Physically Based Rendering

[Guest]

As everyone here has probably learned what something like a diffuse, specular, or normal map is -- I think it may be interesting to have a look at this 'new' thing that is PBR. If you are interested in modding and tweaking then I am sure you will come across it sooner rather than later. I am not sure what Bethesda will do with this, being Bethesda and all.

 

Basically:

 

 

Old game methods like specular were pretty awful in terms of realism. This particular method was basically like shining a light on a mirror and it reflecting it back un-naturally. Now we have reflections it is very much redundant and why everything in games will look much more realistic with PBR. It's the next step that we will be seeing developers cling to in the next few years.

 

Material examples:

 

 

Textures:

 

Albedo = Diffuse Mark 2

 

Remove any shadows or highlights because the lighting now does all that at runtime. Ambient occlusion is not necessary inside the texture file because it also should be brute-forced.

 

Specular = We have reflections now, get lost

 

Is now for determining the look of your material (usually metals). Used to change how dull/light different parts of your texture are.

 

Normal = Virtually the same

 

No explanation needed here, it's pretty much the same.

 

More examples and references at this link:

 

https://artisaverb.info/PBT.html

 

I'm still looking into it at the moment, but it looks very reusable for different materials and way better than all those cheap tricks we see in games today.

[redirishlord]

Fun fact: Star Citizen is working with PBR (rendering not hipster beer). Yes, I'm a Star Citizen fanboy, but you can find examples of PBR in action in many of the posts on their website.

 

Looking forward to seeing what you do with this in Skyrim 'Prince.

[Guest]

So far we have it used in games like the Order 1886 which was a bad game, but if you wonder why Uncharted 4 looks even more amazing than any other game at the moment, this is one of the reasons. The artist I linked to works for Naughty Dog as well.

 

Skyrim will never support this obviously and I am doubting Fallout 4 will because the Mr. Handy you see with reflections looks like some faked effect or screen-based thing which isn't the same. Bethesda are not known for progressing with technology, at least very fast.

[Omolong]

Skyrim will never support this obviously and I am doubting Fallout 4 will because the Mr. Handy you see with reflections looks like some faked effect or screen-based thing which isn't the same. Bethesda are not known for progressing with technology, at least very fast.

Todd Howard did say in the E3 Showcase that Fallout 4 runs on a newer version of the Creation Engine that "features full physical based rendering, as well as dynamic volumetric lighting". At the moment, it's hard to say how much of the game will actually use PBR, but at the very least the engine does support it.

 

Assuming you're talking about the pre-war version of the Mr. Handy (as the post-war version doesn't seem to have that level of reflections), it could simply be that Bethesda decided not to do all of the pre-war assets in PBR, seeing as you're not going to be in that section for too long. It's hard to say until the game is actually out, though.

[Kesta]

Any idea how euclideon will handle texture-related stuff ? (it's more post-nextgen than nextgen). Since it's working completely differently for the models, I think texturing will have to be something different as well.

 

Anyway, this red ball look awesome just by itself... hope the new Creation Engine support this kind of work, even if it's not included in the base game, so modders (you ?  ) can work with it.

[EssArrBee]

Won't they have to ditch or update the nif format to get PBR to work? I was under the impression that nif models were getting outdated versus other formats. 

[Guest]

Todd Howard did say in the E3 Showcase that Fallout 4 runs on a newer version of the Creation Engine that "features full physical based rendering, as well as dynamic volumetric lighting". At the moment, it's hard to say how much of the game will actually use PBR, but at the very least the engine does support it.

 

Assuming you're talking about the pre-war version of the Mr. Handy (as the post-war version doesn't seem to have that level of reflections), it could simply be that Bethesda decided not to do all of the pre-war assets in PBR, seeing as you're not going to be in that section for too long. It's hard to say until the game is actually out, though.

You are right!  I tend to set my standards low for Bethesda on the technological front, so I probably blanked it out in my head. Don't forget, this is the same guy who set up a fake AI demo and said Skyrim had a new engine. It may actually be a thing in the game as you say, but excuse my pessimism, because it looks like you are probably right. Fingers crossed.

 

Any idea how euclideon will handle texture-related stuff ? (it's more post-nextgen than nextgen). Since it's working completely differently for the models, I think texturing will have to be something different as well.

 

Anyway, this red ball look awesome just by itself... hope the new Creation Engine support this kind of work, even if it's not included in the base game, so modders (you ?  ) can work with it.

I have not looked into that, but probably should. We will see about FO4. I'll probably take a look somehow because I prefer technical art more (I actually hate retexturing) and if PBR is in  that may be more up my alley. I love playing around like a mad professor. I won't be doing the same stuff I did for Skyrim for sure (please don't let the water be too cool). The fun drains out of everything when a mod gets too big. It's also like working on a helpline with all the comments I get.  

[Guest]

Won't they have to ditch or update the nif format to get PBR to work? I was under the impression that nif models were getting outdated versus other formats. 

 

Please die leftover Gamebyro crapfest. My wishes won't come true will they?

[Aiyen]

The funny thing about this and other methods is that they have been around in various render engines for a while. The main issue is that you need to convince game engine creators to implement them, and then convince the developers to actually use it... and that also means that it needs to be able to display at low cost or it is a no go. 

 

Point in fact... I guess part of the reason that star citizen more or less have such a bad rep now is that they mess around with stuff like this.. and that causes all sorts of issues that come with using something that is not yet industry standard. 

I do not doubt that it will most likely become standard before the next console generation.. after all the developments made with dx9 is still quite impressive all things considered. But I do not think one should expect all too much for games that are released this year or the next. Just my thoughts on the matter anyways.