UE4 compressing textures??
polycounter lvl 10
Okay so I have a 1024 texture tiled twice on a 319cm square mesh. Using 1cm to 8px. But the texture is looking heavily compressed compared to how it looks in my original 3d app. It looks even worse with normal map added. So is there a way to uncompress the texture in ue4?
I am using .tga file format. Is there a setting to uncompress textures in ue4?
I am using .tga file format. Is there a setting to uncompress textures in ue4?
Replies
There should be a drop down with the word TC_Default under a compression setting. I don't know off hand what is available there but there may be a TC_Uncompressed or Editor UI or Vector Displacement setting. Those should be fairly uncompressed. However if there is a TC_BC7 that should have little to no noticeable artifacting.
You may be noticing something else however like poor Mip Mapping or Texture Filtering. If the above steps don't work post a picture of the artifacts.
One quick question, if I make a modification to the engine using the console log. Like say I add r. tonemapper film using the console log. Do I have to add these modification everytime I open the project unless I add them to the defaultengine.ini in the project folder? I read it here:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Platforms/Mobile/PostProcessEffects/
or is this meant for mobile platforms cause I am using a pc and it's only for archviz stuff?
Also having some issues with tessellation, I am wondering if this is due to the height mask resolution? or I need to subdivide the floor more?
I used the material setup here:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Resources/ContentExamples/MaterialNodes/1_12/
Project is still very WIP. I still don't like the way the textures look close up.Looks really bad. I am using a 1024 texture now tiled 3 times for the dimensions I gave above or is 8px to 1cm not enough? On second thought, I think I should have just modeled the tiles but how would you go about uvmapping the modeled tiles for lightmap?
If anyone knows why the tessellation won't increase further to make up for the jagged edges, pls kindly let me know. I am wondering if it may be a gpu limitation? I am using a Gerforce gtx 780m.
EDIT: Tessellation solved. The floor needed more subdivision. For anyone having the problem, you can check the details here;
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/152849/world-displacement-tessellation-not-work-correct-w.html
I wonder how he got the textures to look that good up close. I am guessing 32px to 1cm for texel density. But also it seems depth of field played a role in bluring the textures closer to the camera. I think he used some sort of bluring effect to make the textures look more natural. I know of the r.tonemapper post process effects but I am not sure that does the trick.
The tiles in the video are definitely modeled?
To increase tessellation density, you can use a mesh that is pre-subdivided. Or you can set the adaptive tessellation density in the project settings\rendering. But still, this is a really bad way to make tiles\bricks pop.
About the pixel density:
You could layer up several tiling materials in a layered materials, and blend them with masks. Or aa 2 or 4k texture set plus some detail textures.
That's the process I was using, with tiled textures and mask and it still looked bad. Is there a way a mask can be blured in the material editor(blur node)? I think I need to look at the engine scalability again.
Seems the normals look better with an ao applied and better roughness map. Kinda new to the whole pbr thing. I have been using Corona a6 and Blender cycles for cgwork.
Btw, roughness map- white is rough/matte while black is smooth/highly reflective for ue4, right? Gets confusing from using specular/gloss maps.
Will also try the POM.
It's a little confusing with the physically based shading but I think I am getting the hang of it. Another question about using the console log. If I entered a setting using it. For example, I enter r.tonemapper film= 1. I noticed after closing and opening ue4. I have to enter it again into the console log. Is there a way to make this work everytime I open the project?
@ Obscura Thanks for the explanation. Will use photoshop for bluring before importing the mask texture
Find that file in your Unreal Engine install location, and type your console command to the end of that file, and save it.
The reason I am asking is because Koola has a free project in the marketplace called Lightroominteriordaylight and the project comes with the r.tonemapper 1 and r.tonemapper shapen 1 settings in the editor. So I am wondering how he set it up so that anyone downloading the project, opens the level with these settings as default.
With POM:
With plain normal maps.
But for some reason, it doesn't look realistic and I think its because of the soft shadows and lighting the bevel edges of the bricks will pick up from the scene lighting. I will have to give the modeled bricks a go and see how it looks compared to these. I think the tiles in the koola vid I posted were modeled as the beveled edges catch the lighting perfectly. There are also texture stretches at the sides of the bricks. Also modeling the bricks means less geometry than using tessellation.
