PBR correct tail light texture?

Falkrum

Hello guys!
I'm trying to figure out how to create a PBR textures for tail light. Any ideas? Should i render to texture it somehow?

Synaesthesia

I don't see anything particularly difficult about doing this. If you'd like to model it realistically, create it like it actually is built - a plastic casing over a light bulb with reflective surfaces on the interior. 



This is a headlight assembly, but the idea is still there - model the plastic cover, and then model in the rest. You could use a tool like NDO (Shameless self-promotion, I know ) to create normals directly in Photoshop for the surface of the lights if you'd like to skip the high-poly stage. Create an opacity map for the plastic cover and you're good to go. You would of course need to try to get the albedo value correct for the light in its off state, but that shouldn't be difficult. Roughness/gloss/specular shouldn't be hard to do, either.

Here's an example of a light that I created entirely in NDO in a few minutes:



It's a headlight assembly, but really, there's not a lot of difference between the front and back lights besides general shape. They tend to have similar ridges and whatnot. If you need more help, don't hesitate to ask!

Falkrum

Hi Jonathan! I am currently user of Quixel Suit 2.0, so I definitely will be using this. The main issue with technique that you mention is that normal map creates a ridges on the external side of the glass, but it should be flat. Its also affects only external light and reflections, so the interior reflector will not look refracted as far as I can tell? Target engine for now is Marmoset toolbag 2.

Synaesthesia

Could you show me an image of what you've done so far?

Falkrum

Synaesthesia said:

Could you show me an image of what you've done so far?

Dont know how to setup settings for lens material so it looks terrible...

Synaesthesia

I'm definitely not an expert at using Marmoset or setting up materials for it, but it looks like you need more reflectivity - also, the surface of the plastic casing should be tinted dark red.

almighty_gir

you need refraction, which Toolbag2 doesn't support.

Chase

Yeah, I ran into the refraction issue before. Maybe in the next TB update

Synaesthesia

Thanks, Gir!

Chase: Have you considered using Unreal 4 to preview this for now?

Falkrum

Ok, thanks for info guys, looks like I will be using different technique for this.