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Zero Gravity - PBR IBL Environment

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  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
    So what determines the values in the metalness map? Or is it always an all white image (like on the previous page) if the materials are metals?
  • EarthQuake
    Yeah, the metalness map tags surfaces as either metal (white in the map) or non-metals/dielectrics/insulators (black in the map), generally you only want black and white values.

    Non metals get a fixed, low reflectance value, and metals pull the reflectivity color/intensity from the albedo map.
  • Kitty|Owl
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    Kitty|Owl polycounter lvl 3
    so in that case the specular map is the albedo when it comes to metal? in which case any metal albedo should be mainly a flat color since it is the roughness that defines the surface. you'd also need to add dirt etc ontop then have that black on the metalness map as well as isolating it on the roughness.

    seems more complex than it needs to be to me. it also sounds incorrect as well, since unless the albedo effects the specular intensity for metals then there is no way to define different types of metal (since as you say the metalness map is white or black?). doesn't sound physically based at any rate but then having not used it I may be wrong.
  • Mr Smo
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    Mr Smo polycounter lvl 18
    fgasdvasvkas.. awesome
  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
    Thanks for clearing it up for me, EarthQuake.
  • Argent
    @ Kitty|Owl - It's technically correct in a PBR pipeline to make the albedo of a metal surface black since metals are 100% "specular" (that is, they have no subsurface interaction with incoming light). The goal of a metalness map is to make use of what would otherwise be wasted, empty black space in the albedo by allowing the storage of the metals specular color there.

    This works nicely since non-metals (excluding gems) cover such a small range in terms of their specular color (0.02 - 0.08) that it's not uncommon for a PBR equation to just "bake in" an average specular value (usually 0.04) into the shading equation for non-metals. So if you know a surface is non-metallic then there's really no need to store its specular color anywhere (since you're just going to use 0.04 all the time). Hence, replacing a specular "color" map with a metalness map.

    Incidentally, because both metalness and roughness are greyscale, they could be stored in the alpha component of an albedo and normal map, respectively, saving on GPU memory. [edit: I'm mistaken on this point. See EQ's post below :) ]

    Hope that helps!

    @ kimmokaunela - Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Localized IBL sounds like a really promising avenue; I'll have to read into it more. Looking forward to seeing more!
  • EarthQuake
    Yep, Argent's explanation is a good summary. There is more to it than that, namely the importance of energy conservation, but I don't want to detract from Kimmo's awesome work, so I won't go into a big writeup here. We (Marmoset) are coming out with a couple articles soon that will explain all of this in greater detail.
    Argent wrote: »
    Incidentally, because both metalness and roughness are greyscale, they could be stored in the alpha component of an albedo and normal map, respectively, saving on GPU memory.

    Actually, with compressed textures, saving into the alpha channel isn't efficient. You double the compressed size when you add an alpha channel, so saving a full color spec map or saving gray spec/metalness into the alpha channel is the same VRAM usage.

    What you can do however, is pack a gloss, metalness, and ao or cavity map into the 3 channels of a 24 bit map, and get 3 inputs out of the same VMEM that a full color specular map takes up.
  • Argent
    EarthQuake wrote: »
    Actually, with compressed textures, saving into the alpha channel isn't efficient. You double the compressed size when you add an alpha channel, so saving a full color spec map or saving gray spec/metalness into the alpha channel is the same VRAM usage.

    What you can do however, is pack a gloss, metalness, and ao or cavity map into the 3 channels of a 24 bit map, and get 3 inputs out of the same VMEM that a full color specular map takes up.

    I had no idea, but that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the correction!
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    @ EarthQuake Thanks for the info about metalness maps. Correcting those made a huge difference!

    @ Kitty|Owl Thanks for the very good feedback. You have opened my eyes :) I never really watched histogram and I just go with the flow but then I just pretty much killed the details. I went way too extreme with that setting but now I try to keep sure that the histogram looks more right. This is something that I need to learn more! You also made a good point about metals. I tried to convert some of those to plastic.


