How much of the visuals in Abzu can be explained by diffuse textures?

Stu2Prof

Hi
I've just been looking at the trailer for Abzu from E3 and am blown away. It makes sense as the art director is Matt Nava (same guy behind the art for Journey) I really love the visuals and would love to create something similar but was wondering just how much of this work is just well painted diffuse textures. It seems like the lighting also plays an essential part but I just dont know to what extent. Does anyone else have any thoughts? Any one else super excited?

blankslatejoe

While the diffuse is there, there's also definitely a specular (or similar) term and possibly even a normal map in places contributing to the look. You can really see both in some of the screenshots in this article: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/conferences/e3-2015/14041-ABZU-Preview#&gid=gallery_4241&pid=1. The dev might even change things per-asset, depending on the needs of that object.

I think the bigger contributor to the look, more than any particular map, is the combination of modeling techniques being used with some likely custom shader/material work to push the non-photoreal shading. That and lighting/fog can go a long way to push a look.

That's my guess, at least.

EarthQuake

I think the shader has very little do to with the look of this game. The big factors here are art direction, lighting, color choices, overall asset design and art style. I think you're really missing the broader picture if you think you can make a game like this by painting your diffuse maps a certain way, that's only a small component.

blankslatejoe

oh for sure..that's a given. The art direction is what makes the look, but on asset by asset level, I still suspect there's some custom shader work helping sell the look. Screenshots like this make me think it isn't your standard blinn-phong: http://cdn.escapistmagazine.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/927/927537.jpg

...but it's really tough to tell what's actually geometry and what's just surface property there..it might ALL be geometry cut in specific ways to showcase the lighting better.

Ged

looks like its all geometry defining the shapes with a pbr material setup to me. Diffuse would probably mip map quite a bit and loose that crisp finish. Judging by the larger scenes Id say they use a variety of techniques, its not some one size fits all workflow that is applied to all objects and vfx etc, some parts look normal mapped, some parts look like alpha clip etc.  Some scenes there are caustics playing over objects, this is probably a custom shader component but who knows.

pior

Bright ambiant can go a long way !
This Quake3 map doesn't look too different from the screenshot you just posted:

Stu2Prof

@EarthQuake totally agree. Im just trying to understand more on a technical level how everything breaks down so I could give a shot at making something similar. Any chance anyone's seen a UE4 tutorial with a similar visual style?

@Ged what is the difference in a PBR versus diffuse setup? I am under the impression that mipmapping is something thats happening to the pixel size of the texture rather than the material. Do you mean that Albedo textures perform better with mipmapping over diffuse? Still early days for me understanding PBR.

@pior I'm not sure I see the similarities between the two. Do you have another example image you could show?

blankslatejoe

Ged is saying, I think (and correct me if im wrong Ged) that unless you had prohibitively large textures, the mipmaps would usually cause the sharp edges to blur out when seen on smaller instances of the objects (that whale screenshot perfectly demonstrates how crisp things stay when in the distance).

That would suggest that it's geometry that designates sharp transitions like that (or shader work--a cell shader could do similar, but I'm leaning more towards geometry in that example. Simplest solution is probably correct here)...either way, it suggests a minimal influence of albedo/diffuse.

The difference with PBR versus the older methods of rendering is most apparent in (but not restricted to) how the surface handles highlights and reflections, allowing for more realistic treatment. It has nothing to do with mipmapping, which is related to the compressed texture files themselves, and not the shader.

There are some great PBR threads here on PC that go into the details about the workflow..I think some were actually written by Earthquake, irrc. (thx EQ!)

Eric Chadwick

Here
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PBR

pangaea

Wait, I'm confused so that is PBR is there any other examples of PBR that looks like that. 

Eric Chadwick

You could take a look at Firewatch, and The Witness, for inspiration. We have an art dump from the latter here on Polycount somewhere.

Ged

pangaea said:

Wait, I'm confused so that is PBR is there any other examples of PBR that looks like that. 

PBR shading can be very realistic and that is its main purpose, however your art director may want to use pbr shading in an unorthodox way like on highly stylised meshes pushing the smoothness up really high on some faces or making others very dull and rough. The results can look pretty cool. I just said it looks like pbr to me because of the interplay of rough and smooth on each asset, like for example those big shines on some facets of the whales.

MisterSande

flat shading, smoothed polygons +- 20/30 degrees will give you a similar look on your assets.