Overview
What you will find in this mini-guide is a simple explanation of which texture sets GameGuru uses for both PBR and non-PBR with some basic examples, hopefully it answers a few questions for those who aren’t sure.
Introduction
I recently answered a question that someone had asked about PBR in GameGuru on another thread, and it kind of turned into a mini guide, which Lee was kind enough to proof read and confirm is accurate for me, so i decided to make it more visible and easier to find in the future and add it here as a guide.
What you will find in this mini-guide is a simple explanation of which texture sets GameGuru uses for both PBR and non-PBR with some basic examples, hopefully it answers a few questions for those who aren’t sure.
What you won’t find in this guide is instructions on how to make these textures, the scope of this guide is to simply tell you which textures do and don’t work in GameGuru, it is up to you to learn how to make your own textures.
- Spec/Gloss: This will usually include a Diffuse or Albedo, Specular, Gloss, Normal, and Ambient Occlusion
- Metalic/Roughness: This will usually include a Color, Metalic, Roughness, Normal, and Ambient Occlusion
There are also additional maps you can use, such as height, detail, glow etc.
- The first is the basic non-PBR which consists of Diffuse, Specular, and Normal (with additional options for illumination and cube maps),
- The second is for PBR models, and we use a Metalic/Roughness method with a little twist, the Roughness map is named _gloss, but is actually a roughness map, and the metalic map is named _metalness.
Height maps, although added to the PBr workflow in GameGuru, as far as i know don’t actually work yet (confirmed as not working by Lee 6th March 2018), and i’m not sure if _ao is added yet (confirmed as working by Lee 6th March 2018).
As of a recent update both non-PBR and PBR textures can be supplied with a model, and with a simple change in GameGuru’s setup.ini you can switch between using non-PBR and PBR by using changing the value of pbroverride from “1” to “0” and vice versa.
The textures and model shown in the images in this guide aren’t perfect, they’re just quick examples i knocked up to give a rough idea of how they look.
Non PBR Textures
Textures a non-PBR model should have in Gameguru are:
– this is the diffuse texture
A Diffuse map defines the color and pattern of the object. Mapping the diffuse color is like painting an image on the surface of the object.
– this is the normal texture
A Normal Map is a texture that fakes the lighting for bumps and grooves n a texture, effectively adding geometry without creating more polygons.
– this is specular texture
Specular maps are the maps you use to define a surface’s shininess and highlight colour. The higher the value of a pixel (from black to white), the shinier the surface will appear in-game.
– this is an illumination texture
An illumination texture is used to highlight areas on the model that glow, all areas that have no glow should be masked in black, and the areas you want to glow will be filled in a different colour, if you want it to glow the colour on it’s main texture then you fill the area in a shade of grey to white, if you wish to give it a colour to glow, then you fill the area in with that colour, the lighter the colour the brighter it will glow.
- Optional
- I don’t have an example of an illumination map at this time.
– this is a cube reflection map
A cube reflection map is a way for the shaders to use a texture to fake reflections, each cube map containes 6 mipmap images, with each image representing a direction around the object (up down left right front back etc.) those images are projected onto the model in such a way that as you move around the object it appears to be reflecting them back to you.
- Optional
- I don’t have an example of a cube map at this time.
Result in GameGuru:
PBR Textures
Textures a PBR model should have for GameGuru are:
– this is your base coloured texture.
– this is a standard metalic texture, this is a grey scale image where white is highly reflective/shiny, and black is non-reflective/shiny.
– this is actually a roughness texture renamed to _gloss, it is a grey scale image where back is completely smooth, and white is highly rough.
– this is your normal map
Just a quick note to add:
With the _normal texture required for PBR in GameGuru the normal direction should be -y in the green channel, most mesh painters tend to paint the normals in +y so you may need to load the _normal in a paint program like photo shop, or GIMP, go to the green channel and invert it, then save it out again.
– a height map (confirmed as not working by Lee 6th March 2018)
- Optional
– ambient occlusion, a grey scale image that creates the shadows in cracks, crevices, and corners etc. (confirmed as working by Lee 6th March 2018)
- Optional
– this adds fine detail scaled and tiled across the model
- Optional
- I don’t have an example of a detail map at this time.
– this is an emissive map, it will allow you to assign areas of your texture to glow. Primarily it is grey scale with black = no glow, white = glow, however the glowing areas can be coloured, and lighter is brighter, the illumination map will take the place of the detail map, they cannot be used at the same time.
PirateMyke: to use an illumination map the models fpe shader line has to point to apbr_illum.fx . GraPhyX: Confirmed you don’t need to change the FX, and _emissive will also work.
- Optional
- I don’t have an example of an illuminationmap at this time.
