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various

Procrastination

Yeah I know, sometimes it is difficult to pronounce all of a sudden but this is the truth of this very moment of mine, and as Wikipedia says much better than I could possibly phrase:

Wikipedia

Procrastination is the action of unnecessarily and voluntarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing so.

and this is the state in which I am right now, sitting in my office, surrounded by colleagues doing real, useful stuff and me typing on this loud keyboard.

Actually, this is not only mere procrastination but there is a little celebration as well in the mixture.
What one can celebrate on a Friday morning at 11:16 you ask? but of course my new Twitter account!
Or better, I had a Twitter account already for the last 13 years, but it was the studio one. Last week it was split in two so all the content of the @lucaderiu got moved to @playsysofficial and I now have my own identity.

Look how clean it is.

And what is so special about it, you may ask.
Well, I have to confess that I have never been so interested in tweeting, but any time somebody was asking about the company’s Twitter, I was giving my @lucaderiu, so somehow this was giving me the feeling that I was the company itself.

But not anymore! now I am my own individual, sitting here, with my zero followers, my own profile picture and my own tweets that nobody reads. Somehow the feeling is not so far from this blog and posts, but that’s it and one has to bare with it I suppose.

And actually, thinking about it, in 2022 having the possibility to say something without anybody replying back feels like a privilege.
Wait, this is good, let me quote myself here:

Luca Deriu, 23 September 2022 – during a procrastination phase

nowday, having the possibility to say something without anybody replying back feels like a privilege.

Okay, the dear diary moment is now over. I’ll be back in a year or two to update this blog. Maybe. Cheers.

Categories
Software Development

Real PBR Raytracing Preview

Real PBR tool for raytracing rendering is definitely one of the most difficult tools we are working on. The task of extending the PlaySys Interaction Framework features to function as a layer underneath is surely as much challenging as it is technically fascinating, but takes time both for the architecture and implementation.

In this new video I am showing how Real PBR works, introducing for the first time a real preview of our upcoming tool for real-time ray tracing rendering.

One of the relevant aspects of this video is the lighting workflow that is using part of the PlaySys Interaction Framework control features that we developed for Real HDR tool.

There will be a major revamp of the Material Settings that looks pretty limited at the moment, and a massive amount of time is going to be invested in the Render Settings panel.

Unfortunately the development of Real PBR is not quick as planned at the beginning of this journey but we are doing our best to guarantee efficiency of the tool keeping its cost as much contained as possible. In any case I think that the goal that we achieved is impressive for our development team.

Real PBR Raytracing Preview

A detail of Real PBR tool in action.

The post Real PBR Raytracing Preview appeared first on Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering.

Article from Software development blog – Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering (https://www.real-pbr.com)

Categories
development Software Development

Photometric Light Graphs

Photometric Light Graphs!
The release of Real IES 3.2 is imminent and among the various upgrades and changes described in this article, we added a new user-requested .CSV file exporter for the LightList. This way you can easily export all the candelas per angle generated with Real IES, and use this data to plot graphs in other software such as Microsoft Excel, Open Office Calc, Libre Office Calc, Google Sheets, and so on.

Export CSV File from Real IES

a photometric light created with Real IES 3.2 and exported as a .csv file.

We are sure that this new feature will be quite useful for all the experienced light designers. In fact, the possibility to plot graphs is going to be an excellent way to communicate how the lighting model will work in your project. Our thanks go to Gerald K. for pointing out the necessity to implement such a feature.

If you already own a license of Real IES go on, grab the latest version of Real IES from the Releases page, try this new .CSV exporter, and let us know what do you think about it.

The post Photometric Light Graphs appeared first on Real IES.

Article from blog – Real IES (https://www.real-ies.com)

Categories
development Software Development

Real IES 3.2

While working on Real IES 4, we decided to add some improvements to the Real IES 3 life cycle too, and here is a list of some features you should expect in the next few weeks.
Of course, any upgrade comes at no cost if you already have a license of Real IES 1, 2, or 3. We appreciate your support in our tool that recently had its 5th birthday, and we want to express our gratitude with lifelong updates even if the price changed in these years.

Anyway, first of all, the LightCone display has been upgraded and the rendering is now much, much more consistent with what you will have in your render.

 

Real IES photometric light cone rendering

The “display mode” option on the right end of the user interface is going away 🙂 In Real IES 4, there won’t be the preview or inspector anymore.

 

Second, you will find a smoother visual experience thanks to the improved anti-aliasing both for the Full HD and 4K UI mode.

Real IES photometric curves graph

Although this feature may feel less important, we all know how stressed can be our eyes after an intense production period. My wish is that Real IES can be as light as possible for your eyes.

Now for something, you all asked many times and I always promised but never integrated: the LightList manual input

Real IES photometric parameter override with manual input

Hack your IES files to the bone with the manual override. You asked me for better granularity and this is the second step in that direction (the first one is the “granular light spikes” in LightGraph but that is already there for two years).

There will be other features for Real IES 4 like a mixer, a node system, load file with drag and drop, and more. All of this thanks to your continuous feedback: you asked it and we did it!

The post Real IES 3.2 appeared first on Real IES.

Article from blog – Real IES (https://www.real-ies.com)

Categories
Software Development

R&D Progress of Real PBR

This is a short version of the in-house presentation about R&D activities related to the development of Real PBR software (aka Real-time Physically Based Rendering) tool, by Luca Deriu for PlaySys in 2019.

The software aims to offer a complete yet intuitive workflow for 3D Artists involved in the game development.


Thanks to the new computational possibilities offered by technologies such as Nvidia RTX – real-time ray tracing – the tool may also integrate features interesting for product and automotive rendering.

Real PBR is in development and there is no release date yet while PlaySys efforts are focused on the release of the first version as an open beta during 2020.

The post R&D Progress of Real PBR appeared first on Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering.

Article from Software development blog – Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering (https://www.real-pbr.com)

Categories
development Software Development

HDR Generator with Satellite System

If you are looking for an HDR generator tool you are in the right place, and at the right time too.
During the next week, we are going to launch Real HDR 1.7 with updated features and new tools and in this article, I’d like to cover two of them: Real PBR Link and the Satellite System.

REAL PBR link

As you probably already knew, I am working on a new real-time raytracing physically based rendering tool named Real PBR. I cover most of it on its own website and blog.
What links Real HDR to Real PBR is an option available in the Options Window that will enable a connection between the HDRI you are generating and the realtime rendering in the other tool. This way Real HDR won’t need to include complicated extra features for rendering and this won’t change its price, after all, you are looking for an HDR generator and Real HDR will keep and improve this as its main goal.

Real PBR preview

 

Satellite System

It is time to say goodbye to the “Click&Go” feature that I introduced in v 1.4 of Real HDR and to say Hello! to the new system I developed to place lights in a 3D space: the Satellite System.
This decision has two reasons: the first reason is that I recently discovered that there is a patent that constrains the way a light is placed by using a reflection ray from a normal. In my naive development approach, I was researching a way to offer you a good way to place a light and indeed, the Click&Go seemed to be a nice way: you click on a surface and the Click&Go detects its normal to define the position where a light should be to lit that precise spot (Click&Go was a little different in reality, but the final experience was somehow the same). Too simple to be real 🙂 and I am sure many of us already developed such common knowledge for experienced users.
Somehow it is like to warm water before having a shower, too basic to be patented but anyway, I am here to research, develop and offer better solutions for my customers and not to fight on patents.

Real HDR Click&Go

Say Goodbye to the Click&Go. Now deprecated

By the way, if you also think about this, the Click&Go – as well as the similar mentioned patent – both suffer from a problem: the user must see the polygon that will reflect the ray and this requires control manipulation of both object and the point of view. And this is the second reason that pushed me to research something better. The story is very long and romantic 🙂 and starts from my Black Hole test – I won’t write it here but we can talk about it on the Discord channel if you like.
To make it short I can describe myself as a technical 3D Artist and my goal is to provide an automated way that may speed-up or enrich the final output of a 3D Artist. So I thought about my approach when lighting a scene: I place the camera first, then the object, then the lights and so on. Point of view first THEN illumination… and this is the thing: sometimes I don’t have access to the polygon I need, simply because it is occluded. And here is where the Satellite System comes in, providing an orbital preview of the light direction all around the 3D mesh combined with a static rendering viewport.
Simply put: you look through the viewfinder and you place the lights around your object as you were a photographer. Cool right? In my old manual about 3dsMax for the Italian publisher Hoepli (back in 2008…wow!) I underlined a similar approach to customize the viewport of the software since the times of Kinetix and Discreet.

Real HDR Satellite System

Say hello to the new Satellite System in v1.7!

There are also so many other improvements in Real HDR 1.7 and I invite you to read them all in Releases Notes page here on this website.
Thank you all for making Real HDR so great with your suggestions!
Luca

PS: I am code-signing the release in this very moment and my colleagues from marketing and Render Academy are preparing something cool for Black Friday -> Cyber Monday. Stay tuned.

The post HDR Generator with Satellite System appeared first on Real HDR.

Article from software development blog – Real HDR (https://www.real-hdr.com)

Categories
Software Development

Realtime HDRI updates

The possibility to have realtime HDRI updates in Real PBR is now possible thanks to a new option both in Real HDR and Real PBR.

Realtime HDRI Updates

Starting from version 1.7 of Real HDR, the 3D artists will find a new flag in the options window that will expose a temporary buffer to Real PBR. By using this new option it will be then possible to precisely adjust the lights by using Real HDR while watching the realtime HDRI update result in Real PBR.

The post Realtime HDRI updates appeared first on Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering.

Article from Software development blog – Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering (https://www.real-pbr.com)

Categories
Software Development

3D Scene Management

The 3D scene management has been the focus of this development week of Real PBR. The results are great both for the user and for the hardware.
For instance, you can now navigate the scene using the camera and the focus points activated by selecting the various nodes.

3D Scene Management

In this scene of my colleague Elena Kartseva, you can see a prototype of a room for a VR game, where I moved the focus from the entire container to a detail.

3D Scene Management

There are no materials applied and the models are approximated since the small interior is just a prototype, but the 3D Scene Management and the camera movement are great. I have to add some parameters related to the sensitivity and the flip of the movement axis though.

3D Scene Management

In this picture below you can see the usual model I received from my former colleague Ville Niemi for testing purposes. Ville is also supporting me with insiders’ requests so I prepared for him the Master Texture slot. I am sure this will be appreciated by many users since it will let import the AO, metalness, and Roughness by using a single texture. I kept the Emission in a separate Map (my thoughts about that here). As an alternative to the Master Texture, I left the previous individual slots. I strongly suggest using one or another since the result is practically a sum.

There are new settings for the camera position in the space. They are still “one-way” in the sense that they are updated by moving the camera with the mouse, but my plan is to receive a numerical input and adjust the camera position.

3D Scene Management

This is off topic but I couldn’t resist from using my very old assets from a first-person shooter videogame I was developing back in 2008 using the amazing Unigine…can’t imagine that this is what was happening at PlaySys 11 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DCA3rZMIs4

Display and Lock are two new features I finally manage to complete. They look and behave similarly to many other tools such as Photoshop for example and they let the user hide a certain node or lock it, preventing accidental mistakes.

3D Scene Management

Finally a stress loading test by using an asset from a videogame for PS4 I am currently coding with my team. We packed a massive map composed of almost two million polygons and the load result is very stable and somehow fast.

3D Scene Management

The post 3D Scene Management appeared first on Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering.

Article from Software development blog – Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering (https://www.real-pbr.com)

Categories
Software Development

User Interface of Real Physically Based Rendering

Today there is some news on the User Interface of Real PBR. You can surely spot the glossy style like in the good ol’ times.

Real PBR Material Editor

There are also new slots in the material including a Metalness Map that in future will be derived by a single channel of an RGB map like a Red channel of a Master Texture. I am not sure I want a Master though since I don’t like the idea of the Emission Map packed in a single channel and multiplied by a flat color. These days I am playing with the super-duper Borderlands 3 and there are so many blinking lights of different colors…”Unreal Engine” you’d say, fair enough, but still, I don’t want to limit the 3D artists to a single luminosity value * color value.
So, long story short, this is why in Real PBR there is a Map for the Metalness and an RGB Map for the Self Illumination.

 

Real PBR Camera Settings

There are few changes in the Camera Settings as well, where I have now obtained a more suitable range of the parameters. The Shutter Speed will drive the Motion Blur behavior while the Aperture will manage the Depth of Field. Everything is on my list and is a matter of priorities and free time now.

 

Real PBR Scene Structure

The new User Interface style is visible in the Scene Structure. This is an important part of Real PBR since the user can find here all the meshes in the project.
I added a show/hide command as well as a lock to prevent accidental mistakes.
Once again, common functionalities, but somebody has to do them.

