Author Topic: Unreal Engine 4 for ArchViz - Thoughts?  (Read 292316 times)

2018-06-21, 10:18:39
Reply #375

Eddoron

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Does anyone have a good source for  UE4 node presets, things like fresnel etc etc. thaz have to be built instead of having one node?

2018-06-25, 12:17:55
Reply #376

melviso

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Currently experimenting with dynamic handpainted textures. Also possible with photo textures as well. Material setup can get really complex though for more details and complex assets. Very useful for clients during discussion and planning as changes can be made on the fly and easier for getting clients to see and make variations of choices on color, mood and design schemes in real time.
EDIT: See demo in video below :- )



« Last Edit: 2018-07-27, 04:13:21 by melviso »

2018-07-15, 04:04:38
Reply #377

melviso

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My latest work in ue4 using dynamic textures:
« Last Edit: 2018-07-27, 02:44:11 by melviso »

2018-07-17, 02:15:49
Reply #378

melviso

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We might be getting really good interior shading with dynamic sun and sky with Localised  IBL implementation using reflection capture probes in ue4:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/rendering/1493669-localized-ibl-implementation

Hopefully Epic adds this to the engine. This bakes literally in seconds :- ) This will look even great with dfao.

2018-07-21, 23:40:39
Reply #379

melviso

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2018-08-27, 17:30:51
Reply #380

sebastian___

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I still haven't seen really good vegetation shader examples in UE4, like cryengine had in 2007. I mean dual sided translucency/reflection and so on.
And also based on the video above, seems DOF still makes sharp edges on objects in blur. But I think I remember reading about UE4 to have now new posibilities for objects in DOF with soft edges ? Anything new about that ?
But with the new RTX card we should see soon some sweet new posibilities, no ?

My latest work in ue4 using dynamic textures:

2018-08-28, 10:55:28
Reply #381

Juraj

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It's not technical limitation, Unreal does have good pseudo-SS on leaves. It's more the poor art-direction you often seen and not good shaders.

The lighting in the above example is like "let's drop default Sun&Sky at 45 degree angle". So much effort to build high-quality scene and very poor art direction.

I would suggest some of those dense forests people on Polycount keep rendering in Unreal :- ). Those are often very impressive.
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2018-08-28, 18:54:15
Reply #382

melviso

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I still haven't seen really good vegetation shader examples in UE4, like cryengine had in 2007. I mean dual sided translucency/reflection and so on.
And also based on the video above, seems DOF still makes sharp edges on objects in blur. But I think I remember reading about UE4 to have now new posibilities for objects in DOF with soft edges ? Anything new about that ?
But with the new RTX card we should see soon some sweet new posibilities, no ?


ue4.20 version has improved DOF now so its definitely better.

As for reflection, game engines have not been able to perfect this (Cryengine was quite ahead of its time). Combining reflection captures and ssr is what is being used currently. Ue4 has the two sided foilage shader:

Translucency in UE4 is sort of limited so most times subsurface or masked/dither opacity is used due to viewport sorting issues. RTX cards will definitely open up possibilities with this.

The awesome thing about game engines is that there are tricks, custom shaders, engine modifications and workarounds that can be employed to create something close to what the goal is.That is why research and repeated practice is important.
« Last Edit: 2018-08-29, 13:10:35 by melviso »

2018-09-01, 02:37:27
Reply #383

melviso

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@sebastian___
Ue4 still has issues with foliage. U can check out the link. Seems CryEngine has better solutions. Explains some of the reasons. Like I said earlier, there are tricks and workarounds but it would be ideal if these are possible upfront by the devs.
https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/rendering/1455573-foliage-shading-softness



2018-09-03, 15:50:53
Reply #384

sebastian___

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I would suggest some of those dense forests people on Polycount keep rendering in Unreal :- ). Those are often very impressive.

If you have some links with nice forests or good leafs rendering, please post.

ue4.20 version has improved DOF now so its definitely better.

I mean in this screenshot crop, hope it's visible, you can see the typical sharp edge look of 2d screenspace DOF:
(it's better visible in the video at 0:23 - in video and motion looks almost like some defects or noise/artefacts)



2018-09-03, 15:59:11
Reply #385

Juraj

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Truth the told, DOF in real-time is almost always terrible. And since it's used almost all the time in rendered out animation, I think the artist might rather render out z-depth buffer and make the DOF in compositor. Those few additional seconds will not kill anyone :- ).

But Unreal4 is on 3rd iteration of DOF tech and it still looks terrible as first time..
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2018-09-03, 16:29:30
Reply #386

sebastian___

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I think I remember I read some new paper with some new development to improve this and make the edges soft, but I don;t remember if it was for UE4 or cryengine and was it for DOF or motion blur.

But real-time has still a long way to go. Even the new nvidia RTX area shadows development when scrutinized it seems lacking. I'm talking about the demo with tomb raider - the part in the market at night and how the people shadows are blurred with raytracing. But the shadows are not sharp enough and lack contact and seem to blur too much when extending further.

The architectural renders posted here with UE4 are fine, but that's because the lighting is baked, but when it comes to real-time we still need to get proper :
- GI or at least good AO - not screenspace and not blurred, sharp enough for contact as well
- reflections/refractions which might be good enough with the new RTX
- great area shadows with good contact (which is kind of the same technology as world-space AO)
- HDR raytraced 3d motion blur and DOF, with proper blurry margins

We already have the rest, as in: polygon count, great textures resolution, good displacement and bump mapping, lens flare and glare and so on.

2018-09-03, 16:41:07
Reply #387

Juraj

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Well, real-time is moving lot faster than offline. I almost like never read any exciting progress on the latter. It does the job but hardly excites. Maybe the denoising.
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2018-09-03, 19:05:33
Reply #388

melviso

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I think the RTX cards support some form of GI.

U can check out some info about the new depth of field here:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/rendering/1482233-ue-4-20-new-depth-of-field-test

 I noticed it in the animation short. There is a possibility he might have used the 4.19 version.


I saw the Tombraider demo too. I agree with points u raised. The shadows did look blurry. Have u seen the Battlefield demo showing real time reflections? VR is going to look way better in the coming years. Does RTX cards support refraction for transparent glass? I think there was a demo of refraction during the announcement event.

I feel like the demos shown are a testament to the tech still being in the early stages. In two or three years, we may be looking at a lot of near photorealistic works in real time rivalling offline rendered content. There are so much possibilities now that we have realtime reflections/raytracing. It just needs to be improved, polished and perfected definitely with more research and findings There are a lot of studios that are already experimenting with ue4 for animated shorts, cinematics and adverts and with this, offline rendered preference might no longer become the norm.
« Last Edit: 2018-09-03, 19:10:16 by melviso »

2018-09-03, 19:55:28
Reply #389

sebastian___

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For VR I could also add to the list foveated rendering and variable resolution and maybe even variable frame rates? and so on. I mean for good VR - huge resolutions like 8k are very important and what's the point to render the parts of the image which we are not paying attention.

U can check out some info about the new depth of field here:
https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/rendering/1482233-ue-4-20-new-depth-of-field-test

I meant close objects in blur with blurry edges. I never saw this from a game engine, except from the new Lumion.
Like in these photos, not very clear because they are small:






Or my old demos, you can better see here the close objects also have blurry edges:

  (insect wings)