PBR Workflow: Tools, Resources and Additional Reading

An Industry-Wide Revolution

The addition of physically based rendering to WorldViz products brings us into the fold of an industry-wide revolution in artist workflows. Physically based rendering has a few new concepts and methods compared to older methods, as well as some amazing new capabilities that simplify artist workflows an make sure that once an asset has been made once, it can be used anywhere without having to retouch the source files. This is a list of tools and resources to help you on your way.

Krzysztof Narkowicz's Interactive PBR Example

The most intuitive way to get a feel for the capabilities of a shader is often to simply mess around with some sliders and see how it responds. Krzysztof Narkowicz's embedded below from Shadertoy does just that, and even includes a realtime display of what's going on at the microsurface level.

Permalink: https://www.shadertoy.com/view/4sSfzK

Babylon.js GLTF Exporter for 3DS Max

At the moment, the best way to export models for use with Vizard's new PBR workflow is the GLTF format. GLTF stands for GL Transmission Format, and is designed as an engine-neutral way to deliver models ready for use with PBR conventions. The most popular GLTF exporter for 3ds Max is the one produced by the good people at the Babylon.js project.

Instructions for download and use can be found here:
https://doc.babylonjs.com/resources/3dsmax_to_gltf

Be sure to use the "scale factor" option to convert the units to meters for Vizard/Vizible use. e.g. if your 3ds max system unit is set to 1 unit = 1 cm, the scale factor to use in the exporter is 0.01.

Comparison to the old OSGB workflow

One of the awesome things about the approach is that cube maps are now part of environments instead of individual objects, so objects can be easily transferred between scenes and just reflect what's around them. This is as compared to having to manage reflections on a per-object basis with the old OSGB workflow, and having to replace them on every object anytime you want to bring it to a new scene. With this workflow, you make a prop once and it's done forever.
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PBR Workflow: Saving HDR Cube Maps From Inspector

Welcome to Inspector R6

If you've been working with WorldViz products for a while, you may already be aware of our visual editor, Inspector. Inspector allows for the inspection and manipulation of scenes, setting up realtime lighting, particle effects, Level of Detail nodes, and various other options.

New to Inspector in Vizard 6 is the ability to render out High Dynamic Range cube maps that can be processed in external programs for Image Based Lighting in a Physically Based Rendering workflow, such as in commercial tools like Lys, or freeware like IBLBaker.

Inspector is included with all installations of Vizard, and is unrestricted with all licenses including the free mode. If you don't already have a copy of Vizard installed and would like to try Inspector, download the free edition of Vizard here.

Start Inspector and Load the File

To start off, open up inspector from the start menu, then load your environment model using File > Open.
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