Question How to make metal look metallic in vam?

[Ghostwalden]

Why do some materials like metal especially chrome not look at all like they should in VAM?
How can i make them look more like that?

In Unity for example i have s sink unit that looks like this

In VaM then it is just black

When i add the UnityVamifier it isn't black anymore, but just looks like plastic

Is there a way, i can make it look more like metal?

 

[hazmhox]

Metallic, or smooth objects are reflective because they have reflection informations.
You need a reflection probe AND use a proper PBR material that uses roughness and metallic accordingly to get to a somewhat more accurate metallic aspect.

VAMifier only swaps the material to use VAM's one, which makes use of the current skybox as the reflection source.

The problem is: you're expecting a sink to behave like a normal sink under real circumstances which implies that it reflect all the surrounding environment. Without a scene properly setup to handle that, you will never get the effect you want : )

 

[Ghostwalden]

Thanks for your reply hazmhox.
Ahm... what is a reflection probe?

Ok, i will try it with a PBR Material. (This is just the Materials one can donwload with the different types of maps?)

It hasnt to be that accurate, that it refelcts the surrounding.
Just a bit more metallic as it is in the first picture.

But is real reflection even possible in VAM, or does it need a map to simulate that?

 

[hazmhox]

Thanks for your reply hazmhox.
Ahm... what is a reflection probe?

A reflection probe is a "box" that holds a cubemap to "fake" environmental reflections. You can find a lot of infos on that on Youtube

It hasnt to be that accurate, that it refelcts the surrounding.
Just a bit more metallic as it is in the first picture.

It can't be just "a bit more metallic" lol.
Your first version simply shows a pure 100% smooth and metallic material that reflects the default skybox of unity. You need reflections... hence reflection probes.

But is real reflection even possible in VAM, or does it need a map to simulate that?

We're not talking raytracing here, we're talking baked cubemaps inside the reflection probe.
You could technically bake a texture and create a shader that simulates a reflection based on that cubemap texture... but I suspect you're far from being able to produce your own shaders

Most of my environments uses reflection probes or what we also call in VAM "GI" (as in global illumination). It is a way to fake a GI.

Side note: you will not be able to add this for every single asset. You just need to ensure that your assets WILL behave properly if a GI/reflection probe exists in the scene.

The side work is up to the creator of the scene who needs a proper GI in his environment.

 

[Ghostwalden]

Thanks for your reply hazmhox

A reflection probe is a "box" that holds a cubemap to "fake" environmental reflections. You can find a lot of infos on that on Youtube

Ok, i will check that stuff out on youtube

It can't be just "a bit more metallic" lol.
Your first version simply shows a pure 100% smooth and metallic material that reflects the default skybox of unity. You need reflections... hence reflection probes.

Ah i didnt no, that it looked more realistic in unity, becaus it reflects the skybox there.


Hm... when i change the Environment Reflections to Custom, the Metal gets darker, but still looks way more metallic then in vam.
Why does it get black in vam then?
And can i enable environment reflection in vam as well?

Just saw, there is the Cubemap, must be for the reflectioin probe we talked about

We're not talking raytracing here, we're talking baked cubemaps inside the reflection probe.
You could technically bake a texture and create a shader that simulates a reflection based on that cubemap texture... but I suspect you're far from being able to produce your own shaders

Correct Mr. Holmes, suspicion confirmed
And i guess, my machine would not be able to handle such computing power that is necessary for that kind of stuff properly

Most of my environments uses reflection probes or what we also call in VAM "GI" (as in global illumination). It is a way to fake a GI.

Do i get it right. Reflection Probe is someting that has be done in unity and will then be importet into VAM?
In VAM i only know about the Scene Lighting Setting. Or are there some other Lighting options i didn't discover yet?

Side note: you will not be able to add this for every single asset. You just need to ensure that your assets WILL behave properly if a GI/reflection probe exists in the scene.

The side work is up to the creator of the scene who needs a proper GI in his environment.

Ok, i guess this is too far away from understanding for me at the moment.
At the moment i can not imagine why it should work at some assets and on some not.
Need to get a bit of experience first on working with this.

 

[MacGruber]

SkyMagic is part of the Essentials package:

Plugins - MacGruber Essentials

Your most essential MacGruber tools in a convenient single VAR package. Note that you can download older versions of this plugin for free from here. AudioReverb Adds an Reverb filter effect to the audio source you place the plugin on. It's...

hub.virtamate.com

Tutorial for SkyMagic here:

Guides - Customized global illumination with SkyMagic

SkyMagic is a plugin included in the MacGruber Essentials package. It allows you to bake and import custom global illumination into VaM. It can be used in a number of different ways: Bake custom reflections within VaM to have global illumination...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[Ghostwalden]

Hi MacGruber

Thanks you very much for your reply and the tutorial.

On one step im not sure if i did it correct, as it is meant to be.

In your Tutorial you wrote:
Create a prefab containing a ReflectionProbe, with above cubemap already linked. See right picture below.
This is what you need to export as AssetBundle.

When i draged the png that has been created with the Skymagic exporter in vam into unity,
it created this cube and this sphere.

I now draged the cube into the scene.
And set position to zero.
Then made a new prefab and exported it.

In VAM with the Skymagic Loader it isn't black anymore, it has now this metallic look.
Not perfect, but way better.
I guess it depends now a lot on the png file i created with Skymagic Exporter, If it is made brighter or darker,
and the material settings in Unity.

Baked Ambient Occlusion, ist that this Bake button at the bottom of the inspector,
when i select the cube?

And how can i activate amplified reflection probe?
This looks the most realistic in your 4 previews.

Ahm.. the lighting options in VAM do now not have any impact on the scene anymore,
i can change settings there, and nothing changes at all.
Only when i change color, it has an effect.
Just wanted to ask if this is normal?

 

[hazmhox]

You really need to dive into Unity's usage Ghostwalden, through tutorials and researchs on Google.
You're asking every single question one by one, we can't do a "crash course" all the time for things that can be found on Youtube in less than two clicks. Because today, it's the materials, tomorrow you'll dive into animation, or shaders or modelling, and this can go on and on.

First you need to learn the basics. How materials work, how specularity and reflections are handled. How you bake reflection probes and how to use them, etc etc etc... Then experiment inside Unity without doing a back and forth between Unity and VAM. Besides some exceptions, if you apply Unity's logic, you should have pretty much everything working inside VAM.

To answer your questions:

Do i get it right. Reflection Probe is someting that has be done in unity and will then be importet into VAM?
In VAM i only know about the Scene Lighting Setting. Or are there some other Lighting options i didn't discover yet?

Yes. As Mac said, you could export from VAM, redo your probe in Unity and bring it back to VAM. But I never do that, I'm creating all my probes inside Unity.
No lighting options exists in VAM besides the scene ones. You can't rely on scene settings from Unity, they are useless, VAM controls that part and you can't access it.

And how can i activate amplified reflection probe?
This looks the most realistic in your 4 previews.

Ahm.. the lighting options in VAM do now not have any impact on the scene anymore,
i can change settings there, and nothing changes at all.
Only when i change color, it has an effect.
Just wanted to ask if this is normal?

No it's not more realistic
It's simply a "bias" between 4 examples haha, you'd have to use it in your context to see if it would work.

That's the problem with coders (I'm including myself in it lol), they use super fancy words to say simple stuffs... if you don't "understand" it, then you have trouble making the connection.

When Mac says "amplified reflection probe", he means that Skymagic loader "intensity" is boosted and not at the default "1".

If you have the global sky enabled, tweaking the lighting settings should influence the characters AND ONLY the characters. Unless you're using VAMifier on your enviro. I never use it because it swaps the material to VAM's one, and I really don't like the specular workflow of VAM, it breaks most of my textures which are on a PBR setup with RMA textures.

Long story short, set your probe to custom, inside your Unity scene, bake it (i'd recommend a 512 to 1024 resolution), export it. Done. It should work... unless you're making a mistake

 

[MacGruber]

I guess it depends now a lot on the png file i created with Skymagic Exporter, If it is made brighter or darker,
and the material settings in Unity.

Exactly. Also try the Intensity slider in SkyMagic Loader.

Baked Ambient Occlusion, ist that this Bake button at the bottom of the inspector,
when i select the cube?

Nope. What I did was bake an ambient occulsion texture for the mesh in Blender and assign it to the material in Unity. It's effectively a grayscale texture telling for each point of the surface how intense the reflection probe should be.

And how can i activate amplified reflection probe?
This looks the most realistic in your 4 previews.

As hazmhox said, there is an intensity slider on SkyMagic loader.

Ahm.. the lighting options in VAM do now not have any impact on the scene anymore,
i can change settings there, and nothing changes at all.
Only when i change color, it has an effect.
Just wanted to ask if this is normal?

VaM scene lighting settings only affect VaM things, like the characters and various build in assets.
Vice-versa, anything imported from Unity via CUA is not affected by VaM scene lighting settings at all. That's why you need the ReflectionProbe to do that part. SkyMagic helps to have the same reflection for both CUAs and VaM assets.

 

[Ghostwalden]

You really need to dive into Unity's usage Ghostwalden, through tutorials and researchs on Google.
You're asking every single question one by one, we can't do a "crash course" all the time for things that can be found on Youtube in less than two clicks. Because today, it's the materials, tomorrow you'll dive into animation, or shaders or modelling, and this can go on and on.

First you need to learn the basics. How materials work, how specularity and reflections are handled. How you bake reflection probes and how to use them, etc etc etc... Then experiment inside Unity without doing a back and forth between Unity and VAM. Besides some exceptions, if you apply Unity's logic, you should have pretty much everything working inside VAM.

Thanks for your reply hazmhox

Sorry for asking that many questions. I understand you.

I wasn't expecting "crash courses" when i opened this thread. That wasn't my intention.
Don't get me wrong, i am thankful for all the answers and the time you take for that,
and i'm trying to understand it as best as i can, even if im often overwhelmed.
To be honest, I don't feel comfortable that you spend so much time for this.

But if i get an answer and don't understand, what should i do? I just ask, and one leads to another.
I often check youtube videos first, but it's not always that easy to understand for beginners as you think,
or to find some that really answering what i would like to know or many just don't come to the point and some are
more like tutorials for better sleep. So less than two clicks and i get my answer, that would be great
Also my not really good english may be a burden on this.

Yes. As Mac said, you could export from VAM, redo your probe in Unity and bring it back to VAM. But I never do that, I'm creating all my probes inside Unity.

That's where i am now too. First i exported from VAM to unity and back, but now i'm creating them in unity as well.

No lighting options exists in VAM besides the scene ones. You can't rely on scene settings from Unity, they are useless, VAM controls that part and you can't access it.

Ok, just wanted to ask, sometimes you've been working with a program for a long time and certain things still go unnoticed

No it's not more realistic
It's simply a "bias" between 4 examples haha, you'd have to use it in your context to see if it would work.

That's the problem with coders (I'm including myself in it lol), they use super fancy words to say simple stuffs... if you don't "understand" it, then you have trouble making the connection.

Yes some things are not alway that easy to understand for beginners.

When Mac says "amplified reflection probe", he means that Skymagic loader "intensity" is boosted and not at the default "1".

Ah, that was ment, thanks, yes this boost's it very well.

If you have the global sky enabled, tweaking the lighting settings should influence the characters AND ONLY the characters. Unless you're using VAMifier on your enviro. I never use it because it swaps the material to VAM's one, and I really don't like the specular workflow of VAM, it breaks most of my textures which are on a PBR setup with RMA textures.

Ah, didn't know, that this only affects the character. But yes, behaves exaclty as you said.

Long story short, set your probe to custom, inside your Unity scene, bake it (i'd recommend a 512 to 1024 resolution), export it. Done. It should work... unless you're making a mistake

Phuh... It was a long road to get to this point

 

[Ghostwalden]

Exactly. Also try the Intensity slider in SkyMagic Loader.

Thanks for your reply MacGruber.
Tried the Intensity slider in SkyMagic Loader, this is very helpful.

Nope. What I did was bake an ambient occulsion texture for the mesh in Blender and assign it to the material in Unity. It's effectively a grayscale texture telling for each point of the surface how intense the reflection probe should be.

Ah, ok, the ao texture was ment, i understand it a bit.
To be honest, this baking thing is not really the easiest to understand for beginners.
But sooner or later i'll understand it

VaM scene lighting settings only affect VaM things, like the characters and various build in assets.
Vice-versa, anything imported from Unity via CUA is not affected by VaM scene lighting settings at all. That's why you need the ReflectionProbe to do that part. SkyMagic helps to have the same reflection for both CUAs and VaM assets.

Thanks, thats something i didn't had any idea about before this thread.
I think I understand it to a large extent now.