I feel like I am wasting too much time on floor bricks but I want to do it properly and make sure it looks perfect because I will also be rendering out stills from the project. Animation wise, it would be hard to spot these flaws with the camera moving showing the property.
Defintely looks better. Needs chipping, irregularity and wear at the edges, probably cracks too. This means sculpting the tiles to get those details in. The image below is the reference I am using. Baking a normal map for the whole floor would mean a high res map. Maybe try tileable normal/displacement texture using a sculpting software. I think a sculpted baked normal map with a bump offset might do the job with all the details I need. Currently studying the materials in the ue4 starter map. Will try these next. Pls, any suggesttion, advice or insight is greatly welcomed.
Thanks
I believe, from here, its not really (though even that is still not quite there, you miss the small chamfers on the edges) the shape of the bricks but more like the surfacing/shading. You should play around with the roughness, and normals.
Like you pointed out, it comes down to the normals and roughness which is why a sculpted tiled texture would be the ideal choice to get the brick shape as well as details properly.
Coming from an offline renderer, ue4 does present some workflow differences.
I watched this vid from gdc:
The assets they made from photogamentry have specular maps. If I remember from the ue4 documentation. isn't the specular supposed to be left at the default vaule? That artists should resist using spec maps and only concentrate on roughness for physically correct reflections?
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Resources/ContentExamples/MaterialNodes/1_3/
Essentially, it's a cavity input. (Or, curvature). It can give darker or brighter specular reflections within a certain range. Default is .5 (which I believe is 4% reflection) But it's not at all like a traditional specular map, and isn't necessary to get nice looking materials.
"TLDR; The Specular input handles what percentage of light gets reflected. That percentage only goes between 0% and 8%. It has no effect on metals, and modifying it in a non-physical way is probably not what you want. Composite Texture + Material AO works on metals and does the same thing artists think the cavity map hack does but physically based and far superior in quality."
So UE4 uses range of 0-1 for specular which gets multiplied by 0.08, and as previously stated this only gets used for nonmetals. So the default Specular of 0.5 gives you 0.04 aka 4% specular reflection for dielectrics.
The reasoning is because this is based on Schlick's approximation where n1 = 1.0 (air) and n2 = your material's IOR. The default is 4% because most real nonmetal materials have an IOR of about 1.5, and doing the above approximation with 1.5 you get: ((1-1.5) / (1+1.5)) ^2 = 0.04.
Thus the range of 0 -> 0.5 -> 1 in the specular slot gives you a reflection coefficient of 0% -> 4% -> 8%, or an IOR range of 1 -> 1.5 -> 1.78879. Really quite a lot of range if you look at any list of real world IORs.
So essentially, I'd recommend touching it only as a last resort after properly configuring your Composite Textures and Material AO, or if you really in fact do want a specific IOR value (water and skin are good examples of needing this). In that case follow Schlick's approximation and divide the result by 0.08 to get the Specular number you need
Needed this. Will try to implement what you have said. I am kinda new to pbr. Late to the party
Definitely getting there. Still needs further subtle refinements. Getting to know the ue4 material editor is fun. Loving the realtime feedback so far
U are right about the holes taking precedence over the scratches/lines. Bricks have holes due to their molecular structure (concrete). Will refine it further.
Also, I wanted to ask. If u have a texture with black and white areas and you want to adjust the black areas to be close to white while leaving the white areas untouched. How can this be achieved in the ue4 material editor? Is it the add or multiply node? I have experimented with these but its not quite the result I want.
Looks better. Really impressed with Ue4 capabilities.
EDIT: Nevermind. Fixed.
http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UT3_Vertex_Blend_Variation_Tutorial.html
Using this for mask is just awesome
Could be also just a portfolio piece, where you want to show nice artwork, in that case it should be fine as well.
Also, fine, or not, make a stresstest, and you'll see. You know your videocard and computer specs, print out your framerate, look at shader complexity, and the statistics, and you'll see what works and what doesn't.
When you are thinking about optimizing a project, the first question is, you optimize it for what. 60 fps on this specs or 30 on that specs.
Do tests on the target hardware if its anything more than a recorded video or still image, or a relatively or better balanced small game.
I think I will do away with hardcore optimization and just try and get this project finished (taking quite a while since I am learning the engine properly). As for the texturing part, different from how I work but learning some new workflow and tricks has been informative.