Plans for PBR shading?

[gamecreator]

I suppose you could group the features into two:

 

1. What helps people work on games? CSG tools, vegetation painting, etc.

2. What helps people finish up games? Water, better graphics, dynamic sky, etc.

 

What should Josh focus on? I think most people would agree on 1.

 

But this also goes back to there apparently being thousands of Leadwerks users, only a vast minority of which interact here.

[nick.ace]

"Vast minority" lol

 

I believe it though. I mean, I don't regularly interact on forums of other pieces of software that I use. I think there's a lot of people who just use it to play around with and might not be seriously developing using it.

[Naughty Alien]

..spherical harmonics shading could produce identical visual experience as PBR (shading, not shadows), without rewriting whole shader pipeline , but instead, utilizing existing lighting structure(I assume it is similar/same to LE2.x,)..so its a matter of, does it really justify Josh time to do such things, or to focus on to gameplay/assets building related issues..

[Rastar]

That's interesting, though I don't fully understand why that would be. By "spherical harmonics shading" you mean classical IBL like Marmoset Skyshop, or some different usage? To my understanding these two techniques would be complementary rather than substitutes, because IBL deals with shading/shadows by indirect lighting, whereas PBR tries to better mimic a material's real reaction to incoming light, no matter if direct or indirect.

 

Certainly you can get equivalent results from traditional and PBR approaches for a specific lighting situation. What I like about the PBR stuff is that I as a non-artist can produce assets that work pretty well in any lighting situation without really knowing what I'm doing ;-)

 

I didn't ask because I really need this like right now (I'm actually doing more prototypical work in Leadwerks because it's so accessible, but currentx develop my game with another engine). I just think that this is becoming mainstream and it will become more difficult to buy and/or create assets for use in a non-PBR engine. And sooner or later the day will come when some user buys PBR assets, imports them into Leadwerks and complains that its rendering isn't up to snuff because the asset looks better somewhere else.

 

As for the implementation in Leadwerks: First this would need some technical additions, like conversion of textures to linear space and back to gamma (using the GPUs hardware samplers, this could be a checkbox in the texture editor) and the possibility to use higher precision frame buffers for the shading calculations. I think both are very cheap to add and also help in other situations (like rendering of skies, or doing home-grown IBL). The PBR shaders could maybe be provided by the community, e.g. by porting some stuff over from Lux, or from scratch. But that probably wouldn't work out of the box since the lighting calculations are done behind the scenes, and all we can do in the shaders is write to the G-buffers. But maybe even that change wouldn't take too much effort. But all in all I think there is a lot of bang for the buck in this.

 

Anyways, I agree that some other, more gameplay-related features are more pressing for most.

[randomkeyhits]

Yes PBR can make things look more realistic but honestly that is just "more of the same" its a nice to have sure, but in no way essential.

 

If you are creating a stylised game, maybe a top down game or something with a cartoony look then you'll probably not care about it at all.

 

With my work flow the graphics fidelity is roughly the second to last stage, right now I'm focused on game play and flow and the lacks I'm experiencing right now are a gui system (I've continually got one eye watching for flow gui...) and a cut scene/transition system. I like to be able to tell a story in a game and for me a cut scene player is essential and something I'll probably have to create for myself.

 

Overall I'd sooner Josh was able to provide us a product with a wider scope than one with a very tight narrow focus, especially as its a full game engine, not just an FPS engine

 

I'm not saying he shouldn't do PBR, just that it should not be a priority..

[SlipperyBrick]

For me gameplay isn't an issue me and the guys in my team have got flowgraphs and have completely mapped out the process and logic for our game mechanics and all things gameplay. For us right now we are going through the modelling and level building stage so 'looks' and 'graphics' is really important.

 

As rastar said above this isn't a big priority and if people with long term projects get half way through development and then PBR is added to the engine it won't be that difficult to go through the workflow and get the textures PBR ready

 

I agree though with everyone else on the forums here that there is more important things and this is more of a 'value added' type thing rather than something that's going to stop you making a game.

[YouGroove]

If you are creating a stylised game, maybe a top down game or something with a cartoony look then you'll probably not care about it at all.

You should really not say things without taking a look , you are saying you need us to show you how good it looks

 

For me gameplay isn't an issue me and the guys in my team have got flowgraphs and have completely mapped out the process and logic for our game mechanics and all things gameplay. For us right now we are going through the modelling and level building stage so 'looks' and 'graphics' is really important.

 

You are among few people using LE3 and perhaps reaching production stage, so only few people would really use PBR or GI with LE3. Would Josh concentrate on the minority needs ?

Perhaps you could complete a first playable level and get your game grennlit on Steam (it can take a year with debug and polishing stage) then ask better graphics ?

 

About graphics , i agree, it's LE3 main feature : better graphics , not better on advanced tools or physics, so i also think that LE3 within the next two years will grab a minimum from the new standards : PBR and GI , and because it's an engine for good PC desktops only.

A desktop game becomes attractive for people before buying :

- 1) by it's graphics with pictures andvideos ( also many games really good looking games got successfull or greenlit after the first week annoucement)

- 2) on gameplay when you have a demo on your hands or have some video reviews before purchasing it.

 

But today in LE3 some tools and features are lot more missing (and perhaps some are in the pipe from very long time ) :

- Vegetation tool

- water

- auto ragdoll, it's a really old technique : to avoid seeing dead zombies floating above stairs or level heights

- decals (for splatter, bullets, zombie flesh damage, placing decoration variations on floors and walls like moss, papers trash, broken wall texture damage...)

- CSG tools ?

- optionnal : soft particles to have particles looking solid without visible planes artifacts when on ground or against environment.

 

Also , the shader tool from Steam when coming to LE3 , you should be able to modify shaders and make them PBR, and everyone could share outstanding shaders bringing many cool effects

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=276004109

 

If people are not still happy ask a new Kickstarter

[randomkeyhits]

You should really not say things without taking a look , you are saying you need us to show you how good it looks

 

nice! but I'll stand by my statement, its purely a style thing, If I want what PBR can deliver then of course I'd use it but it it conflicts with the art style then I won't.

[YouGroove]

..spherical harmonics shading could produce identical visual experience as PBR (shading, not shadows), without rewriting whole shader pipeline , but instead, utilizing existing lighting structure(I assume it is similar/same to LE2.x,)..so its a matter of, does it really justify Josh time to do such things, or to focus on to gameplay/assets building related issues..

 

I see the point of not having to rewrite all shader pipeline and it improves the overall look.

http://staff.estem-uc.edu.au/ianlisle/spherical-harmonic-shading/

 

This could appear within LE3 or LE4 some day.