PBR MAT

Summary

The PBR MAT creates a material using a Physically Based Rendering (PBR) lighting model. It has support for textures, reflections, bumps, cone lights, rim lights, alpha maps and more.

It also supports most Adobe Substance 3D Designer PBR materials loaded in the Substance TOP.

You can output its GLSL shader into two DATs for further adaptation in a GLSL MAT by using the Output Shader parameter.

This OP creates physically based materials from texture maps you assign to it and works with any content pipeline whether you use Maya, Houdini, Unreal, Photoshop etc.

You can get more PBR materials from PBR texture libraries such as Quixel and Poliigon and Game Textures. See also: Substance TOP.

pbrMAT_Class

Parameters - RGB Page

Base Color basecolor - ⊞ - Base color of the texture, used to calculate diffuse and specular contributions.

Specular Level specularlevel - The amount of contribution the Specular Level Map adds to the material.

Metallic metallic - The amount of contribution the Metallic Map adds to the material.

Roughness roughness - The amount of contribution the Roughness Map adds to the material. Used to calculate specular D, R, and F (blog.selfshadow.com/publications/s2013-shading-course/karis/s2013_pbs_epic_notes_v2.pdf page 3).

Ambient Occlusion ambientocclusion - The amount of contribution the Ambient Occlusion Map adds to the material. Ambient Occlusion affects the contribution from the Environement Light COMP.

Env Light Quality envlightquality - The sampling quality of the Environment Light with the material.

Emit emit - ⊞ - This is the color that the material will emit even if there is no light.

Constant constant - ⊞ - Adds to the final color. Where there are point colors, finalcolor += Point Color * Constant Color. This behaves like there is ambient illumination of 1 1 1. It is not affected by textures or transparency.

Polygon Front Faces frontfacelit - ⊞ - Controls how the polygon's normal is used to light the front face of the polygon. For more information refer to the Two-Sided Lighting article.

Polygon Back Faces backfacelit - ⊞ - Back Face's backfacelit - Controls how the polygon's normal is used to light the back face of the polygon. For more information refer to the Two-Sided Lighting article.

Output Shader... outputshader - This button will bring up a dialog that will create a GLSL MAT and Text DATs with shader code that this PBR MAT is currently using. Since shaders are dependent on the number and type of lights, it will list some possible different shader choices, based on what lighting configurations have been used in the current system. If no shaders are listed in the dialog, it means no shader has been rendered in the current session of TouchDesigner. Turn on the viewer for the Phong MAT, or setup a render in a Render TOP. That will create/compile some shaders and will cause the list to be populated. For example if you want to see a shader that does shadow mapping, setup a render that does shadow mapping and you will see that come up in the list.

Parameters - Maps Page

Substance TOP substance - Reference a Substance TOP containing an .sbsar file. Referencing the TOP will automatically unpack all enabled textures without having to manually fill in any of the below texture maps. Manually filling in any of the texture map parameters will override the texture automatically pulled from the .sbsar package.

Base Color Map basecolormap - ⊞ - Clicking on the arrows to the right of the map field will open the Texture Sampling Parameters for Color Map. The other Map parameters below will have their own Texture Sampling Parameters as well.

Specular Level Map specularlevelmap - ⊞ - Specifies a specular level map.

Metallic Map metallicmap - ⊞ - Specifies a metallic texture map. This is equivalent to the Metallic map in Substance Designer.

Roughness Map roughnessmap - ⊞ - Specifies a roughness texture map. This is equivalent to the Roughness map in Substance Designer.

Ambient Occlusion Map ambientocclusionmap - ⊞ - Specifies a ambient occlusion texture map. This is equivalent to the Ambient Occlusion map in Substance Designer. Ambient Occlusion affects the contribution from the Environement Light COMP.

Normal Map (Bump) normalmap - ⊞ - Uses a Normal Map from TOPs to create a 'bump map' effect. Bump-mapping simulates bumps or wrinkles in a surface to give it a 3D depth effect. Your geometry must have tangent attributes created for this feature to work (T[4]). Create these using the Attribute Create SOP.

Bump Scale bumpscale - A multiplier for the 'bump effect' created by the Normal Map parameter.

Enable Height Map heightmapenable - Enables height mapping.

Height Map heightmap - ⊞ - Specifies a height texture map. This is equivalent to the Height map in Substance Designer. The height map is used in conjunction with the normal map to perform parallax mapping.

Parallax Scale parallaxscale - Scale value applied to the height map. Can be used to increase or exaggerate the effect.

Parallax Occlusion parallaxocclusion - Enables parallax occlusion, an enhancement of the parallax mapping technique used with the height map. Parallax occlusion improves the quality of the texture offsetting in parallax mapping so that the higher parts of the height map appear to occlude the lower parts, giving a better illusion of height.

Displace Vertices displaceverts - When Enable Height Map above is On, setting Displace Vertices to On will enable true displacement mapping where the vertices of the geometry are displaced based on the Height Map texture and the parameters below.

Displace Scale displacescale - A multiplier for the displacement amount.

Displace Midpoint displacemid - Sets the middle point of displacement map as the start position for the displacement effect.

Emit Map emitmap - ⊞ - Specifies a TOP texture that is multiplied with the Emit color parameter of the material. The object must have texture coordinates. The alpha of this map is ignored.

Parameters - Alpha Page

Note: Simply applying alpha to an object does not make it transparent. For more information refer to the Transparency article.

Alpha Map alphamap - ⊞ - This map multiplies the alpha of the object. It uses the red channel of the map, other channels are ignored.

Uniform Alpha alphamode - Turning this off will make the alpha change depending on orientation of each polygon's normal compared to the camera. Normals that are pointing at the camera will results in the polygon having an alpha of Alpha Front. Normals that are perpendicular to the camera (facing sideways/up/down) will have Alpha Side for their alpha.

Alpha Front alphafront - The opacity of the material. This parameter is multiplied by point alpha of the object (as will as any other alpha source).

Alpha Side alphaside - This is used for non-uniform alpha. It is the alpha value polygons that are facing away from the camera will get.

Alpha Rolloff rolloff - Controls how the alpha changes from Alpha Front to Alpha Side.

Post-Mult Color by Alpha postmultalpha - At the end of all of the calculations, the color (RGB) is multiplied by the calculated alpha. You can stop this from happening by turning off this checkbox.

Parameters - Rim Page

Other rim lights have the same parameters, internal parameter names just have a different number instead of 1.

Rim Light rimlight - Sequence of rim light info

Enable rimlight0enable - Enables this rim light.

Color Map rimlight0map - ⊞ - This map will multiple the calculated rim light color.

Color rimlight0color - ⊞ - The color of the rim light.

Center rimlight0center - The center of the rim lights location, situated somewhere on a 360 degree circle.

Width rimlight0width - How far from the center the rim light extends.

Strength rimlight0strength - Controls the brightness of the rim light.

Strength Ramp rimlight0strengthramp - You can specify a horizontal ramp (it will sample the texture at v = 0.5), which controls the the rim lights strength.

Parameters - Advanced Page

Shadow Strength shadowstrength - This parameter will control how much being in a shadow will change the color of the lighting. At 1 the object will take on the Shadow Color parameter, at 0 it will behave as if it's not in a shadow, even if it is.

Shadow Color shadowcolor - ⊞ - The color that will be used in shadowed areas.

Darkness Emit darknessemit - The Phong MAT calculates the current brightness of color of the objects, after taking into account lights, rim lights, emission etc. It then uses this brightness (between 0-1) and fades in the Darkness Emit Color. The darker the area, the more of the darkness emit color that will be applied.

Darkness Emit Color darknessemitcolor - ⊞ - The color that is used for areas that are in darkness.

Darkness Emit Map darknessemitmap - ⊞ - This map multiplies the Darkness Emit Color. This maps alpha is not used.

Write Camera Space Depth to Alpha writecameradepthtoalpha - This cause the camera space depth of the pixel to be written to the alpha channel of the output TOP. This value can be useful for post-processing effects, but ofcourse you will not have the result of all the alpha calculations if you turn this on (although they'll get used to multiply the output color, assuming Post-Mult Color by Alpha is enabled.

Apply Point Color applypointcolor - Normally the color attribute (Cd[4]) coming from the SOP is used in the lighting calculation, you can turn off using the color attribute by un-checking this parameter.

Instance Texture instancetexture - ⊞ - When provider per-instance textures in the Geometry COMP, this parameter selects which map the instance texture will be applied as.

Color Buffer color - Sequence of color buffers

RGB color0output - ⊞ - Allows sending things like normals or emit color to different Render TOP color buffers in a single pass.

Parameters - Deform Page

Refer to the Deform Article for more information on doing deforms in TouchDesigner.

Deform dodeform - Enables deforms on this material.

Get Bone Data: deformdata - ⊞ - Specifies where the deform bone data will be obtained.

SOP with Capture Data targetsop - Specifies the SOP that contains the deform capture attributes.

pCaptPath Attrib pcaptpath - Specifies the name of the pCaptPath attribute to use. When your geometry has been put through a Bone Group SOP, the attributes will be split into names like pCaptPath0, pCaptPath1. You can only render 1 bone group at a time, so this should match the group you are rendering with this material.

pCaptData Attrib pcaptdata - Much like pCaptPath Attrib.

Skeleton Root Path skelrootpath - Specifies the path to the COMP where the root of the skeleton is located.

MAT mat - When obtaining deform data from a MAT or a Deform In MAT, this is where that MAT is specified.

Parameters - Common Page

Blending

Blending is summing the color value of the pixel being drawn and the pixel currently present in the Color-Buffer. Blending is typically used to simulate Transparency. The blending equation is: Final Pixel Value = (Source Blend * Source Color) + (Dest Blend * Destination Color)

Blending (Transparency) blending - This toggle enables and disables blending. However see the wiki article Transparency.

