PBR : Before and After example ?

metaD · Dec 2014

Hello dear fellow polycounter,

I try to write an article (in French unfortunately) about PBR for a video game website. I try to make it understand its not really linked to hardware and photorealism, how it make a little easier for consistent art direction and so on. Since I must popularize as much as possible I try to find really self-explanatory images.

I aim to make a before, after screenshot. Something that nail it. Making my own assets and shows it between UE3 and UE4 is an option but real example aka games have definitely more impact in my option. Do you know example of games that upgraded their pipeline visibly during an update or during development?

Thanks!

SuperFranky · Dec 2014

I know Remember Me was updated to PBR during its development. Try researching in that direction.

marks · Dec 2014

I have some examples from Alien:Isolation but I am almost certain that I will not be allowed to post them.

EarthQuake · Dec 2014

I wrote a tutorial explaining how to convert texture content made for older gen shaders (and convert between metalness and specular pbr workflows) that has some examples and detailed explanations of the differences.

http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion

metaD · Dec 2014

SuperFranky wrote: »

I know Remember Me was updated to PBR during its development. Try researching in that direction.

From what I looked, theres no shots avaible without PBR, and they implemented quite early in development.

marks wrote: »

I have some examples from Alien:Isolation but I am almost certain that I will not be allowed to post them.

I knew it ! I knew it was using pbr in some way from some screenshot avaible at AMD website showing roughness map.

Too bad but please dont put you in unconfortable situation.

EarthQuake wrote: »

I wrote a tutorial explaining how to convert texture content made for older gen shaders (and convert between metalness and specular pbr workflows) that has some examples and detailed explanations of the differences.

http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-conversion

I will look later since It seems the website is down, thanks a lots.

EarthQuake · Dec 2014

Odd, the site is up for me here. Maybe our webserver doesn't like Frenchies. :poly124:

Seriously though, check again later and if its still down for you let me know and we'll look into it.

metaD · Dec 2014

EarthQuake wrote: »

Odd, the site is up for me here. Maybe our webserver doesn't like Frenchies. :poly124:

Seriously though, check again later and if its still down for you let me know and we'll look into it.

It work now ! I think its because of the cheese in our french internet cables, it take time to melt before actually transfer bits :P

You dont know how much it help me ! thanks a lots. I feel really stupid, because I looked at other section a lots, but not this one... derp.

By the way, how I should credit you for my article ? (if it ever see the light of day)
Or should I credit marmoset in general or both ?

JustMeSR · Dec 2014

Well there are the basic sphere comparisons:
http://youtu.be/LNwMJeWFr0U?t=1m28s

Sketchfab comparisons:
https://labs.sketchfab.com/siggraph2014/

Eve Online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3uK0eiKZYe0

Star Citizen:
http://youtu.be/sq7g0HnsIro?t=4m51s

EarthQuake · Dec 2014

metaD wrote: »

It work now ! I think its because of the cheese in our french internet cables, it take time to melt before actually transfer bits :P

You dont know how much it help me ! thanks a lots. I feel really stupid, because I looked at other section a lots, but not this one... derp.

By the way, how I should credit you for my article ? (if it ever see the light of day)
Or should I credit marmoset in general or both ?

Hehe, no need to feel stupid, we just released this one a week or two ago.

Please credit me as Joe Wilson from Marmoset, a link to www.marmoset.co would be nice too =D

Glad you found it useful!

sltrOlsson · Dec 2014

There's some talk about the content stuff in this slide from Guerrilla Games http://www.slideshare.net/guerrillagames/lighting-of-killzone-shadow-fall

I know that there was a art dump from second son that showed older legacy art before the conversion as well, can't find it now though :E

radiancef0rge · Dec 2014

there is no art dump from second son from before after pbr. entire production was pbr from inception.

metaD · Dec 2014

Thanks a lots !
Completely missed Eve update

sltrOlsson · Dec 2014

AXiao wrote: »

*SUPER SNIP*

Some RND materials I did for the vehicle pipeline (DISCLAIMER: this is some pretty old stuff before they switched to PBR for their engine, and it's probably not the right way to do good shaders for cars)
http://imgur.com/a/RshEi

I guess I remembered there being more old screens. I'm assuimg he had to take it down..

VFX_Veteran · Dec 2014

Speaking of PBR, can someone explain the requirements of what is considered PBR (as opposed to what is not) in the gaming world? I come from film background and one of the requirements to having a PBR pipeline is to have physically plausible area light sources (i.e. lights that have size and can be sampled from). IIRC, even the ambient/environment lights in games are using some spherical harmonic approximation (instead of sampling) while all other lights are just analytical direct light sources with no true area to sample from.

JacqueChoi · Dec 2014

The last console generation, lighting for the most part was limited to Blinn/Phong, with great hacky lengths gone for faking GI.

PBR is a bit "buzz-wordy" in games.

I can't speak for every studio, but from what I've seen most game studios aren't using a true PBR model, rather opting for using a very hacky one to try and emulate the similar results.

What I've seen is a lot of Image Based nodes, that are set-up throughout a level to approximate the GI, ambience, reflectivity, and the spherical harmonics. Unfortunately this often means the setup isn't particularly dynamic, and is usually calculated at load-time.

But from what I can tell, most studios seem to be using different engines, and most engines seem to be handling how they implement this very differently.

VFX_Veteran · Dec 2014

JacqueChoi wrote: »

The last console generation, lighting for the most part was limited to Blinn/Phong, with great hacky lengths gone for faking GI.

PBR is a bit "buzz-wordy" in games.

I can't speak for every studio, but from what I've seen most game studios aren't using a true PBR model, rather opting for using a very hacky one to try and emulate the similar results.

What I've seen is a lot of Image Based nodes, that are set-up throughout a level to approximate the GI, ambience, reflectivity, and the spherical harmonics. Unfortunately this often means the setup isn't particularly dynamic, and is usually calculated at load-time.

But from what I can tell, most studios seem to be using different engines, and most engines seem to be handling how they implement this very differently.

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. Even if they used the proper physically plausible BRDF material (i.e. Oren Nayar for diffuse, GGX for specular), you break the physically plausible rules by not applying the same roughness to a reflection (which I'm pretty sure most are getting a post-filter blur applied to them or a low resolution re-render of the scene) or to indirect GI for diffuse.

radiancef0rge · Dec 2014

sltrOlsson wrote: »

I guess I remembered there being more old screens. I'm assuimg he had to take it down..

andys probably talking about r&d before the project. Also I was there when he wrote that tutorial - so im not sure what hes talking about when he says this was before pbr.

PBR : Before and After example ?

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