I'm pretty sure the blue channel isn't used, only red/green have any kind of effect in-game. One of them is a gloss map and one's a spec map, can't remember which way around though.
Ah, so they simply encoded the information in each channel. That isn't a new approach at all, haha. I think OP should take this down or update the info to correctly reflect (left-field pun) the tech.
I read through this real fast and at first thought Bethesda were being smart and/or different in how they handle PBR data...
Well yes, they went ad added the information for roughness and metalness into the green and red channel, the fact is that i never said anything about channels i just told in the tutorial to use purple and blue/pale blue when editing the main levels to make things easy. It doesn't change much honestly, i could add the information but for the artists just knowing this is enough.
Thanks again. Any reason why you have to tweak both the red and green channels at the same time? Can they not just be tweaked each on their own and skip that step? By the way, your _s has a blank alpha. I assume you just forgot to flatten it?
Edit) Apologies Millenia, I thought I was replying to the author there for a moment. Thank you for your help too!
You can, i tried to create an incredibly general tutorial that has even the most useless steps that i use simply out of habit; you can customize the way you tweak the levels or color channels as much as you want, those are only general guidelines. Yep it seems i forgot, nothing dramatic though.
_n is saved as BC5 (AKA. ATI 3dc) so it's 2 greyscale channels and no alpha channel, yeah.
How do you export a regular Normal map from Substance Painter for instance to 2 grayscale channels? And what do you use Direct or OpenGl type of normal map in fallout 4? Thanks!
Alright, did some small research, case is closed, question solved. If anyone's wondering, you actually do the normal export of the normal map, and then import the file to photoshop and export it using Intel Texture Works plugin for .DDS files, mentioning BC5 compression. My normal map magically became yellow, as all the rest of the original normal map files from Fallout 4. And yes, since BC5 compression is used for DirectX 10, it is logical that you should export DirectX normal maps not OpenGL ones.
Please look up PBR metalness map so you can get a better understanding of how these actually work. You can find plenty of documentation on the Quixel forums.
Thank you, i already did (on toolbag actually) in the past when i had to model weapons/props for project vaulderie and also for my personal projects in toolbag. I also used for many years brdf shading, so i'm not new to this,is there any specific reason for such a suggestion ?
For anyone wondering where the heck is to put a metallness map, you should know that there are two main workflows - metallness (more recent, advanced and optimized for games) and specular (a bit more physically correct, more expensive and an older workflow). It seems for me that fallout uses some fake method of specular workflow or tries to imitate it. The difference between the workflows are easily googled, and appear in all texture maps but normal.
***
So for example Color map from metallness workflow has metallic reflections colors, and metallness map is black and white only showing where the pure metals appear. At the other hand Albedo map which is specular's workflow color map has no metal reflections, but blacks out all the metall reflection colors to let Specular map which is RGB to share the reflection colors of metals. So the Specular map is technically a metallic map but with reflection colors. And the Glossiness are just reversed Roughness which is surface imperfections and also known as Microsurfaces. Just keep in mind that Specular and Glossiness are nothing alike and are completelly different maps.
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So as a conclusion Specular workflow uses: 1. Albedo (RGB) - colors only 2. Specular (RGB) - metal mask + metal reflections colors 3. Glossiness (Gray Channel where white = gloss and black = rough surface) - surface imperfections
Standard Metallic workflow is different: 1. Base color (RGB) - colors + metallness reflection colors 2. Metallness (Gray Channel) - metal mask only 3. Roughness (Gray Channel where white = rough, black = gloss) - surface imperfections
***
Fallout shader uses _d, _s and _n maps (maybe emission sometimes I didn't check it yet). Now. I don't know how exactly to work with fallout 4 shaders. So. What one does to correctly import PBR maps into fallout 4 shader? From this tutorial we can make a next conclusion:
1. _d- Base color RGB (colors + metal reflections colors) 2. _s - RGB, Where R - Metallness Gray map, G - Glossiness map (inverted roughness).
Note - Specular map and Metallness map are totally alike but Specular map is RGB and has metal reflection colors, but there is no use putting it into a single R channel, because it won't be able to share it's full information within a single channel, so all it gives is limited to metallness map, that's why you feed metallness gray map to the R channel.
About G channel, you didn't mention in the tutorial, do you actually use glossiness or Roughness? Please if you can clarify this information in your tutorial that will be good, since you've worked with fallout 4 shaders many years.
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I read through this real fast and at first thought Bethesda were being smart and/or different in how they handle PBR data...
It doesn't change much honestly, i could add the information but for the artists just knowing this is enough.
Thank you for this.
Edit) Apologies Millenia, I thought I was replying to the author there for a moment. Thank you for your help too!
Yep it seems i forgot, nothing dramatic though.
I also used for many years brdf shading, so i'm not new to this,is there any specific reason for such a suggestion ?
***
So for example Color map from metallness workflow has metallic reflections colors, and metallness map is black and white only showing where the pure metals appear. At the other hand Albedo map which is specular's workflow color map has no metal reflections, but blacks out all the metall reflection colors to let Specular map which is RGB to share the reflection colors of metals. So the Specular map is technically a metallic map but with reflection colors. And the Glossiness are just reversed Roughness which is surface imperfections and also known as Microsurfaces. Just keep in mind that Specular and Glossiness are nothing alike and are completelly different maps.
***
So as a conclusion
Specular workflow uses:
1. Albedo (RGB) - colors only
2. Specular (RGB) - metal mask + metal reflections colors
3. Glossiness (Gray Channel where white = gloss and black = rough surface) - surface imperfections
Standard Metallic workflow is different:
1. Base color (RGB) - colors + metallness reflection colors
2. Metallness (Gray Channel) - metal mask only
3. Roughness (Gray Channel where white = rough, black = gloss) - surface imperfections
***
Fallout shader uses _d, _s and _n maps (maybe emission sometimes I didn't check it yet). Now. I don't know how exactly to work with fallout 4 shaders. So. What one does to correctly import PBR maps into fallout 4 shader? From this tutorial we can make a next conclusion:
1. _d- Base color RGB (colors + metal reflections colors)
2. _s - RGB, Where R - Metallness Gray map, G - Glossiness map (inverted roughness).
Note - Specular map and Metallness map are totally alike but Specular map is RGB and has metal reflection colors, but there is no use putting it into a single R channel, because it won't be able to share it's full information within a single channel, so all it gives is limited to metallness map, that's why you feed metallness gray map to the R channel.
About G channel, you didn't mention in the tutorial, do you actually use glossiness or Roughness? Please if you can clarify this information in your tutorial that will be good, since you've worked with fallout 4 shaders many years.