PBR and a Cheap Monitor
polycounter lvl 11
I blew most of my money on a new graphics card so I could use UE4. But reading into PBR it seems calibration is really important. I read in a Crysis 3 slideshow they make sure the artists work with IPS monitors or something better than the typical. (http://www.slideshare.net/TiagoAlexSousa/the-art-and-technology-behind-crysis-3-fmx-2013)
Would it be a waste of time trying to do PBR on a crappy screen then? It seems like trying to compensate for a poor display would be missing the point of a physically accurate model. Is a good quality monitor a huge dealbreaker for this new workflow and just as important as the GPU/CPU?
I love my new PC specs, maybe I should focus on high poly modeling/baking skills and save learning PBR until I have a better monitor (may be over a year from now). Or I could try to learn on my current monitor and hope it's not too far off.
Would it be a waste of time trying to do PBR on a crappy screen then? It seems like trying to compensate for a poor display would be missing the point of a physically accurate model. Is a good quality monitor a huge dealbreaker for this new workflow and just as important as the GPU/CPU?
I love my new PC specs, maybe I should focus on high poly modeling/baking skills and save learning PBR until I have a better monitor (may be over a year from now). Or I could try to learn on my current monitor and hope it's not too far off.
Replies
You can find some good e-IPS monitors in the $200 range these days though.
Unless you've built your own hardware and are doing material scans yourself or something, I don't see anything that would stop you from working with PBR shaders with a regular old TN panel.
I'm sure a really good monitor would be useful in a AAA studio because you need to be sure each artist is working from the same 'gold standard', but it shouldn't be totally required for doing good work.
PBR is just a phase.
It'll pass...
The deadlines are actually so crazy and it's a student project, so I recommended the devs use gametextures.com. It's cool they're introducing PBR textures on that site, so I'm getting my hands on some of them to study. After this project is over I have a lot of free time. Holding off till then to learn all the new stuff/ get back to UE4, but I'm gathering the resources now so I can start off quickly.
It's interesting that video production studios would compare the work on a monitor vs a TV. So I guess a mobile dev would compare the image on an ipad or something.
http://u3d.as/content/forst/lux-physically-based-shader-framework/6X6 (requires Unity 4.3)
So it can be implemented
You can't be serious... Every major engine is moving to PBR. How is it just a phase?
No, he's right. It's like that super weird diffuse/spec/normal phase we went through. I mean, 3 textures for one material? Come on. It'll never catch on. :poly142:
That link didn't work for me but I looked it up and that's so cool! I'll see if the team wants to use it.
bingo! :poly124: