I ask this as a frustrated intermediate game dev, and I mean no offense by anything I might say here, these are just my thoughts.
I love Blender and all it has to offer, and I have no room to complain about a software that was free, but…
I have been working in the game engine for a few years and have gotten very well versed in GLSL lighting and texturing.
However, I began to look into new texturing software and ended up downloading a beta to the Quixel Suite, which truly opened my eyes to “next-gen” graphics; PBR Shaders. I began wondering, “How can I implement these types of shaders in BGE?” After extensive Google-ing, I came up with the answer: I can’t.
I personally do not have the knowledge or computer power to deal with these shaders on my own, but then I realised, “It’s only a matter of time before Blender’s Game Engine has a system implemented for handling these tasks, right?”
Well, I’m not totally convinced that they ever will, given that Blender is known for its modelling tools and Cycles Render Engine, and not so much for it’s game engine.
Nonetheless, I would be over-the-moon if something like this were to ever be created for us “less talented” game artists.
What do you think about this issue? Do you think they will ever implement a system for handling PBR materials or is it just a hopeless fantasy?
Well, does using it in viewport mean so in solid mode it will flip from reflection mapped texture(matcap) to a cubemaps? Will it also work as ambient light in viewport?
Is it planning to become free someday soon? By the way, all we need to know is how to make environment maps in BGE. They are aviable in render, so blender has them, but for some reason- not in BGE!
If you’re really “intermediate”, you should be able to do this with custom GLSL shaders or at least use existing ones on your own assets.
Graphics programming isn’t limited to what’s in the engine’s source code for a reason.
I have used PBR shaders in the BGE before. There is nothing about the engine that forces you to use certain equations for lighting, that is the whole point of shaders. I can see where some things that are commonly done along side PBR could be a lot of work in the BGE, such as environment probes, but just using more accurate equations for lighting is certainly doable.
I found a script for using Environment Maps(in texture section) in BGE(use cubemaps as the image), but for some reason it doesn’t work on the latest blenders(2.7 up). Maybe someone could recode something like that and post a script?
Yes, intermediate. I am not a beginner, nor am I an expert. I’m more of a modeller, and I’d like to be able to see my game assets at the highest quality possible. I haven’t fully grasped how to begin creating my own shaders, which is an advanced subject in my book. I haven’t found many lessons on the subject that I can comprehend well, and looking at source code for it only makes it more difficult. For me, it’s not the same as looking at code for mechanics, which I can pick up on very quickly, it’s something that will take me awhile to get.
By the way, all we need to know is how to make environment maps in BGE. They are aviable in render, so blender has them, but for some reason- not in BGE!