Let's PBR

[TheKitchenAbode]

14 hours ago, AlvarD said:

Graham, a while back you took the plan that I was using to practice the exterior PBR renders and added some landscaping and did a night time render, which I really liked. I had never done a night time render, so I took it as a personal challenge and learning experience to try to replicate it as much as possible. Thanks for the inspiration! Here's the result.

 

Very nice Alvar. The night sky looks really good, much better than mine with only a few stars. Keep up the great work.

[AlvarD]

11 hours ago, Kbird1 said:

One suggestion would be a nicer Texture for the Stone wall and perhaps a bump map for it , a BM for the sidewalk would help add to the realism too.

 

M.

 

Thanks guys. Mick, good point about the stone and BMs. Here's with a different stone and added BM for the stone, walkway and pavers. I agree it gives it more realism.

 

[Kbird1]

2 hours ago, AlvarD said:

 

Thanks guys. Mick, good point about the stone and BMs. Here's with a different stone and added BM for the stone, walkway and pavers. I agree it gives it more realism.

 

 

Yep looks better with that Stone on the Wall , it appears to have "depth" now , you could add a Cap to the stone-work as done Onsite , eg Sloped Concrete , easily done nowadays with the Wall Cap Tab for the Pony wall , Sill-01 in the CA Library works pretty well ( 4"x5" with a negative horizontal offset -2" )  or you can make your own Profile and Use it , if you need to do Section views etc.

 

M.

[limitless8]

On 9/29/2018 at 6:24 PM, TheKitchenAbode said:

Here is the result after adding additional furnishings and decorative elements. All models are CA with the exception of the Edison light bulbs in the island pendants which are from 3D warehouse.

 

 

I wanted to first of all say wow amazing result!!! 
Second, could you tell me which hardwood floor you are using and the settings used in the pbr?  Also same goes for the kitchen floor?

[TheKitchenAbode]

3 hours ago, limitless8 said:

I wanted to first of all say wow amazing result!!! 
Second, could you tell me which hardwood floor you are using and the settings used in the pbr?  Also same goes for the kitchen floor?

 

Thanks, still playing with this to see what other improvements can be obtained. Focus right now is to get the glass looking better.

 

The hardwood is the Walnut 5" Plank - Natural from the CA main library.  The properties are "Polished", U & V Roughness = 10%. I also adjusted the color.

 

Concerning the PBR settings, the camera exposure is 0.25, brightness is 75%. The sun is 100,000 Lux and as a reference the recessed lights are 3,000 lumen. However, I would not take these settings as a golden rule, they will vary according to each scene. As I have noted before, it seems that the most important first thing is to find the right balance between the suns direct and indirect contribution and that of the interior light fixtures.

 

Here is the scene showing how it changes according to the type of light. This demonstrates a bit of the challenge, neither of the 1st three scenes are acceptable, 1st scene is too dark, 2nd scene is better but sun is way overexposing certain areas, 3rd scene better overall balance but lights are causing overexposed regions. 4th and final, everything balances out. I have made no adjustment to any properties other than turning the Sun and Lights on or off.

 

No Sun, no lights. Bright areas are just where I have added some emissivity to some materials.

 

Just the sun turned "ON"

 

Just the light fixtures turned "ON"

 

Both Sun and Light fixtures turned "ON"

 

As can be seen there is a countering effect that takes place between the sun and the lights. When they are on their own the scenes exhibit regions of over exposure but together this overexposure seems to cancel out. As you can likely also deduce, it would be a total waste of time attempting to adjust material properties in any of the scenes other than the last one. Lighting first and then material properties.

 

[limitless8]

11 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

Thanks, still playing with this to see what other improvements can be obtained. Focus right now is to get the glass looking better.

 

The hardwood is the Walnut 5" Plank - Natural from the CA main library.  The properties are "Polished", U & V Roughness = 10%. I also adjusted the color.

 

Concerning the PBR settings, the camera exposure is 0.25, brightness is 75%. The sun is 100,000 Lux and as a reference the recessed lights are 3,000 lumen. However, I would not take these settings as a golden rule, they will vary according to each scene. As I have noted before, it seems that the most important first thing is to find the right balance between the suns direct and indirect contribution and that of the interior light fixtures.

