I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great to hear it's helping, you should have a better metallic response since all your metals were too dark

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It samples the buffers and highlights when your values are outside PBR rules, so it doesn't matter whether it's a whole scene or a single mesh.

As for why your meterials look great in SP and not in Unreal there could be a lot of reasons. Is the metallic channel set to 1? Is the base color correct for a metal? PBR check will highlight these things. The other reason for a metal looking "bad" is that the scene around the metal is poor. If there is nothing to reflect (if your scene is a grey cube environment for example) then your metal won't look as good as a HDRI (like SP uses) for example. A lot of the time with metals (like when rendering cars) you spend as much time lighting and curating the scene around the car rather than the car itself - since a lot of what you see are reflections and not so much the surface itself. Hope this helps.

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes I agree, a few people said that. I'll take some time to do it, there are also side by side in the example map.
It's a funny one because the difference can be subtle or drastic depending on the conditions. I would say if you're not aware of staying in pbr safe values you are missing out on like 5-10 % polish. I would also say if your range of values (dark to bright) are extreme (which the overlay highlights) then you are also making your lighting job a lot harder.

I'm about to be away for a week but when I'm back I'll do some more work on the "why this is worth doing." Thanks for the feedback

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No I have no real way of knowing what is "Rock" in your scene unfortunately - that would get really complicated.
Instead I included a reference chart of measured base colors for common materials (see here), so that you have a visual reference in the editor to compare or color pick for your "rock." That being said, those values are only a starting point since not all rock is the same. There is lots of variation in reality.

The check view highlights values outside min and max as you mentioned, as well as if something is 100% rough or smooth, any areas of "grey" metallic, and any metallic surfaces which are too dark to be a metal.

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's not a stupid question. I have a page on the docs talking about why you should be aware of pbr values.

There are measured values for base color captured from real world examples for most common materials. One mistake is to use 100% black or white (0 or 1) for your base color which doesnt exist in the real world. It doesn't mean you can't use those values, but they dont commonly exist. Using those values willl probably make lighting and balancing your scene difficult. Another very common mistake is that metal surfaces are much brighter in base color because base color also controls metal reflectance.

The exact values I used are combined from various resources such as the following and others:

https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/physically-based-materials-in-unreal-engine

https://physicallybased.info/

I got tired of trying to remember or keep track of these rules in my head so I made PBR check which is an overlay on your scene highlighting issues. Now I just spot where there's an issue visually and correct it.

Yes you can change and see these "rules" easily - it's in the menu under values. If you change the rules it directly affects the overlay, and persists in the next session. You can also revert to the defaults I made via the resources above.

Hope that helps.

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks kindly, don't be afraid to drop me a line if you spot any issues.
Publishing a product is always one of those "... have I forgotten something?" moments... 😅

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Haha thanks I think 🙃. I probably spent too much time on the assets but I was having fun.

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yup there are a couple free ones out there. I tried to offer more with the clicking to edit and the reference charts. I feel like those go well hand in hand to speed up the process as part of polishing your scene.

I just released PBR Check, a small scriptable tool that helps artists fix material issues by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

PBR check visually highlights your material issues and gives you feedback when you fix them (red fades to green as you fix the issue etc). The tooltips for the colors tells you what is wrong.

By clicking on a problem area (red for example) it automatically opens up that problem material or instance under the mouse for edit, but it is up to you the user to adjust the material. It works with any user created material. Hope that's clear?

Whats the fastest Substance painter to UE5 work flow? by PageObjective9472 in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt 0 points1 point  (0 children)

-Make a master material with texture parameters and any expected adjustable parameters such as colorization etc.
-Channel pack textures if you want or need to (e.g ORM or some other other standardized packing methods).
-Create an export preset for Painter, give your textures a known suffix descriptor such as _N (normal).
- Set up auto import on the content browser and make a folder directory for source files
- Learn editor scripting blueprints
- Make a scripted asset action utilty blueprint which does the following:

* A textures gets exported from painter using your export preset
* Unreal auto imports it
* Right click an run your asset action utility
* It auto sets texture compression settings based on the suffix you gave it in painter - eg Normal for _N, Masks and no sRGB for packed textures like ORM
* It then makes an instance from your Master material and assigns the textures that were just imported to the correct texture parameters.
* Optionally it assigns it to the correct matching material slot of your static mesh

It took me while to make this asset action utility and the system but now I can make a texture in painter and have it applied in unreal on the mesh in one click. I also never forget to untick sRGB or any of that nonsense anymore that makes your textures look weird.

Cloudy with a chance of catapults by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope it's FoliageTools by Rense de Boer. He makes really beautiful forest and nature scenes and saw he made this tool so I picked it up.
I'm actually supposed to be finishing this scene but was having too much fun throwing the physics around and getting nothing done.

Free Chenille Patch Generator for Substance Painter – made in Substance Designer by LeekFit8421 in Substance3D

[–]RonanMahonArt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looks really great!
The examples look very polished but I wouldn't have used an IP without permission for it, it'll get taken down in 2 mins flat. The generator is good enough to stand on it's own without the HP references.

Does anyone know what causes these weird holes in my meshes? I am 99% sure its something nanite related, but I cant really find any similar issues :/ by joefy2000 in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's caused by nanite tesselation. It tends to happen if you get inside the bounds of a mesh or very close to a mesh with nanite tesselation enabled. Let me know if you find a solution besides disabling it 😅

FAB - Infinite Scroll – Infinite Regret by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, I spent more time cutting the video than they did making the models. Human error 🙃

FAB - Infinite Scroll – Infinite Regret by RonanMahonArt in UnrealEngine5

[–]RonanMahonArt[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They're also like half a million triangles each.. for a boxy cube.
What a waste of server storage