR is supposed to make things more consistent, not just more realistic.
I just wanted to quote this since I agree with it and it is often mis-communicated.
It is about consistent shader behavior under different lighting conditions.
It is not about making every shader look like it needs to replicate an exact metal/platic/material in the real world.
For some productions, trying to make things as "real" as possible is what matters and PBR can help, but please lets not make all our games/films look as real as possible all the time. It would kill so much of the art that comes along with making things look appealing (versus "real").
I find it funny that some artists are so married to strict number vaules and ratios that they get upset over it...
All I can keep thinking of is a painter getting mad at a fellow painter for using too much blue in his sky paint mixture on his pallet.
Seems pretty silly to me.
Don't get me wrong, as 3D artists we should ALL know the technical details of how dielectric and metal materials work etc etc. But as I just stated, we ARE artist and should be using our artistic eyes as well. That ability to analyze and make artistic decisions is what makes our work unique and original. And, as stated before, the PBR workflow is most useful in unifying materials through different lighting conditions. Beyond that, how it's interpreted is all in the air. and I think that's a stength; not a weakness.
It's all meant with the best intentions though, Per. And that's all that matters.
-a pixel is either metal or not
-...and metal has zero diffuse contribution
-ALL non-metals can get away with using the same specular constant
Because i too, am a bastard...
1. there are only four semi-metals in existance, and all of those reflect light in a similar fashion. so yes, being metal or not is very definitely a binary thing.
2. metal does have zero, or close to zero diffuse contribution. if you were to put a numerical value between 0 and 255 for what that contribution is, it'd usually fall below 40. which is extremely dark... so dark that you might as well just call it black and be done with it. AND that's only in "hotspots" of impurities... if the impurity were spread evenly throughout the metal, it would be even lower.
3. i completely agree, not all non-metals can get away with a uniform reflectivity. BUT it does help make a workflow faster and more efficient to use the metal mask and have a specular constant. you can do a lot with a gloss map to sell non-metals that share a constant reflectivity.
so sure, the workflow isn't the most accurate, but it does give you good results fast. and unfortunately that's what the annual turnaround on AAA titles demands. So you're likely to see this workflow more commonly than the DSGN setup.
1. there are only four semi-metals in existance, and all of those reflect light in a similar fashion. so yes, being metal or not is very definitely a binary thing.
Something that I noticed while working on the diving helmet, I'm sure you're completely accurate here but when you get to real use I think it makes sense to have transitions.
For things like the oxidization here, if you really stick to either 0 or 1 you get a really rough transition that isn't what you see in the real world. In the real world oxidization happens gradually and from a normal distance you will generally see a fuzzy line/gradient to the effect. Sure if you look at it with a macro lens or microscope you'll see the individual particles of rust and metal being binary elements, but its not really what we notice when we see a real world object from a reasonable viewing distance.
So if you have enough texture res to give each little particle a pixel, sure, make it 0,1, otherwise you'll need some sort of gradual falloff.
If you've got a build, load it up and you should get a notice to update.
This build comes wit the usual spattering of new features and bug fixes, including UNDO, some tweaks to the movement/rotation widget, anisotropic specular shader(make sure to set both reflectivity and gloss to aniso to use) microfiber shader (lambert + fuzz yay!), focus tracking to keep your model in focus while adjust the camera, properly synced normal maps from 3ds max and a variety of other things.
Looks like we had an issue with the aniso shader compiling. Aniso is broken in the latest build, we'll try to get another update to fix this sometime soon.
also hiding the sky in the outliner using the eye icon, still crashes toolbag
We haven't been able to reproduce this yet. Does it happen with all skys? All scenes? If you have a specific scene that causes this crash it would be great to see.
btw, has there been any change to the way SSR works ? it seems the reflection is slightly stronger in the latest build, or i might just be seeing things.
Replies
I have a video ready showing some of main bugs I am running into. Are you guys okay with me posting it here, or do you rather want a simple text description of the issues ?
No problems with that, please feel free to post text, images, videos, whatever you like.
I am going over visibility-related bugs, material assignment, gizmo manipulator design, save/open bugs, and sky bugs.
[ame="
Next I will also have a bullet point list of notes regarding the UI elements themselves, and other less crucial remarks. More on that soon !
OS: Win 7
GPU: 650m SLI
CPU: i7 3630
Ram: 16
Ill be posting the tbscene soonish in this thread.
Clicks!
Here is also a quick workflow explanation for what its worth!
Zip file with alpha'd PNGs for TB2 logo
If you mean load a custom BG image that replaces the skybox image, sorry, not yet. On the todo list though.
You can load a custom panorama in the sky object properties though, pretty much all image formats are supported.
Ok sweet, I look forward to seeing your notes. This just in: video bug reports are the best thing ever.
I've got everything in your video logged here, the only thing I had a question about was the sky-brightness slider issue on file reload. I can't reproduce this.
Does this happen with every scene, or only certain scenes? (can you get me a scene if its only specific ones?)
Thanks P!
Fixed, thanks.
I'm experiencing the scene losing it's textures as well. Although in my scene ALL textures needs to be reassigned everytime I open it. Trying to move the textures to the root folder of my drive doesn't seems to work either, so the location doesn't seem to be the issue.
/Chris
See if this post helps: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1943422&postcount=411
Pior: It looked like the spec map that wasn't loading was the only file name that had a space it in in your video (though I could be wrong), so try changing that to an underscore to see if that fixes the issue.
Hey thanks for the source files and the write up! I've loaded your scene up here but can't reproduce the visibility crash, which means it may be fixed already in our internal build here.
Just a note with your zip file: it looks like the textures were moved before you packaged everything up, so all of the materials load up blank.
Checked that one too but textures still fail to load, does this scene load up for you?
How about if you extract your zip file to a different directory?
Looking at the paths in the .tbscene file (loaded in a text editor), it looks like it should probably work if the .tbscene file is saved in the root dir (ie, above the /textures/ dir) but dropping it in there didn't fix it for me. Maybe try re-saving in there?
some feedback:
love the clean interface and ease of use.
loading meshes, textures, HDRIs etc is all very quick.
loving the ability to simply pick any spot on the HDRI to create a realtime light linked to the HDRI rotation.
the specular cavity attribute is sooooo nice!
physically based rendering has been great, i'm generally getting results I'd expect.
some feedback / issues:
i would love to get the ability to turn on and off any attribute within the shader. it would be great to simply disable the color map, or the spec map without having to essentially disconnect the texture map and then reload it when I want it back. Going further with this idea, it would be great to have some basic override colors to select.
I often like to set my diffuse map to black or mid grey to see how my spec and gloss are reacting. it would also be great to have this functionality in the specular and gloss channels.
others have mentioned this, but I need a transparent shader with reflections for the corneas of the eyes.
I think i need a better indicator on the manipulator of lights so it easier to visualize their direction.
i enjoy the skin shader so far, but it doesn't seem like the subdermis map has a huge impact on the overall color of the skin. it certainly has an effect on the areas that are at the terminator of the shadow, but in my image attached with no diffuse map, you can see that not a lot of color is coming through from the subdermis. ideally i'd like to be able to paint veins, blotches etc in the subdermal and have it slightly come through. i'm coming from the point of view of having used the mental ray fast skin shader extensively. so I can clarify anything if needed.
it would be cool to have a control specifically for how much red bleed is at the edge of a shadow on the skin. the effect shows up when cranking the light intensity, but there are times i'd like to get just a little more edge bleed without having to drive up the light too high.
one last thing, I think it is a little confusing as to which textures should be in which color space. there is the toggle for SRGB or Linear, but I'm a little unsure which textures should be which setting. having experience with mental ray i would traditionally use gamma correct nodes on any map with color information to put it into linear space. gloss maps, bump maps, normal maps would all remain in SRGB because they're simply supplying the shader with numerical information.
i think that does it for now. more to come!
Nice work, and thanks for the feedback!
RE: Skin shader stuff, the skin shader is scale dependent currently. This means that if your mesh is large by Toolbag standards the skin shader effects with be really subtle. Try scaling your mesh down to .1 or .01 and see if you are more happy with the control you get with the various skin shader functions.
RE: Color space, really this is down to your exact workflow, how you authored the content, what the end goal of the content is (will it go in a different engine?). By default, the sRGB setting per texture is set based on the type of input you're loading and we try to make a logical choice there, ie: normal maps should be linear space.
So you want the turntable just 1 mesh (or one group would probably be better) instead of the whole scene? IE: you want the character model to rotate but not the base/environment?
We are not currently planing to do this but if there is enough interest in it we will consider it.
If you want to rotate all meshes but not lights/sky/camera you can use the scene rotation, I'm pretty sure this only does mesh rotation, maybe that feature is a little confusing in how it is labeled.
I will likely do a more thorough writeup on the process at a later date.
Diving helmet content for anyone who wants to have a look:
Diving helmet zip
may be it was saved in a newer build than the one we have access to ?
Sure, here's a simple cube with 6x2x2 dimensions, which should be roughly the size of a 6 foot tall person.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/499159/scalecube.obj
Doh, yes that makes sense. This was saved in a newer build and will likely crash for anyone else. I'll post a new link when the next update is released I guess. Sorry!
Either way looking forward to the writeup/the scene when the update gets released.
I used to have a full russian dive suit for a photo project. It was terrifying to put on. I can't even imagine wearing one underwater.
metal color should be darker imho
If I recall, the Metalness "mask" tells the computer to use black as the albedo for any areas marked as white (metal); and to instead use the colour from the albedo to define the specular colour of said areas. So the diffuse colour of the metal isn't really that bright.
that's exactly right.
While it's true that impurities exist in most metals which would give some diffuse properties, the impurities in the metal lead to such low BRDF values that they may as well be black anyway, that's the impression i've gotten from the disney BRDF software anyway.
The other thing to consider is that PBR is supposed to make things more consistent, not just more realistic. if you get good results 100% of the time by using the "black metal" technique, then why wouldn't you have that as your workflow?
Hehe, the texture presentation style is actually something that we came up with at Marmoset (Andres Reinot, specifically), and those Quixel guys totally stole. Actually, we gave them permission.
This was textured in dDo though, it was a bit of an experiment to see if I could use the specular slot as the metalness mask, and yes you can, however a lot of the default values for effects/presets are not going to make sense. But you can sort of trick dDo into doing it anyway.
Oh man, awesome! I was doing a bit of research and I saw the helmets weigh about 40 pounds or something totally ridiculous.
Thanks! Yeah, the rope isn't quite there, I think it needs diffuse Fresnel (which isn't in yet outside of the skin shader) or something else to bring oring out the fibrous-ness of it.
There currently is not a direct input for specular Fresnel, it gets masked by the gloss content right now.
As others have noted, when using the metalness mask type workflow the albedo map is essentially both the diffuse and specular map, with the metalness mask defining what is metal and what is not, and using black diffuse for metals, while pulling the specular color and intensity from the albedo map.
There currently isn't a parameter for IOR, its a fixed value.
For artists I think its essential theory to understand that pure metals have no diffuse, with the color coming solely from reflection. More often than not you see artists mistakenly use bright values in both diffuse and specular maps for metals, compounded with shaders that do not do energy conservation and you get really bad results. Whether you use a metalness workflow or a standard diffuse/spec/gloss/normals workflow (TB2 supports both, and both are physically accurate) understanding material properties is a great skill to have which I'm sure you'll agree (you taught me much of what I know about it so...).
Personally I feel like the standard D/S/G/N workflow is a bit more powerful, as the artist can set all of the values directly. However, I also think it requires more technical knowledge as far as what those values should be, and also results in more user error as well (common case: artists making specular intensity too bright for many materials types). I see the value in both methods though, and I think its clear that many game engines are switching over to the metalness type workflow, at least for some of their content, so we're going to do our best to support both methods.
