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Pricipled shader and a cubemap?

Home › Forums › Graphics / Blender › Pricipled shader and a cubemap?

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  • 2018-09-10 at 1:57 pm #7053
    jem
    Customer

    Hi,
    I have been trying to learn the node system within Blender and how the Cycles principled shader works. The Verge3D team has said that most of the Cycles nodes will be supported in the future (many Cycles nodes work now). I have been trying to reproduce some of the cubemap reflections that are present in the materials in the Verge3D material library within a material that uses the principled shader. I wish to do this because the cubemap provides an efficient simulation of world reflections.

    Before I go too far down this area of investigation, would the Soft8soft team please let me know if this solution makes sense? Is there another way to do this or a better strategy?

    If this is an appropriate strategy, does anyone have a working example of a principled shader node working with cubemap reflections.

    I have created a simple example that almost works. I used the cubemap reflection node group and I feed that value into the base color of the principled shader. The reflections do work in Verge3D, but I cannot get the cubemap color to mix or add with my object color. I can post the example if you would like.
    Thank you,
    Jem

    Jeremy Wernick

    2018-09-10 at 2:41 pm #7059
    Mikhail Luzyanin
    Staff
    jem wrote:

    Before I go too far down this area of investigation, would the Soft8soft team please let me know if this solution makes sense? Is there another way to do this or a better strategy?

    If this is an appropriate strategy, does anyone have a working example of a principled shader node working with cubemap reflections.

    Cubemaps are not compatible with Cycles (and EEVEE in the future) so they will be depricated in the near future, so its better to use Equrectangular maps as environments and and just set Principlied node to metallnes 1 to get maximum reflections.

    Co-founder and lead graphics specialist at Soft8Soft.

    2018-09-10 at 4:11 pm #7071
    jem
    Customer

    Hi Mikhail,
    Your explanation makes sense. This is a better solution than mine. I will start researching equirectangular maps.
    Thank you,
    Jem

    Jeremy Wernick

    2018-09-10 at 4:53 pm #7073
    Mikhail Luzyanin
    Staff

    We plan to update material library but I think it will be closer to the New Year hollidays.

    Co-founder and lead graphics specialist at Soft8Soft.

    2018-09-10 at 10:48 pm #7074
    jem
    Customer

    Hi Mikhail,
    I was able to get room reflections to work with the principled shader based on your advice. Thank you. I am using Verge3D 2.7 and I used Cycles world nodes. I did two tests. In the first test, I used a room texture node. In the second test, I used a sky texture node. Both solutions worked. I have attached a screenshot of the room texture node version. The room is lit with an HDRI image. It looks great.

    Here is the issue that I noticed: the Verge3D GLTF exporter works differently when Blender is in Cycles mode vs Verge3D mode. The world nodes only export when Cycles mode. If I export from Verge mode, the world does not appear. I guess that this behavior makes sense, but it leads to another issue. Some of the tricks that I used in Verge3D mode like environmental lighting do not work in Cycles mode.

    What is the best practice for exporting in 2.7? Should I export from Cycles mode if I am using principled shaders and world nodes and export from Verge3D mode when using Verge3D material library materials?

    I am not complaining. This looks great! I like having options. I look forward to the updated material library.
    Thank you,
    Jem

    Jeremy Wernick

    2018-09-11 at 2:06 pm #7088
    Yuri Kovelenov
    Staff

    Hi Jem,

    jem wrote:

    the Verge3D GLTF exporter works differently when Blender is in Cycles mode vs Verge3D mode. The world nodes only export when Cycles mode. If I export from Verge mode, the world does not appear. I guess that this behavior makes sense, but it leads to another issue. Some of the tricks that I used in Verge3D mode like environmental lighting do not work in Cycles mode.

    Yes, the Verge3D mode corresponds to Blender Internal renderer which is not fully compatible with Cycles. As such, some features available in either of modes may be absent in the other.

    jem wrote:

    What is the best practice for exporting in 2.7? Should I export from Cycles mode if I am using principled shaders and world nodes and export from Verge3D mode when using Verge3D material library materials?

    I think this approach should work best, until stable Blender 2.8 is out (tentatively in the first half of 2019). Then we’ll probably get rid of the Verge3D mode in favor of using the standard Cycles and Eevee modes. The UI will be supplemented with Verge3D settings to work with both of these renderers.

    jem wrote:

    I am not complaining. This looks great! I like having options. I look forward to the updated material library.

    The decision of Blender devs to remove the Internal renderer and the Game Engine is a big stress for all the community. The new features coming with Blender 2.8 are really great and we’ll strive to make the migration process as smooth as possible for Verge3D users.

    Chief 3D Verger | LinkedIn | Twitter

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