    I watched Space Odyssye and I really liked the visual style that the movie has. Story itself is pretty boring tho :) My first idea was to go with very dark and cold feel but then I started to think that what kind of work astronauts do in there. It´s more like a science related so there should be a good lighting that they can see better. Also lighting will be yellowish because it´s early 80´s and leds were not that common. I also think that it´s much more pleasant for the eyes to have a bright environment.

    image.jpg
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    A small prop that will be flowing there. Most of those will be electronic related.

    13_Prop.jpg
  • Millenia
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    Millenia polycount sponsor
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    Kiitos paljon! Nice to know that I´m not the only Finn here :) I´m 100% self-taught and it took about 5 years to get this point. It would be awesome to do this for living but the fact is that there are so few AAA studios here in Finland and I´m not a huge fan about mobile games. You have awesome stuff on your portfolio btw!
  • mats effect
    Love following this as it progresses, working on a space station project myself and this has been a big inspiration to me!

    EarthQuakeArgent for their above posts, very useful info.
  • Iciban
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    Iciban polycounter lvl 10
    wow great stuff! goign to keep an eye on this
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    @ mats effect Awesome that you find this interesting. Your space station looks good btw! Maybe we can combine these together :)

    @ Iciban Thanks :)

    It´s been some time since my last update. I´ve been ill so the progress has been very slow.

    One huge thing that I did was better overall structure. Correcting object names and making sure that everything snaps to the grid and so on. I took this shot that illustrate the modularity of the scene at this point. I think that I have the structure pieces done so I could build a pretty huge station without being too repetitive. Right now I need to start doing those small pieces that will make the final touch.

    Modularity.jpg

    The hardest part of this project is lighting. I´ve been testing a lot different light setups. Now I understand that using too strong IBL sky is not the right way to light this scene. Space is really dark place and very different than the Earth. I want to use IBL to light just a very little and to give some nice reflections. Placing dynamic lights and tweaking those values will light 90% of the scene and that way I can have a very strong shadows from those light sources. Shadows are very important for the overall feel and to hide boring areas. Now I think it´s looking much better but I still want to tweak some parts of it. I also did some lens correction in Photoshop.

    14_2.jpg

    14_1.jpg
  • enoki
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    enoki polycounter lvl 4
    This is looking really great! Awesome to see the environments people are making with Marmoset Toolbag.
  • Pegbird
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    Pegbird polycounter lvl 5
    Very inspiring. Added to inspiration folder.

    PBR / IBL is awesome, and something I still need to develop my understanding of. Thanks for the useful links / explanations guys.
  • Shrike
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    Shrike interpolator
    looking good, came out very realistic

    If I had to choose between the last 3, id definitely go for the first composition, the 2 last ones reduce the interesting parts in favor of the repeating ones

    Talking about the last 2 pics now

    the palette is kinda cheesy, but it seems to help the retro feel
    the voltage measure meter is too big on the first shot , and the red cable just surpasses everything else in saturation
    On the first pic, the orange box is very apparent but dosnt get negated by a second factor of this strenght. Usually you position atleast 2 things of equal visual power if they bring in a new color to the palette. If the red pipes and cable would be just bit more towards orange or vice versa, it would work a bunch better or if you just had somethine else thats orange aswell, even if its just a tiny cable

    Oh and really big kerning issue in graAVity ; )
  • janeil24kid
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    janeil24kid polycounter lvl 6
    looking great dude! keep up the good work! :D
  • stimpack
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    stimpack polycounter lvl 10
    This is very nice!! I enjoy this alot.
  • mats effect
    @ mats effect Awesome that you find this interesting. Your space station looks good btw! Maybe we can combine these together :)


    haha yeah that would be awesome!
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    @ enoki Thanks! It´s just so easy with Marmoset :) Of course it would be awesome if TB2 would have more tools like UDK has but for rendering it´s awesome.

