Home Technical Talk

Road To Vostok: no specular, no roughness, no gloss

armagon
polycounter lvl 13
Offline / Send Message
armagon polycounter lvl 13
The author of this game is pretty adamant of his optimized used of texture work. The entire game runs only with an Unlit shader in Unity:

httpscdnprodwebsite-filescom660d14408806282cd3ce5b65660d14408806282cd3ce5ba9_Road_to_Vostok_Screenshot_03jpghttpscdnprodwebsite-filescom660d14408806282cd3ce5b65660d14408806282cd3ce5baa_Road_to_Vostok_Screenshot_08jpg


Replies

  • dimwalker
    Offline / Send Message
    dimwalker polycounter lvl 16
    It probably result in sweet FPS, but PBR would do wonders for those trash bags.
  • armagon
    Offline / Send Message
    armagon polycounter lvl 13
    I'm really impressed with this artstyle. The photo capture and treatment of textures is really good. Reminds me of the old Valve approach to things.

    He also released all of it under a permissive license: https://roadtovostok.itch.io/road-to-vostok-assets-vol1

  • poopipe
    Offline / Send Message
    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    well - i mean

    its on Godot now (as of when unity did 'the thing') so I'm not sure when or where this information came from 

    if the thing about unlit shaders is true I'll be really interested in finding out what he did cos it sure as hell looked like it had lit shaders when i played it last
  • armagon
    Offline / Send Message
    armagon polycounter lvl 13
    You can check his dev blogs on Patreon. He explains he doesn't want to use PBR to distract from the core game development for now. He also says that his photo-based workflow keeps him productive.

    Additionally, for assets created by freelancers, he bakes down the PBR into a diffuse: https://x.com/roadtovostok/status/1506386451533021186

  • poopipe
    Offline / Send Message
    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    That's me told :D 

    This guy is the human embodiment of 'getting shit done' to me.  
    This assertion is borne out by the fact that Vostok is the only instance of an engine change not completely ruining development ever recorded 

    Everyone here should buy the game whether they want to play it or not (it's not bad at all btw.  just small at present) 

  • Noren
    Offline / Send Message
    Noren polycounter lvl 20
    Is this really unlit, though? Might be a communication problem. Even if he used an unlit shader as a base that he then modified, the scenes are clearly lit and shadowed and at least some don't seem to be using lightmaps, either.
  • pior
    Offline / Send Message
    pior grand marshal polycounter
    It's quite self-explanatory when looking at the provided assets really isn't it ? Models textured to look good without just a single diffuse texture with some faint top-down shading built-in, ending up looking also quite convincing under simple in-engine lighting and shadows.





    Basically high end PS2 SilentHill/MGS4 or PS3/360 era Call of Duty style.

  • Noren
    Offline / Send Message
    Noren polycounter lvl 20
    That would be my understanding as well. Also quite appealing from a workflow point of view.
  • armagon
    Offline / Send Message
    armagon polycounter lvl 13
    I wonder if that is RealityCapture and some retopo work.
  • sacboi
    Offline / Send Message
    sacboi high dynamic range
    From a player's POV think his game does have a bit of CS.GO/CS2 "Black Mesa' - kind of vibe about it alongside old school modding cred as well i.e.

    Asset Pack Usage

    - 100% Free (CC0)
    - No attribution needed
    - Commercial use allowed


    Although having both ex-forces and an industry background to be honest are probably prerequisite skillets, you'd want as solo dev tackling a shooter of this scope. Anyway I reckon he's onto a winner.  
  • armagon
    Offline / Send Message
    armagon polycounter lvl 13
    In this dev log, he goes over his rules, as well as his way of UV'ing and texturing: https://youtu.be/9OmnsnopobM?feature=shared&t=1188

    Starts at 19:35.

  • pior
    Offline / Send Message
    pior grand marshal polycounter
    I love how this technical choices regarding the assets make complete sense and could be applied to many bloated productions - essenctially reducing  ressources by about 10x, simply by adopting 2005-ish standards and a visual style just ever so slightly different from the usual, while at the same time recalling some nostalgic gaming experiences of the past.

    Looking forward to playing this !
  • Klunk
    Offline / Send Message
    Klunk ngon master
    if it plays well and doesn't feel too "samey" the only ones who'll notice the lack of pbr will be other game artists ;)
    it's quite the challenge he's taken on... I guess the promotion is to aid funding with a view to getting some help. 
  • armagon
    Offline / Send Message
    armagon polycounter lvl 13
    pior said:
    I love how this technical choices regarding the assets make complete sense and could be applied to many bloated productions - essenctially reducing  ressources by about 10x, simply by adopting 2005-ish standards and a visual style just ever so slightly different from the usual, while at the same time recalling some nostalgic gaming experiences of the past.

    Looking forward to playing this !
    Yes, there is a strong "HL2 Episode 2" art vibe to it, but with higher-resolution textures.
  • armagon
    Offline / Send Message
    armagon polycounter lvl 13
    Not everything follows those rules, though. The AKM model has normals and AO + Roughness + Metallic:


  • Noors
    Offline / Send Message
    Noors greentooth
    Well it's not an unlit shader since he uses dynamic lights/shadows. Also on videos, we can see normal maps reacting to dynamic lights.
    Lambert/Blinn shading/(cubemap reflection) on dynamic objects, most specular/reflections directly baked down into the diffuse map, directionnal lightmaps...
    It's a mix. We kinda do the same for mobile VR, trying to squeeze everything and still looking decent.
    Interesting devlog, so thanks !
    Yeah, very HL2-esque (which is a monument on many technical aspects)
  • poopipe
    Offline / Send Message
    poopipe grand marshal polycounter
    Klunk said:
    if it plays well and doesn't feel too "samey" the only ones who'll notice the lack of pbr will be other game artists ;)
    it's quite the challenge he's taken on... I guess the promotion is to aid funding with a view to getting some help. 
    iirc he's said he's pretty determined to do it solo and to document everything. 
    I've not played the last update but all the previous ones ive touched have been very solid indeed. 


Sign In or Register to comment.