Let's PBR

[TheKitchenAbode]

22 minutes ago, HumbleChief said:

Nice Graham,

 

Another great work around for the lack of simple features in Chief's PBR engine. Maybe X11 will allow a lighter sky with soft shadows and no need to darken the sky to where it's useless to get those soft shadows and no need to create textures with PhotoShop, a means to stop light leaking through exterior walls and all the other issues with PBR. Just wait another 5 - 6 months with these crippled features and they MIGHT be fixed and more usable in X11 - MIGHT.

 

Thanks Larry,

 

From my playing around with PBR'ing I think most of the problems being encountered relate to having the sun intensity set way too high. As sun intensity increases the brightness of the scene and backdrop increases as does the casting of the backdrop colors into the scene. What also happens is that any added lights must also have their intensities increased so they will show up in such a bright environment. Even though the PBR DBX has controls for exposure and brightness I believe these are best used for fine tuning versus attempting to correct for significant lighting imbalances.

 

The technique I use is fairly straight forward. I shoot a PBR and turn off all lights, I then set the PBR Exposure to max (1) and the Brightness to max (100%). I then set the sun direction and intensity to get the best look without overexposing the scene. I then start turning on my lights starting with the most important ones first such as my recessed cans. I adjust the intensity, drop rate and angle to my liking. I then move on to the next most important lights. What I'm looking for is the appropriate balance between the lights. If the scene is a bit on the dark side I will just add a few 3D point lights with shadows turned off to adjust the overall ambient light level. If it's a bit too bright then I will use the PBR Exposure and/or Brightness to trim it down. I do not pay any attention to the actual Lux or Lumen values as I find that in PBR'ing it's more of a relative thing than absolute. In other words if one light is 1000 lumens and another is 500 lumens then this is no different than the first light being 10 lumens and the second being 5 lumens, ln both cases the first light is twice as bright as the second.

 

I'm certain there are other approaches to all of this but for myself I find this approach to be very reliable and consistent. After a short while I find my light settings to be very similar from one scene to the other so you can just save your light fixture to the user library for future use. Same for the PBR settings, they can just be set as your defaults which will only need to be slightly adjusted depending upon the particular view direction of additional cameras.

 

 

[AlvarD]

57 minutes ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Thanks Larry,

From my playing around with PBR'ing I think most of the problems being encountered relate to having the sun intensity set way too high. As sun intensity increases the brightness of the scene and backdrop increases as does the ...

 

 

 

 

Graham, thanks for the detailed description of your PBR lighting process. I've been very impressed with all you interior kitchen and living PBR renders and wondered how you achieved them. No doubt, you have invested countless hours tuning your craft, so this information is really appreciated!!

[Kbird1]

4 hours ago, AlvarD said:

and the right gable uses a material where I just applied my normal map.  

 

Looks pretty good Alvar and is a good solution in situations like this where you only want to do a few Attic Walls/Gables.

 

Is it possible to Share your Normal Map ?  I am still not very familiar with Apps like PS and Gimp to make them myself, seems likeI may need to learn it as every in CA needs them to look good , eg the Stone work in the pic could really do with one too.

 

M

[Kbird1]

1 hour ago, Renerabbitt said:

using material regions doesnt effect framing, it is a separate entity entirely, and looks correct on plans..including elevations, which can even be dimensioned

 

I think he is referring to my B&B Library Rene, the Battens are actually Framing,  one of the downsides of the method is that it auto frames double studs at Windows and Doors and a double top Plate etc , and just like the auto framing doesn't always get it "right" but the Battens are easily moved and deleted just like normal Studs.

 

You can actually build the framing at the usual defaults, retain framing, then change the defaults eg single top plate and rebuild to help clean things up though. ( or maybe I do that in reverse been a while since I had a B&B house to do. )

 

 

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

2 hours ago, AlvarD said:

Graham, thanks for the detailed description of your PBR lighting process. I've been very impressed with all you interior kitchen and living PBR renders and wondered how you achieved them. No doubt, you have invested countless hours tuning your craft, so this information is really appreciated!!

 

I certainly think this approach is worth a try. When I first started PBR'ing using the default settings, specifically the PBR Camera Exposure, I noticed that when adjusting light intensities the lights did not respond in the manner I expected. For example, if I had some undercabinet lights set to my liking and then added some recessed lights the brightness of the undercabinet lights would change, their brightness would reduce. If I increased the intensity of the undercabinet lights to compensate then the recessed lights intensity would reduce. It was like a constant cat and mouse chase, seemed to me that the Camera Exposure worked in some manner by establishing the maximum brightness of the scene and as such when you changed a particular lights brightness it would adjust everything else in the scene to maintain the exposure setting. When the Exposure is set to max (1) this adjustment does not happen, when I add lights or adjust a light then the added or adjusted light does not effect the existing lights. You may have noticed in my settings that my Lux and Lumen levels are very low, this is because the camera exposure is set to max and as such if you crank up the Lux or Lumen levels you will easily create an overly exposed scene. As mentioned, I don't care whether or not a Lumen setting for a light is technically correct, so I'm not concerned that my recessed light is set at 10 Lumens when a real bulb would be 500 Lumens.

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Just a bit more commentary to explain what I'm doing.

 

With a real camera, if you go outside to take a pic the light level is determined by the suns intensity, this you can't change. If it's too bright out you must adjust for this through your camera by stopping down the lens, increasing the shutter speed and lowering the ISO. If it's not bright enough outside you would do the opposite. In real life you can't just click on the sun and adjust it's intensity. With PBR you have the ability to adjust the light instead of the camera. My approach is to turn off all automatic camera functions and open the lens to max and then adjust the sun and lights to control the amount of light the camera receives. Another advantage of this is that the number of variables involved have been reduced, the scenes look is essentially determined by my light settings. Once the light/lighting is correct then it's a fairly simple process to tweak a few of the material properties to finish it off.

[AlvarD]

2 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

I think he is referring to my B&B Library Rene, the Battens are actually Framing,  one of the downsides of the method is that it auto frames double studs at Windows and Doors and a double top Plate etc , and just like the auto framing doesn't always get it "right" but the Battens are easily moved and deleted just like normal Studs.

 

You can actually build the framing at the usual defaults, retain framing, then change the defaults eg single top plate and rebuild to help clean things up though. ( or maybe I do that in reverse been a while since I had a B&B house to do. )

 

 

 

 

Yes, I was referring to Mick's B&B library as the material for the outer layer framing, as was discussed in the thread that he referred me to. I'm not sure exactly what Rene means by "material regions", but Mick's library allows full control over the battens, if you want to control exactly how the B&B wall looks like. My solution with the NormalMap is a simple solution which can give you the look of the 3D battens in PBR. The downside of using the NormalMap on a generic material is that you can't control the exact locations of the battens on the wall, and you can't dimension them on plan/elevation views.  

 

To be clear, I'm no expert on materials or normal maps. I have a fair amount of experience with PS and photography in general, but yesterday was the first day that I ever tried to create one. Luckily it didn't take me that much time to got the result I was looking for, but that's the extent of my knowledge of normal maps (haven't tried any bump maps). Attached is the normal map, which you can apply to a general material. This map is for a 1"x4" batten 16"OC. You need to set the scale to 32" x 32" to get approximately the 16" OC.  You will likely need different maps for different size battens and different OC spacings. 

 

-Alvar

[Kbird1]

26 minutes ago, AlvarD said:

I'm not sure exactly what Rene means by "material regions",

 

He is talking about using the very useful Wall Material Region Tool , it will add a layer to a wall either on the surface or if you check the box in the DBX , "cut the parent object" , will cut the Wall layers to the Main layer.  They are how I do all my Tile now for a a more realistic look and adding decorative feature Bands etc.

 

Definitely worth look into more Alvar......on the Wall Menu at the Bottom , you can also set up default Wall and Floor Material Regions for constant use in your Template File.

 

Thanks for the Normal Map , I have to give it a try......

 

M.

[AlvarD]

10 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

 

He is talking about using the very useful Wall Material Region Tool , it will add a layer to a wall either on the surface or if you check the box in the DBX , "cut the parent object" , will cut the Wall layers to the Main layer.  They are how I do all my Tile now for a a more realistic look and adding decorative feature Bands etc.

 

 

I wasn't familiar with the wall material region tool, and I wish I had been, as I've spent a lot of time in the past adding polyline solids on external walls to get some details (like the attached pic of a beach house we just finished building), but this tool makes it a LOT easier as it can cut through doors and windows automatically. I can see how handy it can be for things like tile showers, etc. 