    @ Pegbird Thanks! PBR is pretty nice and I´m still trying to create a fast and efficient workflow. You just have to watch world deeper and observe :)

    @ Shrike Thanks. You have very good points there. I will keep those in mind and hopefully fix some.

    @ janeil24kid Thanks, I will :)

    @ stimpack Thanks! I´m glad you like it.

    Here is the latest one. Not a big update and I´m still trying to make it look more real by adding small detail and playing with colors, lights etc.. I don´t want to add any more stuff because it´s going to start becoming too noisy for eyes.

    14_2.jpg

    EDIT:

    I did some testing and found that adding simple letterbox effect will make everything look better. I also add some props.

    14_2.jpg

    14_1.jpg
  • mats effect
    Great progress!! Like the logo you made for it too.

    I would suggest maybe some sort of translucent cover for the tube lights on the left and right walls. As much as I like them exposed I feel like they would get smashed quite quickly with people and objects floating around.
  • Valliant
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    Valliant polycounter lvl 4
    This scene looks like one of those cute miniature dioramas, really diggin' the effect you've got going there.

    I never think about Marmoset 2 being something you can render full scenes easily in now, great job. :)
  • Pegbird
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    Pegbird polycounter lvl 5
    I would like to vote for this to be in the offical Marmoset 2 gallery
  • polygoo
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    polygoo polycounter lvl 17
    Looking awesome
  • EarthQuake
    Loving all the little personal details you've added!
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    @ mats effect Your right! if those lights break then it´s really dark in there. Usually I just like to avoid any transparent stuff as much as possible but I think I can make an exception this time :)

    @ Valliant Thanks! Marmoset TB2 will work great for environment stuff. I like how fast it is to get something awesome out of it. There is no useless stuff to slow down. For artist who just like to render their stuff out that is important. One thing that I would like to have is key-frame animations. It would be awesome to create camera movement.

    @ Pegbird That would be nice :) That gallery is full of awesomeness!

    @ polygoo Thanks!

    @ EarthQuake I´m glad you like the details! I wanted to create a feeling that someone lives there.

    I think this project is coming to a point where I want to take a little break from it and do some other things. I´m pretty happy with the results so far. I learned so much during this time. I would maybe like to do a little fly-through there and one part of me likes to use this scene and test some other engines out there (with PBR support of course).

    15_5.jpg
    15_1.jpg
    15_2.jpg
    15_3.jpg
    15_4.jpg

    I like to thank all of you for the awesome feedback that I received and thanks for taking the time to check the progress along the way.
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    I did a small making of. I think it´s a good way to see what you learned during the project. http://kimmokaunela.eu.pn/lfi02.html

    I also collect all the small prop together: props.jpg

    Some wires:
    wires.jpg
  • tynew
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    tynew polycounter lvl 9
    Holy moly, thanks for the awesome making of write up! I love stuff like this, it's invaluable to see how other artists do things.

    Your scene is fantastic, very inspirational :)
  • Mr Smo
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    Mr Smo polycounter lvl 18
  • airage
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    airage polycounter lvl 13
    Very cool work! Just wanted to say thanks a lot for the making of :)
  • Mis-Fire
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    Mis-Fire polycounter lvl 3
    Great write up thanks kimmokaunela!
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    Thanks all!

    I made a small video that will show a little more.
    [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q75Zx_mU6RU"]Zero Gravity - Real-Time Environment - YouTube[/ame]
  • ActionDawg
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    ActionDawg greentooth
    I love pretty much everything about this scene! Really great work.
    I have minor crits about material definition such as the coffee being too reflective, the bandaging/tape looking too rough (try softening the normal map) and the wrench looks too shiny despite the normals implying it's very rough. Other than small scale things I think you've nailed mateials overall, especially metal. The lighting is really great too, except for the fact that it looks like when a real world camera has its color balance set wrong. This may be an aesthetic choice on your part but I think the scene just looks overly split-toned.
  • scotthomer
    I really like this, fantastic work :D
  • luthyn
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    luthyn polycounter lvl 8
    Freaking amazing man :) great work!!
  • enoki
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    enoki polycounter lvl 4
    Seeing the nice material work you've done in motion looks great :D
  • mediochrea
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    mediochrea polycounter lvl 10
    Damn, deserted space stations are my weak spot. :D I would give a lot to play a game set in an environment like this one.
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    @ somedoggy Thanks for the feedback. Your are right about those materials. Lighting is a bit too candy but I wanted to have that old feel. Maybe I went a little too far with that :)

