More on Physically Based Rendering.

Tutorial: Physically Based Rendering, And You Can Too!

Here is an excellent breakdown on physically based rendering that goes through a series of materials and surfaces that will greatly effect how a 3D model will look under lighting conditions, from rough rubber to shining metal.

Tutorial: PBR Texture Conversion

Here is the tutorial on the same page that highlights what went into creating the materials

Imperfections for perfection.

A quick set of tips for creating photogrammetric game ready assets in Unreal Engine 4

Imperfection for Perfection.

Modern game engine breakdown.

Here is an excellent breakdown of all the layers of a modern graphic engine, in this case the engine used for Grand Theft Auto 5 : The Rockstar Advanced Game Engine.

Silly name, unbelievable engine, considering it was designed to run on gaming consoles that had only 512mb of ram or in Playstation 3's case 2x split 256mb ram, this is a very well implemented engine that showcases what can be done with limitations.


Grand Theft Auto 5: Game engine breakdown

Small teams, big projects

When 3D animators get together in small teams, it may not seem possible or much harder to produce something as amazing as say, Pixar or Dreamworks. Every now and then though a small studio can show that they are very capable.

Just remember, dreaming big should not be limited by small teams.

Render target

                            Here is a render target mocked up with a few layers of a scene:

This render consists of; colour map, diffuse map, specular map, environment map, a pre-made vignette filter, explosion effect, dust layer and scratch layer.

By adding all the parts together, I can quickly test how the layers can be used, arranged and approved upon. Some post processing such as motion blur will be added in compositing as it is too  time consuming to add in the layers when rendering. 

Handy Maya tutorials

 Found a large selection of handy mini tutorials and full explanations for Maya.


Take a quick look.

Render Testing

Building up the scene for the 5 second advertisement has been full of small struggles and issues, from things rendering slow or incorrectly to overblown light.

I want to add dust particles and a shock wave, but I'm trying to figure out how best to go about it, then onto render passes.