Car Paint - Pro for VR?

TheGabmeister

I'm creating a simple virtual reality car showroom for the HTC Vive using Unity 5.5.2. It will have only one vehicle at a time shown to the user, both interior and exterior.

At the moment, I'm struggling to create a convincing car paint material. Browsing through the asset store, it seems that realistic looking cars are using custom shaders that I'm having a hard time replicating using the Standard Shader. I don't have the skills to create custom shaders, so my plan is to buy car paint materials from the asset store. I stumbled upon this asset:

Car Paint Pro
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/76361

Budget is really tight right now. Before purchasing, I just wanted to know if there are some of you guys who have experience with this asset. Just to add, I'll be using Forward Rendering to squeeze out more performance.

Eric Chadwick

I'd suggest you get a node-based shader editor like Shader Forge or Amplify Shader Editor. You'll need a shader that performs really well, so only add the nodes you need.

TheGabmeister

Thanks for the advice. I might try the Shader Forge route and learn to create materials with it.

YannickStoot

Depends on where your priorities lie. If you want to save time then it is smart to purchase a shader pack like the one above. However, having a good shader is not everything. In fact. Your model will not look incredible without an incredible mesh and materials.

I think what the shader give on top of basic PBR, is the flakes and micro detail that you can't have with a normal texture without scaling up to 8k textures.

If you need specific with anything you can message me on Polycount or on my email: Yannick@thecloudcreator.com. I'd love to help.

TheGabmeister

Very thankful for your offer to help. I found a few tutorials that explain how to create car shaders in another game engine. I'll attempt to replicate the said tutorials in Unity.