PBR on older frames Abandoned?

[Aoden]

When DE began to add PBR to the frames, weapons, and world itself, it was an exciting time. Everything we knew was getting even shinier.

I've watched as our weapons began to gleam, our surroundings became more believable, but it seems DE has stopped short with the frames and their cosmetics.

So far there are 9 frames that have not had PBR added, most of them originals, and many syandanas. I find this surprising, since DE themselves stated that they had refined the PBR into an automated process.

Frames being Rhino, Ash, Trinity, Nova, Nekros, Nyx, Zephyr, Mirage, and Valkyr.

[ZenDash]

obligatory PBR needs some CPR

Edited November 11, 2018 by ZenDash

[peterc3]

27 minutes ago, Aoden said:

DE themselves stated that they had refined the PBR into an automated process.

Can you point to where they said this?

[Aoden]

43 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Can you point to where they said this?

I can't seem to find the stream again, however.

[(PSN)OmegaSlayer]

Not only frames, even loads of weapons, sentinels and various cosmetics/skins.

We could compile a list of missing stuff.

My idead is that if the conversion takes DE too much time they don't have, they could ask for external (paid) help from Tennogen artists, that have shown to be more than capable to work on that stuff.

It's about time this game gets graphic consistence, especially because some non-PBR stuff is only available for plat and it's not acquirable for free

 

This is one of my 3 Warframe battles, the other two being: having all pets available at the same time without stasis and heving the old events implemented in game as a story mode

Edited November 10, 2018 by (PS4)OmegaSlayer

[peterc3]

9 minutes ago, Aoden said:

Snip

So Mynki, who no longer works at DE, was working on a way to automate it. As far as I know it isn't automated yet.

[Amazerath]

55 minutes ago, Aoden said:

I can't seem to find the stream again, however.

I watched that one but I don't think that's what Minky meant. From what I remember they said part of the process was automated but that it still required the artists to go in and make a bunch of adjustments.

I'll try to illustrate what happens when you try to take a shader that was not designed for PBR and put it into a renderer that is PBR. Here's our good and old Gersemi Valkyr rendered without PBR:

Spoiler

Not bad, huh? Now this next one is the exact same Valkyr model with the exact same textures and shader under the exact same lightning conditions. The only difference is that I now rendered her using PBR:

Spoiler

What the heck is going on with her legs...? Also, notice how some areas are now darker then before and even some color tones have changed slightly? I would need to look into all of that if I wanted to use PBR. And keep in mind the shader you're looking at is extremely basic. It barely has anything in it. If it was more complex you would probably see lots of other problems with colors, lightning, reflections, and whatever.

So I'm assuming this is one of the reasons why PBR for older frames is not a top priority. It's also possible that they are already PBR but since the artists haven't had the time to make adjustments the frames don't look as good as the prime versions.

 

 

[FreelancerAgentTexas]

The #*!% is PBR?

[Spharin]

14 minutes ago, NotDealwithitdog said:

The #*!% is PBR?

The heck is PBR?

[Aoden]

16 minutes ago, NotDealwithitdog said:

The #*!% is PBR?

 

1 minute ago, Spharin said:

The heck is PBR?

Physically Based Rendering, it's a shading model that renders the flow of light more realistically. Allowing for more realistic looking textures and environments.

In the case of Warframes, the artists were using it to redo their textures to better suit their style, instead of every frame looking like they were coated in rubberized plastic. Giving some a more cloth-like appearance while others became more metallic.

 

@Amazerath Thank you for the explanation. So it isn't as simple as running Mynki's scripted process, if DE even still has it.

[Amazerath]

9 minutes ago, Aoden said:

Thank you for the explanation. So it isn't as simple as running Mynki's scripted process, if DE even still has it.

It isn't simple assuming their PBR works in a similar fashion to what I'm familiar with. Running a script might be simple enough but the script alone would probably only do part of the job.

[(PSN)OmegaSlayer]

I'm not a 3D but a simply curious guy, so some times ago I went to check what conversion to PBR is about.

So maybe I don't remember correctly, but mostly you must define the shaders properties, so divide the tint area into "materials" defined but how they refract lighting, so, no automated process can exactly match what you want to achieve and you must manually correct the values.

As I said, we know DE is very busy with new stuff, but I wonder if they can outsource to Tennogen artists