 

Here is the scene showing how it changes according to the type of light. This demonstrates a bit of the challenge, neither of the 1st three scenes are acceptable, 1st scene is too dark, 2nd scene is better but sun is way overexposing certain areas, 3rd scene better overall balance but lights are causing overexposed regions. 4th and final, everything balances out. I have made no adjustment to any properties other than turning the Sun and Lights on or off.

 

No Sun, no lights. Bright areas are just where I have added some emissivity to some materials.

 

Just the sun turned "ON"

 

Just the light fixtures turned "ON"

 

Both Sun and Light fixtures turned "ON"

 

As can be seen there is a countering effect that takes place between the sun and the lights. When they are on their own the scenes exhibit regions of over exposure but together this overexposure seems to cancel out. As you can likely also deduce, it would be a total waste of time attempting to adjust material properties in any of the scenes other than the last one. Lighting first and then material properties.

 

Thank you very much for all the input and effort you put into helping everybody on the forum.  Actually now using some of your settings and tips on a scene I did two days ago, to see what else I can get out of it.  If something good comes out of it I'll post it, if not, well probably ask for more advice

As for glass, yeah it's a real headf***....I've realized that with some light fixtures that include glass, I use a texture glass material like lines, and then in general properties make it metallic with settings like 30% specular and 40 or 50% roughness...and it comes out I'd say in some instances well...but obviously for windows or cabinet glass you cant use that....so yeah unless somebody invents some exemption to how to apply transparency and use some other settings I'm afraid we are all stuck with bad looking glass

[TheKitchenAbode]

2 hours ago, limitless8 said:

As for glass, yeah it's a real headf***....I've realized that with some light fixtures that include glass, I use a texture glass material like lines, and then in general properties make it metallic with settings like 30% specular and 40 or 50% roughness...and it comes out I'd say in some instances well...but obviously for windows or cabinet glass you cant use that....so yeah unless somebody invents some exemption to how to apply transparency and use some other settings I'm afraid we are all stuck with bad looking glass

 

I've been doing a similar thing , using a texture that has fine directional lines and the general properties material settings, seems to work fairly well for items like wine glasses and bottles. For flat glass such as table tops and cabinet door panels I am still using a texture but something more soft and wispy. I posted this the other day, you can see how the glass is PBR'ing. One thing I'm doing differently is that I don't use the "Metallic" check box under General Properties, instead I copy my texture file and place it in the Metallic Map box. Transparency is somewhere between 50% - 70%, Roughness between 0% - 20%, colour is something like an 80% greyscale. Still playing with this but I think with a bit more work and some customized maps a realistic glass effect could be achieved.

 

[limitless8]

The Table looks realistic and has that raytrace feel on the glass.  I use metallic only for the glass on chandeliers mostly.  Ever since pbr I stopped using raytrace and when I tried I found I didn't have the patience anymore to wait for a uhd size result.  Only reason I tried was when doing exterior views of the house the windows come off as dull and grey/whiteish and ruin the shot.  While as we all remember in raytrace it gave good reflections...so if you have s texture and solution for that please do share

[TheKitchenAbode]

8 minutes ago, limitless8 said:

The Table looks realistic and has that raytrace feel on the glass.  I use metallic only for the glass on chandeliers mostly.  Ever since pbr I stopped using raytrace and when I tried I found I didn't have the patience anymore to wait for a uhd size result.  Only reason I tried was when doing exterior views of the house the windows come off as dull and grey/whiteish and ruin the shot.  While as we all remember in raytrace it gave good reflections...so if you have s texture and solution for that please do share

 

I've also completely dropped using Ray Trace. PBR'ing is so fast, essentially live, and I personally think better results can be achieved. Totally agree that exteriors are a bit more challenging, once again especially the glass. Have also been playing with this aspect and I'm getting some positive results. Will post some suggestions soon once I gain a higher degree of consistency.

[Kbird1]

5 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

 

I've also completely dropped using Ray Trace. PBR'ing is so fast, essentially live, and I personally think better results can be achieved. Totally agree that exteriors are a bit more challenging, once again especially the glass. Have also been playing with this aspect and I'm getting some positive results. Will post some suggestions soon once I gain a higher degree of consistency.

 

It's so strange CA has done nothing about the Glass ...it has been this way since Beta with no improvements even though they were "working on it" , it's just too common of a Material to ignore like this.

 

M.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here is an exterior PBR with reflective glass.

 

Here is the latest interior PBR with reflective glass.

 

Will try to tidy things up a bit over the next couple of days and then post the texture files for others to play with.

