03. Physically Based Rendering (PBR) Materials in BabylonJS

Tutorial: Creating Physically Based Rendering (PBR) Materials in BabylonJS

Step 1: Setting up the Project

1. Open Visual Studio and create a new file named pbr.ts to work on PBR materials in BabylonJS.
2. Copy the basic scene setup code from a previous project into the new file. You can find the code repository link in the video description for reference.

Step 2: Downloading Required Assets

1. Visit Poly Haven to download textures, models, and HDRIs for free. Download an HDRI image for the skybox and environment lighting.
2. Download textures like asphalt textures and magic textures from Poly Haven or other sources like gametextures.com.
3. Ensure you have the necessary textures such as albedo, normal, AO, roughness, and metalness maps for creating PBR materials.

Step 3: Setting up Environment Textures

1. Convert the downloaded HDRI image into an environment texture using babylonjs.com.
2. Place the environment texture file in the public folder of your project.
3. Create a cube texture from the environment texture and assign it to the scene as the environment texture.

Step 4: Creating PBR Materials

1. Define a method to create a PBR material for the ground surface using the asphalt textures.
2. Set the roughness value to adjust the surface smoothness and prevent a mirror-like effect.
3. Adjust the camera speed to move smoothly in the scene.

Step 5: Adding Texture Maps

1. Apply the albedo map to the ground material to give it color and texture.
2. Incorporate the normal map to add depth and details to the surface texture.
3. Combine AO, roughness, and metalness maps using channel packing to enhance the material properties.

Step 6: Creating Emissive Materials

1. Create a method to generate a PBR material for the sphere object using emissive textures.
2. Set the emissive color to white to enable glowing effects.
3. Adjust the emissive intensity for the glowing effect and add a glow layer to enhance the lighting.

Step 7: Fine-tuning Lighting and Intensity

1. Modify the environment intensity to control the overall lighting in the scene.
2. Adjust the environment intensity for specific materials like the sphere to achieve the desired brightness levels.
3. Experiment with different intensity values to balance the lighting across different objects in the scene.

Step 8: Finalizing the Scene

1. Test the PBR materials, textures, and lighting setup in BabylonJS to ensure the desired visual effects.
2. Make adjustments to the environment lighting, material properties, and intensity levels as needed to achieve the desired rendering results.

By following these steps, you can create realistic and visually engaging scenes using Physically Based Rendering (PBR) materials in BabylonJS.