 

[AlvarD]

15 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

I certainly think this approach is worth a try. When I first started PBR'ing using the default settings, specifically the PBR Camera Exposure, I noticed that when adjusting light intensities the lights did not respond in the manner I expected. For example, if I had some undercabinet lights set to my liking and then added some recessed lights the brightness of the undercabinet lights would change, their brightness would reduce. If I increased the intensity of the undercabinet lights to compensate then the recessed lights intensity would reduce. It was like a constant cat and mouse chase, seemed to me that the Camera Exposure worked in some manner by establishing the maximum brightness of the scene and as such when you changed a particular lights brightness it would adjust everything else in the scene to maintain the exposure setting. When the Exposure is set to max (1) this adjustment does not happen, when I add lights or adjust a light then the added or adjusted light does not effect the existing lights. You may have noticed in my settings that my Lux and Lumen levels are very low, this is because the camera exposure is set to max and as such if you crank up the Lux or Lumen levels you will easily create an overly exposed scene. As mentioned, I don't care whether or not a Lumen setting for a light is technically correct, so I'm not concerned that my recessed light is set at 10 Lumens when a real bulb would be 500 Lumens.

 

 

Graham, here's my first attempt at using your technique. 

 

Not perfect, by any means, but I like better than my best results up till now: 

 

but still very far from some of your great renders, like below... That's my goal 

 

 

-Alvar

[TheKitchenAbode]

1 hour ago, AlvarD said:

 

Graham, here's my first attempt at using your technique. 

 

 

Looks like a positive step forward. I would work on those 3 pendant lights. By any chance, did you change the height of those from their standard height. If so, you need to go into the fixture DBX and adjust the location of the light source, unfortunately in CA it does not reposition the light source in a fixture if you change it's sizing. Also, if you are using any 3D area lights I would have them turned off while adjusting my main lights, I only use them after to fine tune/control the overall interior ambient.

 

Once the lighting is correct you will then need to start making some material property adjustments. I usually use "Stainless Steel Polished" on my appliances, counter tops = Roughness 0, Bcaksplash tiles = Roughness 0, Hardwood = Polished. For white painted cabinets I set the material to General and the roughness maybe around 5 - 10. Most materials look best with a bit or reflectivity.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Alvar - Had a bit of spare time yesterday and played around with your exterior scene.

 

X10 PBR

 

Added some additional exterior elements to make things look more complete. Everything is standard CA, no so called workarounds or custom bump maps. As Rene mentioned in one of his prior posts, the end result is highly dependent upon the time spent on fine tuning the lighting, material properties and the quality of the 3D elements in the scene. Initially, this process is going to be time consuming and often frustrating, however as time goes on it gets much easier and faster.

[AlvarD]

3 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Alvar - Had a bit of spare time yesterday and played around with your exterior scene.

 

X10 PBR

 

 

That looks great Graham! All the extra details definitely help. I haven't tried to render a night scene yet, but this certainly inspires me to try.  

[rispgiu]

On 9/7/2018 at 5:36 AM, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Good examples demonstrating the sun intensity effect and the technique of using 3D area lights to soften the shadows. It's unfortunate that there is no direct way to independently control the background intensity. While you are experimenting with this, you might find it of interest to set up several more exterior cameras viewing the other sides of your house, especially the side that is exposed to the direct sunlight. I suspect with the higher sun lux setting that side will be completely over exposed. The same issue can occur if you also have interior camera views, the sun setting for the exterior may be too much for your interior views.

 

Another technique to control the background is to get the background JPEG and load it into a photo editor, make several versions with the exposure adjusted up and down and then import them into CA as backgrounds. If your sun setting is low and the standard background is too dark then change the background for one of the backgrounds that you saved with increased exposure. If your sun setting is high and the standard background is too bright then change it for one of the saved backgrounds with lower exposure.

What I have done a few times has been to export the PBR image with a clear background and I have then added the background in Photoshop. 

[AlvarD]

On 9/9/2018 at 9:58 AM, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Looks like a positive step forward. I would work on those 3 pendant lights. By any chance, did you change the height of those from their standard height. If so, you need to go into the fixture DBX and adjust the location of the light source, unfortunately in CA it does not reposition the light source in a fixture if you change it's sizing. Also, if you are using any 3D area lights I would have them turned off while adjusting my main lights, I only use them after to fine tune/control the overall interior ambient.

