Custom Materials and Textures

I have been trying to improve the realism of the VR simulations. One area that I have managed to improve is the surface textures within my galleries. I have been relying on either flat colour (no detail) or example textures that come as standard with UE4. These textures are a little low on resolution and the image part of the textures are of quite a small area, so one tends to notice them repeating over large or long surface areas... like on a gallery floor or wall!

Even the most pristine surface or gallery wall always has some sort of texture and is why in a simulation the flat colour does not look so real.

The biggest problem is the obvious repeating patterns. And the easiest and effective way of overcoming this was to get rid of the base image entirely. However, the idea was that I use images of texture to create a bump/normal map, but not include the image in the simulation.

I needed original and high quality photographs to base my new textures on and as I am a photographer by trade, this was easy and an enjoyable experience...



I also photographed Blackpool School of Arts Gallery floor. I used these images to create high quality  2048 normal/bump maps and threw away the original photographs (or at least did not use them) I tried to make 4096 versions but UE/Quest could not resolve them so well...

 
Normal maps for concrete wall and gallery floor.

And the results...


An image of my textures in use... I had to add a light in order to capture the screenshot as the gallery is nicely lit in the Quest but fairly dark on the laptop screen (which could point at an inherent problem?).

For me this is a good technical step forward. I no longer have to worry about repeating materials, I have the quality of texture that I need and together with carefully controlled lighting gives me the level of realism and sophistication that I have been looking for.

My next blog will include some video of my most recent experiments and analysis and evaluation of my most recent galleries.

If you are reading this blog and feel you can add something to my research then please comment… even if you are correcting me or don’t agree with something that I say.