Ndee example is quick, but that’s true that out-of-diffuse-generated maps like the one on Poliigon can be obtained with nodes, saving a lot of GPU/main memory, times and give the same results in many cases like wood. I wouldn’t pay a year subscription, it is way to pricey for something that has a lot of other provider (many free as already noted). But maybe for some texture on a speedy project, I’ll pay. For it, it’s good they provide a one month only option not too expensive. Also the free version and free first month are good for people to test. So even with the monster marketing from Andrew, people get time to see if it’s good enough for them.
So in the end, I miss true maps (like out of 3D scanned datas, etc…) and the yearly subscription is way to high, but the one month subscription, the free trial month and free account are also good points.
Regardless of all of the buzzwords, it really does look like it has a dizzying array of high-resolution textures with all the maps you need (providing you do more than just a straight mix of diffuse and glossy).
The only thing I would add is the need to emphasize the fact that these textures will not produce magic if you don’t know how to really work with the shading system. It’s not going to suddenly turn an image with low-quality shading and lighting into a good image, and hopefully his fans will realize that.
In my “interpretation”, there is no such thing as a “PBR texture” (except maybe a BTF, but nobody really uses those). There’s just textures and PBR shaders.
For me a “PBR Texture” implicates using one of the more or less standardized workflows (specular / metalness) and for this to work in Cycles you need an uber shader, at least something more involved than mixing a glossy and a diffuse via a black and white map. In most PBR shaders I’ve seen the interaction between rough glossy / diffuse towards the edges (fresnel) is also a bit more involved, I believe, so it’s not just a single straight mix.
What are these textures supposed to look like, then? You have albedo, gloss (1-roughness) and normal maps. You can use these textures in those Ubershaders.
“Metalness” textures are pointless unless you have composite material. It really is just a shortcut for mixing two different (sets of) BSDFs. Which BSDFs those are is a detail of the renderer, i.e. there are much more sophisticated BSDFs to achieve “coated glossy” than just mixing diffuse/glossy with fresnel like you do in Cycles (yes, it has issues at the edges). That has nothing to do with the textures though.
I think our difference of interpretation lies in the fact that PBR means “physically based rendering”, which is how most render engines and their BSDF models work nowadays, whereas to me it means a workflow which makes shading standardized and transportable between applications.
These shaders aren’t really standardized, they just use similar-enough inputs to achieve similar-enough results, some of the time. Not everyone uses metalness, some use “gloss”, others use “roughness”, etc. If the “PBR workflow” means using textures to work with those shaders, then I don’t see how Poliigon textures fail you. It’s not really possible to provide one set of textures that works exactly the same everywhere, you always have to tweak and eyeball it.
Physically based texturing - man would I love that to be possible
I have the feeling many do not realize what you need to know if you want to use PBR.
you need material references, you need to scan those in, and then you can see how with the shading modules
you can rebuild the look of the material.
I feel many so called PBR shaders are still a rough approximation and not really particularly correct in terms of physics.
This is a tough thing.
When I work with clients I always require two elements:
material samples
reference photos of some of the products they have
otherwise good luck with guessing till it looks right.
Poliigon textures fail me in the sense that they are supposedly
PBR Textures for realistic materials
This is at best meaningless because ANY texture can be used to drive a Physically Based Shader (PBR as per your definition) or misleading because they are not prepared in a way to be directly used as inputs to commonly used PBR ubershaders (PBR as per my definition as a workflow).
It’s not really possible to provide one set of textures that works exactly the same everywhere, you always have to tweak and eyeball it.
I don’t concur. I use Substance / Quixel with Cycles / Thea / UE4 / Unity using the same set of textures in all of them, driving similar styled Ubershaders with the same inputs and getting predictable, of course not 100% matching, results across applications and lighting situations. This is what I talk about when I say “PBR workflow” and Poliigons textures would have to be adapted to this.
this might be a little off topic, but how about the other stuff Andrew is selling, like the pro lighting skies, it has an insane price.
Is it any good ? is it worth it.
Why not? You get normal, diffuse and gloss maps, which you can directly use on any shader that accepts those inputs, or with minor tweaks on similar ones.
I don’t concur. I use Substance / Quixel with Cycles / Thea / UE4 / Unity using the same set of textures in all of them, driving similar styled Ubershaders with the same inputs and getting predictable, of course not 100% matching, results across applications and lighting situations. This is what I talk about when I say “PBR workflow” and Poliigons textures would have to be adapted to this.
How can you use the same textures in Unity and UE4, when the UE4 standard shader uses “roughness” and Unity uses “smoothness” (glossiness)? You’d have to add some tweak to either and then I don’t see how you can’t do the same to the Poliigon textures.
I could only download the 1k diffuse map for the textures which makes testing impossible. Even the “download all maps” thing only downloads the diffuse map 5 times or so. (not using the trial or anything)
Insane price - I don’t know if I can agree. They put work into this, so I think this should be rewarded.
If you need such a plug-n play system is a different question.
Poliigon to me offers just textures and those can take quite some time to make yourself so I see a lot of value in such products as long as the textures are good and also fit your need.
There was a big ol’ debate about this when pro lighting skies came out and the thing I remember from reading that whole thread was that if you have properly taken hdri then you don’t need node spaghetti to get them to work
colloquially, when the majority of people talk about PBR it’s with respect to the physically plausible principled shader from pixar/disney (correct me if I am wrong here but this is the shader that Unreal and Unity’s PBR shaders are based around)
so are these textures setup for that workflow(I am guessing there is a cycles’ PBR ubershader node network to go with this)?
I don’t see how Andrew’s stuff is insanely expensive (Since the price is similar to many other texture packs and plugins done by people outside of the Blender community).
In a way, it mainly seems to just be insane for Blender users (since we are indeed fortunate to have such a powerful application for free).
Nice concept, the thing is that when it comes to textures, I prefer to do the whole work by me, at least regarding game art because that is what I do. Anyway the best of luck for the Poliigon crew.
BTW, Poligon logo and Quixel logo are quite similar
Wrong choice of words from my side. What I meant is that the price is high for me, so would the buy be worth it?
I would go with Mataii’s point. If you also dont do it for work why not search or make the texture image your self and then the passes.
When you under time pressure such services can be good when the texture you need is what they also offer.
I work a lot with wood and the offered textures are not providing the cuts or wood types I need.
Some others are pretty good so really based on what you need.
They offer you a trial and you can also do it month to month.
For projects I often do such things on a month purchase and then bill the client.
In terms of Pro skies, I’d say give SiBL-Gui a whirl first, if that works for you, along with SiBL edit you could probably get by. I can’t afford Pro skies so that’s what I do.
I don’t know myself, but I know that a lot of people will freely shell out big money for high-quality resources (ranging from fonts to music to textures).
I wouldn’t be surprised if Andrew gets a high number of subscribers here.
I started a trial period 3 days ago and now it’s already finished I can’t download anything, it always says it’s only for premium… Am I the only one with this problem?
@matali
You still can download the texturtures, but not in a pack. Now you have to do it manually. Meaning, download the diffuse, glossy, reflection etc of one material, and that is still counted as one download. For me I noticed that 1K size is enough. I tried high resolution before, but my memory card has not enough memory for that.
Yes you are right, it works… but it’s cumbersome and not a real 30 day trial then. It’s a one day trial and then a free version (like cgtextures)…
Never forget - in advertising it is OK to lie Best thing ever!!!
Why some of us read the documentation, if there is one. :rolleyes: