This chapter has covered a number of techniques used to create, often manually and sometimes automatically, texture maps that are capable of giving distinctive features to materials. Hopefully, you are now more confident about working with Unity's new Physically-Based Shading, which is capable of understanding differences between available workflows, is aware of the role of each material property, and is ready to make better-looking materials for your games. We have also explored ways of changing the properties of materials during runtime by accessing an object's material via script.
Physically-Based Rendering is a complex (and current) topic, so it's a good idea to study it a bit by familiarizing yourself with the tools and concepts behind it. To help you with this task, we have included a non-exhaustive list of resources below that you should take a look at.
Here's a list of interesting, detailed material on Physically-Based Rendering (within and outside Unity):
- The Comprehensive PBR Guide Volumes 1 and 2 by Wes McDermott (Allegorithmic), available at http://www.allegorithmic.com/pbr-guide. This guide takes an in-depth look at the practical and theoretical aspects of PBR, including great analysis of possible workflows.
- Mastering Physically Based Shading in Unity 5 by Renaldas Zioma (Unity), Erland Körner (Unity), and Wes McDermott (Allegorithmic), is available at http://www.slideshare.net/RenaldasZioma/unite2014-mastering-physically-based-shading-in-unity-5. This is a detailed presentation about using PBS in Unity. Originally presented at the Unite 2014 conference, it contains some out-of-date information, but, nevertheless, it is still worth taking a look at.
- Physically Based Shading in Unity 5 by Aras Pranckevičius, from Unity, is available at http://aras-p.info/texts/talks.html. Slides and notes from a presentation on the subject are given at the GDC.
- Tutorial: Physically Based Rendering, And You Can Too! by Joe "EarthQuake" Wilson is available at http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice. It is a great overview from the makers of Marmoset Toolbag and Skyshop.
- Polycount PBR Wiki, which is available at http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/PBR, is a list of resources compiled by the Polycount community.
This is a new generation of texturing software for you to check out, in case you haven't yet:
- Substance Painter is a 3D painting application from Allegorithmic. It is available at http://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-painter. Again, it's worth mentioning that Allegorithmic products won't make use of Unity's Standard Shader, relying instead on substance files that are natively supported by Unity.
- Bitmap2Material creates full-featured materials (including normal maps, specular maps, and more) from a single bitmap image. Also, it is from Allegorithmic, and it is available at http://www.allegorithmic.com/products/bitmap2material.
- Quixel DDO is a plugin for creating PBR-ready textures in Adobe Photoshop. From Quixel, it is available at http://www.quixel.se/ddo.
- Quixel NDO is a plugin for creating Normal maps in Adobe Photoshop. From Quixel, it is available at http://www.quixel.se/ndo.
- Mari is a 3D painting tool from The Foundry. It is available at http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/mari/.