    @ kaikaisushi Thanks!

    @ scotthomer Thanks! I´m a huge fan of your works so this means a lot to me :)

    @ luthyn Thanks! I´m glad you like it.

    @ enoki Thank you! I wanted to make better animation but right now Marmoset Toolbag 2 doesn´t allow me to animate camera like I want.

    @ mediochrea I´m a huge fan of abandoned space stations too. I wish that some day I could do a game with this theme :)
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    Really fantastic work. Totally love this little scene. It has a great older retro sci fi feel to things which work great with the colors you have chosen. I love all the little personal details added as it makes it feel more like a real used space.

    The only crit I have is that some metal surfaces seem too shiny/reflective. When you see them in motion and see the reflective on them its like, wow thats a bit to shinny. Especially when within that metal there is some heavy contrast in the areas that are not reflective.
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    Thanks for the feedback Autocon.

    I think I went too far with that metalness. Going to keep that in my mind next time :)
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    Some time ago I made this heavily photoshoped version. I had this dream that one day I could be part of the 3dtotal.com gallery. It took over 5 years and now the day has come when I can share this link: http://www.3dtotal.com/index_gallery_detailed2.php?id=5901#.Uy6lmPl_uCk Without this forum or without you this wouldn´t happen so I want to thank all of you!!

    Zero_Gravity_KK.jpg

    It also made it´s way to CGTalk epic collection: http://galleries.cgsociety.org/gallery/forum/121 I learn so much in this project and it´s nice to see that people like that.

    I guess it´s time to start another project. This time with something different :)
  • AbKI
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    AbKI polycounter lvl 6
    Congratulations! This is gorgeous, thanks for writing everything up!

    Looking forward to seeing what you do next. :)
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    Walking around this scene at GDC in the marmoset demo was kickass.
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    @Muzz I´m glad you liked it. I wish I could have been there to hear what people think about it and to talk with fellow artist. Marmoset tech is just like your avatar, epic and mind blowing :)
  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
    Looks great! But why are your renders so small?
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    @Brygelsmack Thanks! Usually I just crap what I see in my screen when using real-time engines. For that photoshoped version I render in pretty huge resolution so I had much more room to work with. Like I would do with V-ray. It´s just easier to upload smaller images here because you don´t have to scroll sideways.

    Here is a "little" bigger version that hopefully don´t kill bandwidth :)

    Big.jpg
  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
  • kimmokaunela
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    kimmokaunela ngon master
    Now that Unity 5 is out I decided to fully port my PBR scene. I´m really impressed how good Unity 5 is. I made this scene first in Marmoset Toolbag 2, then with Unity 4.5 few months ago and it only took a day to port it to U5 with all the physically-based rendering elements. New lighting system is really good and the most important part is that the scene runs much more smoothly in U5 and it looks so much better than in U4.5/4.6.

    I think this scene is going to be epic VR experience or a place for horror space game. It´s very modular like the real space station so it could be a nice place for some sort of astronault simulator game too. That´s why I put it to asset store. It could also be good for people who wants to learn more about PBR/PBS and test different Unity 5 features. Here is the link: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/25579 (Note. I´m uploading this new version so there is that Unity 4.5 version but it will be updated once the review is done)

    493689_u4.jpg

    620250_u3.jpg

    582980_u5.jpg

    Small video from the scene.

    [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l40BKM6qTyc[/ame]
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