Physically Based Shading

1. Physically Based Shading A simplified artist interface Niklas Hansson Head Teacher Game programming The Game Assembly.

2. Physically Based Shading • What is it ? • Why should I use it ? • How do I integrate it into a project ?

3. Basic BRDF Theory • Boundary : When light goes from one material to another • Light splits up into two directions : reflection and refraction. • The amount of light reflected depends on the materials reflective index. Image from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

4. Basic BRDF Theory • Basic Material • - Part is Reflected • - Part enters the material • Metal • Part is Reflected • The part entering the • Material is absorbed Image from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

5. Basic BRDF Theory • Non metals • - Light that enters the material scatters internally • - Is absorbed • - and often exits the surface again. Image from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

6. Basic BRDF Theory • Sub surface scattering • Distance between enter and exit positions are determined by the material. Image from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

7. Basic BRDF Theory • Point model • By ignoring distance between exit and enter points we can model lighting with an BRDF. Image from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

8. Basic Microfacet BRDF Theory • Microfacets • A surface consists of many small perfectly flat surfaces. • How much they differ in normal determines how light interact Image from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

9. Basic Microfacet BRDF Theory Images from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

10. Shadowing & Masking • Not all micro facets facing half vectors direction contribute to lightning • Shadowing • Masking Images from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

11. So why is specular so important ? Images from “Everything is Shiny” by John Hable

12. So why is specular so important ? Images from “Everything is Shiny” by John Hable

13. The Microfacet BRDF

14. Fresnel Reflectance • Returns a Value from 0-1 in RGB • Fraction of light reflected from optically flat surface given Light directon l and Half vector h

15. Fresnel Reflectance • Depends on refraction index (in our terms the substance of the object) and the light angle. Image from “Real-Time Rendering 3rd Edition”

16. Fresnel Images from “Everything has Fresnel” by John Hable

17. Schlick’s Approximation • Decently Accurate, uses F(0) the refractive index as input. • Which is our substance term.

18. Geometric term • Gives a scalar value between 0 and 1 • Contains the fraction of non obscured microfacets • Various functions exists most using roughness as input

19. Distribution function • Calculates factor of microfacets reflecting light towards the eye • The function determines size and shape of the specular highlight

20. Blinn Phong Distribution Functions • Blinn Phong Distribution Function • Modified Blinn Phong

21. Beckman Distribution function Conversion :

22. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation • If the specular highlight is larger the specular intensity must be lower. • N = roughness

23. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation

24. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation

25. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation

26. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation

27. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation • 0.397436n+0.0856832

28. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation • 0.397436n+0.03183

29. Blinn Phong Energy Conversation

30. Energy Conversation • Our Normalized equation for specular light • Lambert Cdiff*PI <=1 • Full BRDF Cdiff+Cspec <=1

31. Ambient Light • Ambient Light is just Light • Has a specular component too • reflections • roughness controls reflections blurriness substance controls reflection strength. • Pre blurred cubemaps

32. Ambient Light • ATI cubemap gen has nice functions for preblurring mipmaps. • For correctnes the blurring needs to match your specular light

33. Blurred cubemap • Use the angular extent and always sample from top mip. • Use the glossiness for that mipmap level and evaluate max size of highlight for size of angular extent. • Use the phong function to evaluate a contribution for all the pixels inside the extent.

34. Why physically based ? • It’s more realistic thanks to being physically based? • Materials does not require as much retweaking under changing lighting conditions. • You can create more easily varied materials with lesser number of values • It saves artist time and simplifies workflow

35. Simplified Artist interface • Reduces number of maps from 4-5 to 2. • Simplifies Junior artist training • No longer take albedo and desaturate for intensity • And then lower color for gloss • We have all seen it

36. Simplified Artist interface • PBL simplifies this by creating a material interface that makes sense. • Substance • Is the index of refraction for the material • No need to hand paint. • Mathematically matches old intensity

37. Color picker

38. Simplified Artist interface • Roughness • The old gloss • But thanks to Normalization a lot more useful • Where hand painting happens • Controls reflection blurrinees and spec • Surface Roughness that normal maps can’t show • Touch • Observe

39. Example Material rusty Paint

40. Flexibillity

41. Sample Oskar stålberg

43. Why physically based ? • Lower numbers of values to tweak • Smaller tighter gbuffer • Low bandwitdh • Small ALU increase • Ideal for deferred rendering • While still allowing very varied materials

44. How to use it • What did we do ? • Microfacet BRDF with • Normalized Blinn Phong • Fresnel reflectance • Void Geometry Function • G(h) = 4(n dot l)(n dot v) • Prefiltered glossy reflections from cubemap probes • Ambient from ambient probes

45. What we did • Crefis the value from the reflection probe • Cambis the value from the ambient probe • Fschlick(v,h) is the fresnel term using the view direction instead of the light direction

46. Ambient vs reflection Energy Conversation

48. Lessons learned • Substance and Roughness vs Intensity and Gloss • Spend time training and communicating to your artists • Help them use the new interface • Tools is essential • Beware of bugs

49. Maya plugin