Physically Based Rendering

Discussion in 'Wish Lists' started by Ozzy, Jun 13, 2017.

  1. Ozzy

    Ozzy Registered

    Joined:
    Dec 18, 2013
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    26
    I hope my wish is not too late, but since development of new shaders was postponed, we might have still a chance.:D


    I don't think I have to explain all that much. PBR is more or less industry standard for games and CGI.
    Even "small" games using inhouse engines like iRacing or DCS World come up with PBR support.

    Besides the obvious advantage of more realistic materials you also get:
    - More consistent materials in all scenes / lighting conditions
    - More consistent and easier workflow when creating materials (which usually results in a faster workflow)

    The advantages should directly transfer to modding because instead of dealing with a dozen of specular and fresnel values, you typically only adjust the roughness and IOR (which you can basically google).
    I only have basic experience myself, but even as a beginner I could create some awesome looking materials in Blender Cycles. I think that already shows how awesome this must be.:p

    Since rFactor 2 aims for a realistic look, PBR should be a perfect fit.

    I'm curious about what others have to say. Are there any other advantages or even disadvantages using PBR?
     
  2. Fabio Pittol

    Fabio Pittol Registered

    Joined:
    Oct 4, 2010
    Messages:
    274
    Likes Received:
    71
    No disadvantages in using PBR shaders. and indeed they are much needed.

    What is important to know, though, is that having PBR shaders doesn't mean that everything will suddenly became easy and super pretty. You cited Blender Cycles, which is a ray-trace based render engine, not real time. That itself changes a lot of things. Seeing what people do with the Quixel suite (or Substance Painter) and plug into real time rendering engines such as Marmoset Toolbag is probably more informative for this matter.

    Also we have to remember that in games most of the shader values end up being stored in textures. That means, if we take (the much appreciated) roughness for example, we instantly get another texture to store in VRAM.
    For example: recently I did an experiment getting one of the rF2 models and loading up in Marmoset Toolbag 3 but instead of using the given textures and materials, I created new - full PBR - ones that could reproduce cars that can have matte, glossy and golden*** parts. In other words, I changed the map stored on the albedo texture's alpha channel to be the roughness, and added a new RGB texture to store the specular intensity/color. That, for a single car livery in 4K, added a 10mb on the count.

    ***I said golden, not chrome, because some materials, as gold, have non-grayscale specular.

    P.S.: Although other sims make better use of PBR, I'm not entirely sure if they use roughness. AC doesn't seem to, maybe pCARS does. iRacing, honestly, I fail to even notice they are using PBR at all, let alone roughness.
     
    Ozzy likes this.
  3. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

    Joined:
    Jan 3, 2017
    Messages:
    1,602
    Likes Received:
    1,151
    Iracing looks like a simpsons cartoon reguarding the flat colour detail of the the cars,the other sims do look better and if that's what pbr can do with the right devs then yeah ok
     
    WiZPER and Ozzy like this.
  4. Ozzy

    Ozzy Registered

    Joined:
    Dec 18, 2013
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    26
    That's definitely true. Realtime engines probably have to make compromises. As far as I've read, you really have to know your way around shader coding to get all the "pbr rules" implemented. Maybe IRacing only implemented a subset of them?

    That's indeed a disadvantage, although I'm not quite sure if it really matters, looking at the huge VRAM sizes availabe on modern GPUs. There may also be different techniques to get somewhat around this problem (different resolution maps, uber shaders, metalness workflow?). I'm wondering if games, which support tessallation actually using displacement maps? If yes, then another type of map seems to be doable. ;)

    Disney uses PBR for animated cartoons, so you still have to create realistic texture maps and feed the shaders whith realistic values to get a realistic look. I don't have IRacing myself. From what I can see on youtube it doesn't look too bad, but certainly shows a little bit of age:). DCS World 2, PCars 2 and Unreal 4 look all pretty good with PBR. Don't know if GT Sport is using it but I would bet they are.

    In the end of the day, it is like with an advanced physics engine. Even if it wouldn't work better than today, it is still nice to know that it is there.:D
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2017
  5. Ozzy

    Ozzy Registered

    Joined:
    Dec 18, 2013
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    26
    Seems like my wish will be fulfilled! :D
    Miracles still happen, thank you S397!
     
    gabrielof likes this.
  6. gabrielof

    gabrielof Registered

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2016
    Messages:
    52
    Likes Received:
    66
    Indeed. S397 is slowly implementing all my dream features for rF2. For such a small studio this is really remarkable.
     
  7. F1Aussie

    F1Aussie Registered

    Joined:
    Apr 1, 2011
    Messages:
    636
    Likes Received:
    271
    It will be remarkable when it is all released.
     
    Lazza likes this.

Share This Page