 

Once the lighting is correct you will then need to start making some material property adjustments. I usually use "Stainless Steel Polished" on my appliances, counter tops = Roughness 0, Bcaksplash tiles = Roughness 0, Hardwood = Polished. For white painted cabinets I set the material to General and the roughness maybe around 5 - 10. Most materials look best with a bit or reflectivity.

 

Graham, once again, thanks very much for all your ideas on fine-tuning the lighting and materials on the kitchen to get better renders! Jere's my second attempt after updating the materials and lights as you suggested (or as best as I understood)

 

Here is the PBR render before the latest changes: 

 

and here is the new render. Although I still see some minor issues with the render, overall I'm very happy with the improved results so far. The backsplash tiles took a bit of extra work. When I originally wanted the angled herringbone subway tile, I couldn't find it in the library, or figure out how to get it from the ones in the library, so I ended up making my own pattern file. This time I added a normal map to give it extra depth. 

 

 

I have also attached the X10 plan file, in case anyone is curious about the camera, lighting, and material settings I used to get to this point. 

 

-Alvar

Test plan 2.zip

[Kbird1]

looking pretty good Alvar.....

 

Will the Herringbone have Black grout? or is that an effect of the "normal" map ?  I'd also consider having no Counter Backsplash and have the Tile right down..

 

M.

[AlvarD]

Thanks Mick! 

 

In this case the apparent dark color of the grout, as you surmised, is mostly the result of the normal map, although I have seen cases of white subway tile with darker grouts, which looks fine too. I also agree with you that not having the counter back-splash may look cleaner/better.

 

-Alvar

[AlvarD]

9 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

looking pretty good Alvar.....

 

Will the Herringbone have Black grout? or is that an effect of the "normal" map ?  I'd also consider having no Counter Backsplash and have the Tile right down..

 

M.

 

I definitely over did it with the normal map. Here's with a toned-down normal map for the tile. 

 

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

5 hours ago, AlvarD said:

 

I definitely over did it with the normal map. Here's with a toned-down normal map for the tile. 

 

 

 

Here are two camera views after I made some adjustments to the lighting and materials. Will try to explain what I did in a follow-up post.

 

 

 

[rispgiu]

About the normal maps. Are you guys using PS for it ? I tried creating a few normal maps but I am not really seeing any differences between the original materials provided by CA and what I am creating.Of course seeing Grahams work makes me say that .

 

Here area couple of questions:

When you create a normal map, I am assuming you replace that map with the standard out of the box map?

Do you add a bump map as well or is that not necessary?

Any website suggestions for normal maps? 

 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciate it. 

[Renerabbitt]

11 minutes ago, rispgiu said:

About the normal maps. Are you guys using PS for it ? I tried creating a few normal maps but I am not really seeing any differences between the original materials provided by CA and what I am creating.Of course seeing Grahams work makes me say that .

 

Here area couple of questions:

When you create a normal map, I am assuming you replace that map with the standard out of the box map?

Do you add a bump map as well or is that not necessary?

Any website suggestions for normal maps? 

 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciate it. 

Surprisingly difficult question to answer for me. I could go on for hours. Normals aren't always the best solution, bumps can be far superior at times depending on the situation. In general, I prefer Normals maps for wall materials with direct overhead lights, and bump maps for indirect light, the inverse being true for floors. But it varies scene by scene. 

Normals and bumps are meant to bring out recesses or protrusions in a material to give the look and feel of multiple materials. examine the material effect you are going for and make a calculated decision. often times(in the case of countertops) I use a completely different file as the basis of my roughness maps...remembering that chief doesn't have modifiers for scale. Whatever the scale of your primary texture in reference to the image files resolution will be the ratio for scale of your other maps

Here's a good example of a floor map with some additional options in final look:

diffuse map:

bump map: 

roughness maps: 

normals maps: 

[TheKitchenAbode]

19 minutes ago, rispgiu said:

About the normal maps. Are you guys using PS for it ? I tried creating a few normal maps but I am not really seeing any differences between the original materials provided by CA and what I am creating.Of course seeing Grahams work makes me say that .

 

Here area couple of questions:

When you create a normal map, I am assuming you replace that map with the standard out of the box map?

Do you add a bump map as well or is that not necessary?

Any website suggestions for normal maps? 

 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciate it. 