Behind the scene – even if I have a long road in front of me before being able to publish the first open beta – I am also working on the licensing system that will be similar to Real HDR and Real IES. Thanks to Ville Niemi for borrowing me his 3D model for my development experiments!

The post User Interface of Real Physically Based Rendering appeared first on Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering.

Article from Software development blog – Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering (https://www.real-pbr.com)

Categories
Software Development

Real PBR – Physically Based Realtime Raytracing Rendering

Real PBR will ba a new realtime rendering tool supporting real-time raytracing and various features for 3D artists involved in video game development and realtime rendering techniques in general also for architecture and design…and finally, I can disclose this new project I am restlessly working on.

I developed many internal tools for the projects and commissions at PlaySys Software Development and with this new tool, I want to extend the creative possibilities of 3D Artists all around the world – as I did in the past with Real IES and Real HDR.

This new project is quite ambitious and is going to take me a lot of resources for research and development but I am confident in the fact that this upcoming tool will payback.
As a difference from the past, I am going to introduce this tool during the development, before the official release. Also, my plan is to start selling the tool with a very accessible price that will help both me and users to join our forces with the aim of having a more robust instrument. So I invite you since now to join my efforts on this blog and my Discord channel here.

And now, finally, some pictures of Real PBR Beta 🙂

Real PBR beta Startup Screen

This is how real PBR Startup Screen looks like.

 

Real PBR beta UI New project

This is how Real PBR looks on a new scene. Is it too essential? I am planning to add a wizard to “break the ice” and help the users to move the first steps.

 

Real PBR beta UI Menus

A quick preview of the drop-down menus of Real PBR. As a difference from Real IES or Real HDR, this new tool has a redesigned UI engine that helps me with the layout of the various commands. Real PBR window can also be resized or used in fullscreen. Sounds common possibility but it is not so obvious from the layout perspective…at least for me.

 

Real PBR beta UI Tools

Here is an example of how I managed the division of the various tools available in Real PBR: Scene Structure, Scene Properties, Camera Settings, Material Editor, Animation Tools and Render Settings.

 

Real PBR Import 3D Object

I had previous experience on 3D mesh parsing from an OBJ file on Real HDR, but I am very happy I moved to Assimp. Real PBR can import all the imaginable 3D file formats now (actually for the moment OBJ, FBX, and Collada). Within the mesh data, there are UV, tangents, normals, smoothing groups and all the useful elements to work efficiently. However, for personal tech reasons, I changed the post-processing structure in favor of my needs.

 

Real PBR beta Imported Scene Structure

Here is how an imported object looks in Real PBR’s Scene Structure. The parsing process reconstructs the meshes and their hierarchy as it was in the modeling 3D software.
This model – for example – has been modeled by my friend Ville Niemi using 3dsMax (and ZBrush I think?). The import and reconstruction phase is also very quick. Now I have to figure out how to structure a save file for Real PBR projects, so the user can resume its work. I will probably create a project folder where I will copy files on import…byte by byte 😉

 

real PBR beta Material Editor

And here we go: the Material Editor! This is the fundamental part of Real PBR since the importance of the shading models in use.
From here you can assign a color to the meshes, apply Albedo textures, Normal Maps and emissive texture. Two sliders are affecting the metalness and the roughness and for the moment that’s all I have, but in the next weeks, I am going to add many more Map containers.
There is also the possibility to save and recall materials for fast material application and – more importantly – for instancing of memory content. Lot has to be done to avoid excessive RAM consumption and this is the first step.

 

Real PBR beta Camera Settings

Here are few camera settings for Real PBR. I am recreating a workflow that can be as much similar to what happens in real photography. Physically Based rendering means this too and it must be provided by my tool. Also, these features are appearing in V-Ray, Maxwell-Render, Corona, Arnold, and many more back to my times of Brazil and finalRender.
Anyway, whatever, these settings are a must and here they are 😉

 

OK, for today this is enough but much more will follow very soon. To ambitious? too crappy looking? share your thoughts with me.

The post Real PBR – Physically Based Realtime Raytracing Rendering appeared first on Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering.

Article from Software development blog – Real PBR Physically Based Realtime Rendering (https://www.real-pbr.com)