Now, as far as impure metals, alloys, heavily worn metals, non-metals with metallic properties, variation such as oxidization, dust, dirt, etc I think this is a really good discussion to have. With a metalness mask you can use values other than 0 or 1, and if you have a surface that has a lot of variation or are creating something that isn't a pure metal you would certainly want to use values other than black and white. If anyone has more information on measured values for alloys, worn metals, metallic paints, faux-metallic plastics and things like that it would be great to see.
I just wanted to quote this since I agree with it and it is often mis-communicated.
It is about consistent shader behavior under different lighting conditions.
It is not about making every shader look like it needs to replicate an exact metal/platic/material in the real world.
For some productions, trying to make things as "real" as possible is what matters and PBR can help, but please lets not make all our games/films look as real as possible all the time. It would kill so much of the art that comes along with making things look appealing (versus "real").
All I can keep thinking of is a painter getting mad at a fellow painter for using too much blue in his sky paint mixture on his pallet.
Seems pretty silly to me.
Don't get me wrong, as 3D artists we should ALL know the technical details of how dielectric and metal materials work etc etc. But as I just stated, we ARE artist and should be using our artistic eyes as well. That ability to analyze and make artistic decisions is what makes our work unique and original. And, as stated before, the PBR workflow is most useful in unifying materials through different lighting conditions. Beyond that, how it's interpreted is all in the air. and I think that's a stength; not a weakness.
Because i too, am a bastard...
1. there are only four semi-metals in existance, and all of those reflect light in a similar fashion. so yes, being metal or not is very definitely a binary thing.
2. metal does have zero, or close to zero diffuse contribution. if you were to put a numerical value between 0 and 255 for what that contribution is, it'd usually fall below 40. which is extremely dark... so dark that you might as well just call it black and be done with it. AND that's only in "hotspots" of impurities... if the impurity were spread evenly throughout the metal, it would be even lower.
3. i completely agree, not all non-metals can get away with a uniform reflectivity. BUT it does help make a workflow faster and more efficient to use the metal mask and have a specular constant. you can do a lot with a gloss map to sell non-metals that share a constant reflectivity.
so sure, the workflow isn't the most accurate, but it does give you good results fast. and unfortunately that's what the annual turnaround on AAA titles demands. So you're likely to see this workflow more commonly than the DSGN setup.
Something that I noticed while working on the diving helmet, I'm sure you're completely accurate here but when you get to real use I think it makes sense to have transitions.
For things like the oxidization here, if you really stick to either 0 or 1 you get a really rough transition that isn't what you see in the real world. In the real world oxidization happens gradually and from a normal distance you will generally see a fuzzy line/gradient to the effect. Sure if you look at it with a macro lens or microscope you'll see the individual particles of rust and metal being binary elements, but its not really what we notice when we see a real world object from a reasonable viewing distance.
So if you have enough texture res to give each little particle a pixel, sure, make it 0,1, otherwise you'll need some sort of gradual falloff.
topkek
If you've got a build, load it up and you should get a notice to update.
This build comes wit the usual spattering of new features and bug fixes, including UNDO, some tweaks to the movement/rotation widget, anisotropic specular shader(make sure to set both reflectivity and gloss to aniso to use) microfiber shader (lambert + fuzz yay!), focus tracking to keep your model in focus while adjust the camera, properly synced normal maps from 3ds max and a variety of other things.
The full changelog can be found here:
Toolbag beta build 3 changelog
Edit Never mind I am an idiot.
We haven't been able to reproduce this yet. Does it happen with all skys? All scenes? If you have a specific scene that causes this crash it would be great to see.
btw, has there been any change to the way SSR works ? it seems the reflection is slightly stronger in the latest build, or i might just be seeing things.
what is your GPU ?
hiding/unhiding sky or anything else works fine on my end. i dont get this crash.