 

I don't use normal maps as of yet, still trying to fully understand them. The scene I just posted uses bump maps on the stool fabric, stool wood legs, backsplash tiles and hardwood flooring. For the bump map I just copy the texture source file from above and paste it into the bump map box and adjust the scale, seems to work just fine. Bump maps are sensitive to the camera angle and the angle at which light strikes the object, as such if your lighting does not vary much then the bump effect will not be noticeable.

 

So far from what I have read is that bump maps are best for finer details like fabrics while normal maps are designed for soft flowing variations such as waves in a blanket.

 

Other than that I'm going to leave this to Rene, far more experienced and knowledgeable than I.

[AlvarD]

34 minutes ago, rispgiu said:

About the normal maps. Are you guys using PS for it ? I tried creating a few normal maps but I am not really seeing any differences between the original materials provided by CA and what I am creating.Of course seeing Grahams work makes me say that .

 

Here area couple of questions:

When you create a normal map, I am assuming you replace that map with the standard out of the box map?

Do you add a bump map as well or is that not necessary?

Any website suggestions for normal maps? 

 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciate it. 

 

As I mentioned before, I'm no expert in normal/bump maps, so all I can do is share my experience creating a normal map for the board and batten, which I thought came out pretty decent. You may find some of it useful. 

 

Before I go into the maps, here's my motivation. Without any maps, the board & batten that come with the CA base library creates very flat B&B walls in a PBR render. Like this:

 

With a "simple" normal map applied to a general material, it can make a huge difference in 3D PBR renders, looking like this:

 

I created the map using this online tool http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/. The input to the tool is a "height map", which uses black and white (and greys) to define low and high parts that define the "heights" of the map In my case, I created this height map in photoshop, but you can probably create something similar in any paint program.I took care to use the dimensions of 3.5" for the batten on 16" centers, for the white strips. 

 

 

This is what it looks like when you use it in the tool to get the normal map. The preview on the right shows you how the normal map can make the image look like in 3D.

 

Hope it helps!

 

-Alvar

[TheKitchenAbode]

PBR Light Shadow Depth Control

 

Here is the technique I use to control the shadow depth on light fixtures.

 

PBR with 3 pendant lights, light source has shadows turned on. "Really Bad"

 

After the technique described below has been applied. "Much Better"

 

The Technique

 

1.) Open light fixture DBX.

2.) Select "Light Data".

3.) Note the light Intensity, in my case it's 12 Lumens.

4.) Under "Light Sources" select "Add Light"

5.) For the added light, Under options, "uncheck" "Cast Shadows".

6.) Set the added lights intensity to say 75% of the first lights intensity, in my case that would be 12Lumens X .75 = 9 Lumens.

7.) Go back to Light #1 and change it's intensity to the difference between the added light and the original intensity, 12 - 9 = 3 Lumens.

8.) Close the fixture and note the reduction in shadow depth.

 

By varying the ratio between the light intensity of the one with shadows turned "on" and the one with the shadows turned "off" you can make the shadow depth as strong or light as you wish.

 

If you wish to change how big the shadow is then go back to the light fixture DBX, Select the light that has shadows turned on and then under "Offset" move it's position "From Base" up or down a few inches, the shadow size will change. You can check the "Show Position in Camera View" to see the actual light source position, just remember to uncheck it before closing the DBX.

 

[AlvarD]

1 hour ago, AlvarD said:

 

As I mentioned before, I'm no expert in normal/bump maps, so all I can do is share my experience creating a normal map for the board and batten, which I thought came out pretty decent. You may find some of it useful. 

 

Before I go into the maps, here's my motivation. Without any maps, the board & batten that come with the CA base library creates very flat B&B walls in a PBR render. Like this:

 

With a "simple" normal map applied to a general material, it can make a huge difference in 3D PBR renders, looking like this:

 

I created the map using this online tool http://cpetry.github.io/NormalMap-Online/. The input to the tool is a "height map", which uses black and white (and greys) to define low and high parts that define the "heights" of the map In my case, I created this height map in photoshop, but you can probably create something similar in any paint program.I took care to use the dimensions of 3.5" for the batten on 16" centers, for the white strips. 

 

 

 One more thing to note on this is that the B&W "height map" that I showed can essentially be used as a "bump map", and you get the same effect. Here it is with just the bump map and no normal map. You could even argue this looks better than with the normal map! 

 

 

-Alvar