Specular workflow questions

[thicbear]

I've been working on environments and trying to wrap my head around it all;

1. I've been using a the spec/smooth (gloss) work flow into unity
2. Then using @MacGruber skymagic for importing the reflection probe that I bake.
3. Then @NoStage3 UnityAssetVamifier so that lighting works (shadows from point and spots work correctly)

During that workflow the reflection probe from the unity scene seems to not be functional with metals.

Does anyone know if the custom shader is available to use in unity so I can author the textures correctly?

I can post some screenshots tomorrow but if anyone knows anything or has some insights please hit me up.

Thank you!

 

[MacGruber]

You have the choice between using VaM shaders (with the UnityAssetVamifier) and using Unity shaders (whatever you import from the AssetBundle, probably the Unity Standard shader).

VaM shaders do not support Unity ReflectionProbes, the only support VaM's global GI. Use SkyMagic to copy the cubemap from the ReflectionProbe by checking "Global Sky Enabled". Then tweak it in VaM's "Scene Lighting" settings.

The Unity Standard shader does only support ReflectionProbes, BUT you can have multiple of them! It automatically chooses the best matching based on the object bounding box and the size of the ReflectionProbe. That allows you to have perfect ReflectionProbes for individual objects. Check Unity documentation for details.

 

[thicbear]

VaM shaders do not support Unity ReflectionProbes, the only support VaM's global GI. Use SkyMagic to copy the cubemap from the ReflectionProbe by checking "Global Sky Enabled". Then tweak it in VaM's "Scene Lighting" settings.

Oh gosh, thank you @MacGruber for your reply - That's too cool!

I'll post some images - I'm following the part I've quoted and these are the results. The base of this fence is a gold metal material using the Spec/Smooth work flow - I wanted to test reflective surfaces.

You can see the gloss on the base of this object. Looks reflective.

You can see the base has lost it's "metalness" or reflective quality. Like the cubemap isn't working for it.

I've cranked up all the values to see if I could get it working and it isn't showing up here.

So I've got the CustomUnityAsset.

I've added 2 plugins to it.

1. UnityAssetVamifier
2. SkyMagic

I've checked "Show Preview Sphere" and I can see the Unity ReflectionProbe.

Thank you again for taking the time to look at this. Appreciate it.

 

[MacGruber]

I don't see the preview sphere in your screenshots, its a 25cm metal sphere that is supposed to spawn just at the position of the CustomUnityAsset atom.
Also your VaM sky seems to be one of the default ones, but in your VaM light settings "Show Skybox" is enabled. With these settings you should see the reflection probe as sky.

Please ensure you have exported the ReflectionProbe correctly. SkyMagic will use the first ReflectionProbe found. Possibly try with the ReflectionProbes from my demo scenes, e.g. the one from the IdlePoser demo. The VAR contains a tiny assetbundle that just holds the ReflectionProbe, nothing else.

 

[thicbear]

Hey,

I'll check out your .var scene before posting again and see if I can replicate it.

(I hadn't posted the preview sphere but I could see it and it was the same as what was generated in unity)

What is interesting though is no reflections (metalness) happens with UnityAssetVamifier until you tick the colorize box.
It's like the gloss default is black until you make it white and then you can see the skybox reflecting.
when I add your plug in it's like it turns it black again.

Anyways, I'll do another setup if I can repro it with your scenes and setup something a bit more technical. I'm pretty confident it'll be user error.

 

[thicbear]

Alright,

I've done a bunch of testing and thought I would post what I've found.

Custom Unity Asset Blue and White ball are more matte Tin Sphere is both Spec and Gloss Black sphere is both Spec and Gloss with some noise in the normal map. Person added

SkyMagic Loader - Global Sky Enabled The Person is now taking on the ReflectiveProbe from the unity scene

UnityAssetVamifier Added. This turns off the Global Sky Enabled and you can see the default skybox

UnityAssetVamifier - Colorize flagged This added more strength to the reflection into the matte ball in the back (This ball has no texture data driving it - it's just shader data)

SkyMagic Loader - Global Sky Enabled Here all the reflections from the reflectionprobe don't seem to be present on any objects anymore.

This is just a close up of the Show Preview Sphere.

Anyways, I thought I would share these findings. I can share the test file if you want as well, just hit me up.

Thank you!

 

[MacGruber]

Hm, maybe some issue with UnityAssetVamifier. I have never used used that plugin.
Have you tried adding the UnityAssetVamifier before adding SkyMagic?

Edit: For comparison it would be helpful to add a fully reflective VaM sphere atom to the scene to confirm SkyMagic still overrides the sky.

 

[thicbear]

Hm, maybe some issue with UnityAssetVamifier. I have never used used that plugin.
Have you tried adding the UnityAssetVamifier before adding SkyMagic?

Edit: For comparison it would be helpful to add a fully reflective VaM sphere atom to the scene to confirm SkyMagic still overrides the sky.

I tried re-stacking it and that yielded the same result.

I'll have a look at the VaM sphere later on - Thank you.

 

[thicbear]

Thought I would give an update ...

It was user error. Haha.

After your suggestion on using a VaM object with a material I loaded this in and noticed that no cubemap reflection was happening with SkyMagic. Which is odd.

I read through your documentation again and noticed one thing - Press Custom on the reflection probe. I've been using the unity workflow for years and you just get stuck with how you do things; It's not noted After that it worked fine.

Now it's just a bunch of trade offs between it all that I'm trying to bring together.

Thank you again for you time!