Devlog#5 – New PhotoVoxel viewport with PBR and HDRI lighting.
Hello there!
We found that our current Viewport does not give enough immersion or satisfaction. So It was time to say goodbye to it.
We needed a completely new viewport approach meeting the following criteria:
- We wanted it to be efficient and to offer all the goodies that Photo Mode offered during the voxel edition but in real time and with no additional windows, so we can replace Photomode as well.
- We needed PBR Materials so precise, that after export they would be 1: 1 compatible with those used in other PBR engines such as UE4 or Unity3D.
- We wanted real HDR (High Dynamic Range) and IBL (Image-Based Lighting).
- We wanted to be able to illuminate the scene with lots of lights, without having to power your computer with a Nuclear Reactor.
For a couple of months, we barricaded ourselves in the basement, and we worked hard on a new PBR viewport, and here’s the result.
Currently, the viewport supports:
- EXR file format for HDRI enviromaps ( OpenEXR – Wikipedia ) – with equirectangular mapping, and controlled exposorue by user
- Screen space reflections (SSR)
- HDR Lights (with deferred shading), currently point light and directional light are supported
- And much more (like fresnel, energy conservation etc.)
The whole process of making this PBR viewport was inspired by a great tool: Marmoset Toolbag ( Marmoset | Creators of 3D Rendering Suite Toolbag & 2D Art Suite Hexels )
Also, you can watch PBR viewport in action, by watching recorded live streams, links:
This was a big piece of work, we hope you will enjoy the new viewport, see you soon!