PBR update of the Darkmod's character model

[Arcturus]

Here's Unreal Engine with screen space reflections only. No 'reflection capture' (cubemap reflections). It looks ok as long as the lights are sufficiently soft. Zero size point lights will not get reflected in the shiny metal.

[Arcturus]

Since most Darkmod missions use global ambient light, you could have a one global cubemap for the entire mission. Unreal has a small selection of generic cubemaps. Here you can see how they are being reflected in all of the glossy materials. The reflections are some generic 360° images that have nothing to do with the actual scene, but it still looks nice. No probes or light baking required.

[peter_spy]

FWIW, you can have some unrealistic but otherwise nicely-looking metals in current shading setup

[Arcturus]

Some more tests in Unreal Engine. There is one point light in the room with a non-zero radius for soft shadow. There's one 'sphere reflection capture' probe. I alternated between captured cubemap reflection and some generic outdoor 360° scene from UE5 library. I couldn't figure out how to upload my own.

Reflection probe had to be directly above the table, otherwise the captured light looked incorrect. The 'generic' cubemap can be placed wherever. An ordinary probe can be set up to use a custom cubemap, or it can be done in the 'PostProcessVolume' - and that's how I did it.

Screen space ambient occlusion is, I think, on - on all screenshots. Screen space global illumination is tagged as a beta feature in UE5. Recently Blender's Eevee engine got SSGI too.

I used Darkmod assets, except for those diamonds. Below is 27 images from imgur.com:

Spoiler

01 no reflections:

02 only screen space reflections:

03 only captured light:

04 captured light + screen space reflections:

05 generic ambient cubemap reflections (1.0 strength):

06 generic ambient cubemap (0.5 strength) + screen space reflections:

07 Lumen:

08 no reflections:

09 only screen space reflections:

10 only captured light:

11 captured light + screen space reflections:

12 captured light + screen space reflections + screen space global illumination:

13 generic ambient cubemap reflections (1.0 strength):

14 generic ambient cubemap (0.5 strength) + screen space reflections:

15 generic ambient cubemap + screen space refl. + screen space global illumination:

16 Lumen:

17 no reflections:

18 only screen space reflections:

19 only captured light:

20 captured light + screen space reflections:

21 captured light + screen space reflections + screen space global illumination:

22 generic ambient cubemap (1.0 strength):

23 generic ambient cubemap (0.5 strength) + screen space reflections:

24 generic ambient cubemap + screen space reflections + screen space global illumination:

25 Lumen:

With lamp closer:

26 generic ambient cubemap + screen space reflections:

27 Lumen:

 

[Arcturus]

Having said all that. While having one cubemap image for the reflections would work, having one strength for the entire map won't. The value would somehow have to be tied to the values of lights in the locations.

[Arcturus]

Turns out in Unreal Engine custom cubemaps in 'Reflection Capture' probes and in the Post Process volume don't work the same way at all. The first one affects the glossy reflections only, the latter affects both glossy and diffuse reflections. Here's how different cubemaps affect both:

Spoiler

01 reflection capture probe:

02 postprocess volume:

03 reflection capture probe:

04 postprocess volume:

05 reflection capture probe (cubemap that's just single color):

06 postprocess volume:

Now I'm back to thinking that a single ambient cubemap + screen space reflections + soft enough lights might be just enough to have decent glossy reflections. In Unreal point lights have a radius which when increased makes shadows softer. But there's also a separate setting called "Soft Source Radius" that makes lights bigger in reflections.

I managed to load custom cubemap files into Unreal. They simply have to be in .hdr format. I used a simple gradient:

Heavy screenshots below:

Spoiler

Ambient cubemap only (using the gradient above):

Ambient cubemap + point light:

Ambient cubemap + point light + screen space reflections:

ambient cubemap + light:

ambient cubemap + light + screen space reflections:

lumen: