PBR - 3 letters that changed your livery painter's world.

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

PBR - PBR - PBR - I'm so confused...

 

Nice work Steve - [sigh] - some new tricks we'll all have to learn...

I noticed "Textures.com" has a pretty extensive lib of PBR materials - I don't know if that helps us...

Regards,
Scott

[fppilot 4,360]

10 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

I hope you guys can "beer" waiting for them.

Oh but we will be foaming at the bit and crying suds until that day that we can pop the top!

[_Gladius_ 24]

3 hours ago, fppilot said:

Oh but we will be foaming at the bit and crying suds until that day that we can pop the top!

HOPfully, we won’t have to wait long.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

6 hours ago, scottb613 said:

Nice work Steve - [sigh] - some new tricks we'll all have to learn...

Perfect Bull Ride?

[Sartanius 399]

Sooner or lager P3D sceneries and aircraft will be migrating to PBR, and we'll all be the bitter for it, judging by Steve's beautiful work above.  Glad he's getting out ahead of the field.

Just couldn't help myself...

[virtualstuff 758]

15 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

No words can describe the effect of PBR on metal....see for yourself. 

This is early work Brian Thibodeaux and I have been doing with the Leonardo Maddog recently based on my metal textures from the AA and Eastern paints...they will have what I believe will be the 1st PBR aircraft model to be released (soon according to their FB page).  The reflections you see are real...they are dynamic, and they represent something you have never seen in FSX/P3D until now.

Below you can see the yellow lines in the reflections, as well as the taxi sign near the front, the sun glint is dynamic and real.  These pics are at 4k and very large to capture what I see on my 55" 4k monitor.  I had to use a lot of jpeg compression to keep them a reasonable size.

Once we get the metal completely dialed in , I'll add the AA and Eastern liveries.(as good as it looks in these pics....there are still more tweaks left to do)

Although metal receives the biggest benefit from PBR, painted liveries take on a whole new look...just hit up the Leonardo Maddog FB page to see the work other beta painters are posting...they look amazing!

 

 

Nice one Steve, fun to have more control over materials and to be creative 😉

[beechcaptain 105]

17 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

....And stunning work on the paint...  I'd say you are one of the best painters at avsim.

+1. Absolutely stunning and definitely one of, if not THE best painters at avsim.

Bravo Zulu, Steve!

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

13 hours ago, Gandalf said:

+1 for the awesome!

Just wondering, if all our AI had this type of repaint, how much an effect (if any) would it have on general sim performance?

Regards

Alan

Most AI aircraft use only two texture sheets, one for day  (named with the letter T) and one for night (light map, named as L or LM). Some have an extra texture for the props. The person that develops the Raven AI models for the CRJ and Embraer models has experimented with bump maps  (B, also called normal maps) and specular maps (S). The bump or normal map simulates how light is reflected  in different directions off of the object. Bump mapping is nice in that it "fakes" deviations from a flat surface, like rivets and seams. The specular map determines how shiny the object appears.  Here is an example of some of that Raven Flight Sim Labs AI work, of which the rest of the discussion is embedded in this very long thread on the AIG forums:

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=25413.msg291027#msg291027

The conclusion from testing was that bump maps definitely reduce performance in the P3d4, but not terribly so. The author Andrew Q. (techmen) has subsequently made a configurator for his models so that bump maps can be made optional. As to PBR, it's just a different way of creating and rendering materials than the process described above. The chances are that PBR will also have a performance penalty, so having a lot of PBR AI aircraft near the user may result in additional performance loss on marginal hardware. PBR has already been explained here in detail, but for a simplified discussion, see here:

https://marmoset.co/posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/

I wouldn't be too worried about having PBR AI models any time soon. The models need to be recompiled to support PBR and the main developers (RFSL, MAIW, FAIB and FSPX) have not posted anything publicly about switching to PBR. Also, one has to consider what will be gained by using PBR. If the aircraft's components are not shiny metal, than the difference  between the two rendering modes may be hard to discern for an AI aircraft, especially since they normally aren't viewed from very close range.

[Mace 1,908]

5 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Perfect Bull Ride?

Professional Bull Riders (Association) -- it's like the MLB-version of baseball -- the highest level :)  I think:

https://www.pbr.com/

[Steve Dra 7,588]

Thanks for the great comments guys!   I paint to serve the community, and its a labor of love when I have the tools to make screenshots like the ones below possible:

 

Added a dab of American Airlines paint...tweaked the heck outta the bump maps to get the rivets at the right intensity (Still not there yet...but 2 extra textures per map...and there is 3 fuse maps for 6 maps to edit...just for the bumps!).  This is a freaking ton of work...but even I'll admit that I was shocked at the initial view when I panned around and moved the sun to get the glints and reflections coming off the metal....its really breathtaking..the last pic almost brought tears to my eyes...thinking how far we've come since I 1st started simming...those reflections!

 

[David Roch 1,982]

Wow... I understand your emotion Steve.
Thank you so much for sharing your fantastic work with us!

[Gandalf 45]

21 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Most AI aircraft use only two texture sheets, one for day  (named with the letter T) and one for night (light map, named as L or LM). Some have an extra texture for the props. The person that develops the Raven AI models for the CRJ and Embraer models has experimented with bump maps  (B, also called normal maps) and specular maps (S). The bump or normal map simulates how light is reflected  in different directions off of the object. Bump mapping is nice in that it "fakes" deviations from a flat surface, like rivets and seams. The specular map determines how shiny the object appears.  Here is an example of some of that Raven Flight Sim Labs AI work, of which the rest of the discussion is embedded in this very long thread on the AIG forums:

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=25413.msg291027#msg291027

The conclusion from testing was that bump maps definitely reduce performance in the P3d4, but not terribly so. The author Andrew Q. (techmen) has subsequently made a configurator for his models so that bump maps can be made optional. As to PBR, it's just a different way of creating and rendering materials than the process described above. The chances are that PBR will also have a performance penalty, so having a lot of PBR AI aircraft near the user may result in additional performance loss on marginal hardware. PBR has already been explained here in detail, but for a simplified discussion, see here:

https://marmoset.co/posts/physically-based-rendering-and-you-can-too/

I wouldn't be too worried about having PBR AI models any time soon. The models need to be recompiled to support PBR and the main developers (RFSL, MAIW, FAIB and FSPX) have not posted anything publicly about switching to PBR. Also, one has to consider what will be gained by using PBR. If the aircraft's components are not shiny metal, than the difference  between the two rendering modes may be hard to discern for an AI aircraft, especially since they normally aren't viewed from very close range.

Hi, thanks for the in depth reply and the links, which make interesting reading 🙂 I look forward to seeing the new effects in action. 

As you rightly say, we hardly ever look at AI that closely (well, I don’t anyway) so whether it’s worth all that effort is a debatable point. Airport buildings on the other hand... 😉

Regards

Alan

[charliearon 3,023]

My first PBR paint is ready to upload.....any takers?

 

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Charlie,

YOU WIN ! 

LOL...

Regards,

Scott

[Steve Dra 7,588]

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

My first PBR paint is ready to upload.....any takers?

OMG Classic!

I agree with Scott!  You win Charlie.  Already deleted all my metal paints and PBR work.  I've been outclassed.  All that time spent learning to paint...wasted. 😞

Please tell me you actually made that and have in on your desk.  I'm asking for one for Christmas that I can look at every time I get frustrated with the many intricacies of PBR painting to know there is lite (beer) at the end of the painting tunnel!

And Scott...your Rodeo pic...well I thought it was just a lot of Bull! 😀

Edited December 19, 2018 by Steve Dra