Blend Operation blendop - ⊞ -

Source Color * srcblend - ⊞ - This value is multiplied by the color value of the pixel that is being written to the Color-Buffer (also know as the Source Color).

Destination Color * destblend - ⊞ - This value is multiplied by the color value of the pixel currently in the Color-Buffer (also known as the Destination Color).

Separate Alpha Function separatealphafunc - This toggle enables and disables separate blending options for the alpha values.

Alpha Blend Operation blendopa - ⊞ -

Source Alpha * srcblenda - ⊞ - This value is multiplied by the alpha value of the pixel that is being written to the Color-Buffer (also know as the Source Alpha).

Destination Alpha * destblenda - ⊞ - This value is multiplied by the alpha value of the pixel currently in the Color-Buffer (also known as the Destination Alpha).

Blend Constant Color blendconstant - ⊞ -

Blend Constant Alpha blendconstanta -

Legacy Alpha Behavior legacyalphabehavior -

Post-Mult Color by Alpha postmultalpha - Multiplies the color by alpha after all other operations have taken place.

Point Color Pre-Multiply pointcolorpremult - ⊞ -

Depth Test depthtest - Enables and disables the Depth-Test. If the depth-test is disabled, depths values aren't written to the Depth-Buffer.

Depth Test Function depthfunc - ⊞ - The depth value of the pixel being drawn is compared to the depth value currently in the depth-buffer using this function. If the test passes then the pixel is drawn to the Frame-Buffer. If the test fails the pixel is discarded and no changes are made to the Frame-Buffer.

Depth Test

Depth-Testing is comparing the depth value of the pixel being drawn with the pixel currently in the Frame-Buffer. A pixel that is determined to be in-front of the pixel currently in the Frame-Buffer will be drawn over it. Pixels that are determined to be behind the pixel currently in the Frame-Buffer will not be drawn. Depth-Testing allows geometry in a 3D scene to occlude geometry behind it, and be occluded by geometry in-front of it regardless of the order the geometry was drawn.

For a more detailed description of Depth-Testing, refer to the Depth-Test article.

Write Depth Values depthwriting - If Write Depth Values is on, pixels that pass the depth-test will write their depth value to the Depth-Buffer. If this isn't on then no changes will be made to the Depth-Buffer, regardless of if the pixels drawn pass or fail the depth-test.

Discard Pixels Based on Alpha alphatest - This enables or disables the pixel alpha test.

Keep Pixels with Alpha alphafunc - ⊞ - This menu works in conjunction with the Alpha Threshold parameter below in determining which pixels to keep based on their alpha value.

Alpha Threshold alphathreshold - This value is what the pixel's alpha is compared to to determine if the pixel should be drawn. Pixels with alpha greater than the Alpha Threshold will be drawn. Pixels with alpha less than or equal to the Alpha Threshold will not be drawn.

Wire Frame wireframe - ⊞ - Enables and disables wire-frame rendering with the option of OpenGL Tesselated or Topology based wireframes.

Alpha Test

Alpha-testing allows you to choose to draw or not draw a pixel based on its alpha value.

Line Width wirewidth - This value is the width that the wires will be. This value is in pixels.

Cull Face cullface - ⊞ - Selects which faces to render.

Polygon Depth Offset polygonoffset - Turns on the polygon offset feature.

Offset Factor polygonoffsetfactor -

Offset Units polygonoffsetunits -

Wire Frame

The wire-frame feature will render the geometry as wire-frame, using the actual primitive type used in the render. What this means is surfaces like Metaballs, NURBs and Beziers will become a wire-frame of the triangles/triangle-strips used to render them (since these types of primitives can't be natively rendered in OpenGL).

Cull Face

The cull face parameter will cull faces from the render output. This can be used as an optimization or sometimes to remove artifacts. See Back-Face Culling for more infomation.

Polygon Depth Offset

This feature pushes the polygons back into space a tiny fraction. This is useful when you are rendering two polygons directly on-top of each other and are experiencing Z-Fighting. Refer to Polygon Depth Offset for more information. This is also an important feature when doing shadows.

Info CHOP Channels

Extra Information for the PBR MAT can be accessed via an Info CHOP.

Common MAT Info Channels

Common Operator Info Channels

• total_cooks - Number of times the operator has cooked since the process started.

• cook_time - Duration of the last cook in milliseconds.

• cook_frame - Frame number when this operator was last cooked relative to the component timeline.

• cook_abs_frame - Frame number when this operator was last cooked relative to the absolute time.

• cook_start_time - Time in milliseconds at which the operator started cooking in the frame it was cooked.

• cook_end_time - Time in milliseconds at which the operator finished cooking in the frame it was cooked.

• cooked_this_frame - 1 if operator was cooked this frame.

• warnings - Number of warnings in this operator if any.

• errors - Number of errors in this operator if any.

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