[AlvarD]

2 hours ago, TheKitchenAbode said:

Here is the latest interior PBR with reflective glass.

 

Graham, the kitchen render is looking awesome! Love the glass, the cabinets, and the lighting. I'm definitely interested in studying the materials and lighting that you used to achieve this. Any chance you can share some version of the kitchen plan? 

 

Thanks,
Alvar

[TheKitchenAbode]

9 minutes ago, AlvarD said:

 

Graham, the kitchen render is looking awesome! Love the glass, the cabinets, and the lighting. I'm definitely interested in studying the materials and lighting that you used to achieve this. Any chance you can share some version of the kitchen plan? 

 

Thanks,
Alvar

 

Thanks Alvar. Yes, I think the best way would be for me to just share the entire plan. Those interested can then just look through it to see what I did. Also, it would be easier for me to explain my thinking if we are all looking at the exact same thing. Just need to clean it up a bit, lot's of left over junk from playing around. Will likely take a few days before I can get this done.

[TheKitchenAbode]

Had some time to tidy this up a bit. Here's the plan file. Will send textures next.

 

Abode_LP_Kitchen_PBR Sample_Plan.zip

 

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here is the first texture file.

 

Abode_LP_Kitchen_PBR Sample_Textures 1.zip

 

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here's the 2nd texture file.

 

Abode_LP_Kitchen_PBR Sample_Textures 2.zip

[TheKitchenAbode]

Here's the last texture file.

 

Sorry for all of the separate files, for some reason it was limiting my upload file sizes. Just unzip them all and place everything in one folder.

 

Abode_LP_Kitchen_PBR Sample_Textures 3.zip

[TheKitchenAbode]

Just some notes about this.

 

Please fell free to explore this and use whatever you find is of interest.

 

Nothing in here is carved in stone, just examples of what can be done.

 

Concerning the textures for the glass. They very depending upon the glass object. I'm not overly knowledgeable in this texture mapping business so consider these as just rough examples of what might be possible. Would really appreciate if someone more knowledgeable in this could pickup on this concept and see what could be done.

 

All of the lighting is fairly basic. Just keep in mind that light intensities should be viewed as relative not absolute. If you significantly reduce or increase one type of light you may need to do the same with your other lights. You can see the effect if you just crank up the sun's LUX, the interior lights will appear to dim.

 

Have fun and feel free to send me your thoughts, questions or additional methods that could build upon this.

[Kbird1]

Thanks Graham , looks like you have been Busy ! 

 

I certainly appreciate the Upload and time you've spent so we can all see how you have accomplished this.....

 

Mick

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

Just now, Kbird1 said:

Thanks Graham , looks like you have been Busy ! 

 

I certainly appreciate the Upload and time you've spent so we can all see how you have accomplished this.....

 

Mick

 

 

Thanks Mick. No problem, I really like this stuff and I'm also scaling back a bit (semi-retired), so I'm not working 24/7 these days.

[AlvarD]

23 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

Thanks Graham , looks like you have been Busy ! 

 

I certainly appreciate the Upload and time you've spent so we can all see how you have accomplished this.....

 

Mick

 

Totally agree. Very much appreciated!  

 

Alvar

[TheKitchenAbode]

Just for interest. Here are the final site pics from the plan I just sent.

 

Here is one of the original renders (Ray Trace) done back in 2015.

 

Now with X10 PBR.

 

 

[Kbird1]

That 1st Image is REALLY nice !  ( its a photo of the Finished Project not a PBR ...sorry if I confused people)

 

 

https://chieftalk.chiefarchitect.com/topic/16912-lets-pbr/?do=findComment&comment=162921

 

[TheKitchenAbode]

14 minutes ago, Kbird1 said:

That 1st Image is REALLY nice !

 

I just hope the Higher Ups at CA see this ...... and talk to you about how to make this easier to achieve for everyone..... it does show the potential of PBR , which should be of Interest.

 

 

 

Thanks Mick. I do think that the current PBR engine is fairly capable, much more than my first impression when X10 was first released. It's the material textures and maps that need a lot of work. Also, much more detailed models would go a long way. For example the table chairs I used are way too block looking, takes away from the realism.

 

[Ridge_Runner]

Very well done, Graham. The first three certainly blur the line between true photo and graphic. Had I not been following this thread I would have thought the first three were photos if seeing for the first time. I appreciate all of your hard work in this area. Maybe X11 will build on your, and others, dedication to PBR.