How're we doing? + Dev Log #07
Added 2021-10-13 10:26:15 +0000 UTCJust wanted to drop a link to the Dev Log I wrote last week, and also ask you guys for some feedback :)
How are we doing in general? What do you think about the rate we're uploading new assets? Is the quality OK? What do you think we could do better? Any ideas you have?
I don't really have a specific question, I just want to see what you think about our progress in general :)
In the latest Dev Log: A sneak peak at our upcoming "Smuggler's Cove" project, custom ZIP downloads, new sponsors, and of course WIP assets.
Comments
Haha so nice seeing two 'competitors' supporting each other
Luke Matakitoga
2021-10-23 10:25:43 +0000 UTCThanks for the feedback <3 Passing this onto the team on Discord.
Poly Haven
2021-10-19 07:57:00 +0000 UTCI have a thing or two to say about the textures: 1 ) Your baking workflow might need some changes. Many materials have way less detail in their displacement map compared to the color map. A recent example would be 'Sandstone Brick Wall 01' or 'Red Brick 04'. Is there a particular processing bottleneck that you are running up against? How many faces do you typically use to build to build the maps? Judging by the color map it should be possible to generate a much more detailed displacement map with a bit more computational effort. 2) Many materials don't tile particularly well. One big 'mental' change that I made at some point was to stop thinking about seamlessness as a binary state (either 'seamless' or 'not seamless') but rather as a gradient going from "visible seams" to "you could tile this across a football field and no-one would notice". And on this scale many of your materials just barely make it off the ground. The solution for me was to lean more on Substance Designer for scan processing. Yes - it's an annoying subscription (though you can still buy it on Steam until Adobe axes that option) and yes - it uses an absurd amount of RAM and VRAM when going to 8K and beyond. But ultimately it is a fantastic tool for processing photoscans. I now use SD for nearly all photoscans - even if it doesn't look like it, like for Asphalt020S/L, Ground 048, Rocks 024S/L or Rock 045 (coming on Oct 24th). If using SD means limiting yourself to 8K for performance reasons then so be it. A great 8K material is better than an 'okay' 16K. 3) Get the seamless preview back onto the site. This relates to point two. I think that having the seamless preview makes everyone more aware of the importance of good tiling. This might sound a bit negative right now, but I like where the collection is going. The aerial textures are a really great!
Lennart (ambientCG)
2021-10-18 18:55:11 +0000 UTCMore moody dramatic/stormy skies would be helpful. Clean horizons are better for matte paintings.
James Cunningham
2021-10-13 18:10:42 +0000 UTCI'm also pro-exr, yes. Renderman doesn't read anything but it's own '.tex' format which everything must be converted in first. It's basically a tif in a wrap. But somehow alpha channel in the pngs messes up the file. Exrs are the way to go, but it will have linear data even for color, which is not very convenient for srgb workflow (not all viewers can show them correctly), unless you plan to work in aces, of course. Anyway, I'd rather prefer exrs over a bunch on png and jpg. I don't know what's ancient about tiff, but everything supports tiff, it has a number of compression options, 16-32 bit depth if needed.
Yegor Smirnov
2021-10-13 11:58:34 +0000 UTCCan you explain a bit more why you'd like TIFFs?
Poly Haven
2021-10-13 11:46:42 +0000 UTCGLTF issue: Yeah :) I'm aware of this. Our solution will probably be to use FBX and/or USD, I just need to dedicate some more time to figuring this out in a way we can automate. Modern assets: I assume you mean props meant for archviz? I'll add it to the list :) In the next few months I want to work on a fancy suggestions system integrated with Patreon so we can get a better idea of what most people are looking for, and focus on that in a transparent and inclusive way.
Poly Haven
2021-10-13 11:40:48 +0000 UTCWhy TIFFs? EXR is a much more modern, better format. PNG is also lossless and 16-bit (like TIFF) with better compression and compatibility. Does renderman not support PNG/EXR? Adding another image format would be a lot of work, but not impossible. If I understand the problem, I feel like the "right" solution is for renderman to wake up and support more standard formats. TIFF is ancient. But if there's no workaround and they refuse to adapt, maybe we can consider it.
Poly Haven
2021-10-13 11:36:56 +0000 UTCI second the TIFF textures too
Terry Buttocks
2021-10-13 10:57:55 +0000 UTCFeedback from me - I can't use any of the assets in the GITF format Im afraid, so am really praying that you are able to make them all available as they were in a more universal format - FBX/OBJ. Would be nice to have some more modern assets too (lots on there are retro objects). All in all though thank you so much for this resource, it's amazing!
Terry Buttocks
2021-10-13 10:57:02 +0000 UTCHey! It would be nice to have texture sets all in tiffs and the disp without alpha channel. I have a struggle converting them for our pipeline (renderman has problems converting to tex). And overall that would be much more consistent with tiffs only.
Yegor Smirnov
2021-10-13 10:38:47 +0000 UTC
