In-progress: 3DO metalness - Brightness of non metals

Prime8

DDO using the metalness workflow.

I tried to create some black flat plastic, but wasn't happy with any of the results.
They all appeared to bright, no matter which lighting or preset I use.
It looks like dark non-metal materials appear brightest with a roughness around 60%-70%.

For a quick test I created the following image, it shows the roughness form 0 to 100 left to right and albedo from black to mid grey top to bottom.
I didn't change the default scene except the background colour.

Is this the expected result? I can only achieve the look I want if I add an specular map and adjust the values for the non-metals, but of course I don't want to do that. 

Maybe I'm missing something here.
Some help would be great.

Billy Lundevall

Hi, this looks pretty much as expected to me. And "tweaking the specular values" is something you should be cautious about doing as the range in which they are correct is very, very narrow.

The metalness workflow actually gives them a specular value, as it is just a simplified specular workflow at it's core. I don't know the exact value non-metals get, but I would assume it is 20% gray. Setting the specular value of a non-conductive material to anything above 22% or below 18% would make it incorrect in almost all cases.

Also, do note that the value you might find missing here is the IOR control present in many rendering solutions and simulated in different ways in real-time solutions , having an impact on the fresnel of the material. 

Prime8

Thank you Billy for the quick reply.
I'm not planning to use a specular map, I just added one for testing purpose.
I found a topic stating something similar but in relation to UE4 http://polycount.com/discussion/162902/answered-3do-consistency-ue4.
I tried the same object in UE4 and it looks a lot darker, though I'm not familiar yet with the proper setup therefore I cannot tell if the scenes are comparable or not.
Unfortunately I don't have any other PBR renderer to compare with.

Billy Lundevall

I don't personally use Unreal, or any other game engine for that matter, I'll pitch this over to somebody that does .

Prime8

Looks like the latest patched improved this with all the changes made on 3DO.
I can get much better results now. Thanks!
Unfortunately things that looked good before can be quite off now and have to be reworked.