Pushing Fidelity

Often in our community, we have people building highly detailed environments or props with super high-res textures or propping the smallest of details to the entire scene. This takes quite a bit of time. In our industry we must cut as many corners as possible to get things done not as quickly but as efficiently as possible.

Production doesn’t necessarily care how much time or effort we put into something as long as it looks good on screen and more importantly, is done on time or faster.

However, there are times when pushing fidelity can be worth it. It is possible to get the details we want but working smarter not harder to and still meet our deadlines. Attention to detail can be crucial. Every aspect of the environment needs to be carefully considered, from the lighting to the textures to the placement of objects.

This level of detail can be time-consuming, but there are also ways to trim these types of details down. Think about these details not as needs but general feeling in the scene. Let me explain.

Building in Passes

Fidelity should be the last thing you are doing to finish a scene before getting to rendering and post-production. In game development, it should also be quite late in production. This is exactly why we focus so much on blocking out a space first and getting the cameras placed to know what we want to focus on. Being last in line blessing though for you and your time! You will know what the camera is looking at or where the player is intended to be the most. Narrowing down where you need to put this fidelity pass in.

As a side note, keep in mind that it must make sense why those details are there.

(SURFACE) Variation Masks

This is a similar approach to Detail Normals in that it adds detail where there isn't. One of the main benefits is this will help to keep your textures lower. A mask being 512x vs 2k is a huge savings! adding detail noise thats also only a 256x and reused everywhere pays for itself in streaming and memory quickly. Big W’s all around.

(SURFACE) Detail Normals

This is a common topic that I bring up that everyone should be taking super seriously. It takes the surface details we already have of assets and pushes them that much further. It also affects the way that a surface reacts to lighting. Remember that with all these texture savings we have room for another single channel mask to control the strength of the Detail Normals. Think about a rock surface where you want the detail normal to soften or be flatter on larger flat surfaces and stronger in turbulent areas. Super powerful!

More documentation can be found on Detail Normals

Here are a few strong examples of surfacing fidelity pushed to the max supplied by Paulygonn. Note where all the information goes in the maps supplied to the asset. It is usually roughness that needs all that extra attention.

Car Battery Study, Clément Moreau 1Toyota FJ60 Offroad, François Larrieu Hand Drill - Artstation Learning, Jason Ord

(PROPPING) Storytelling

Expanding the detail of a space to tell a story in an environment can really push a environment not only visually but gives the viewer a emotional connection to what they are seeing in the scene.

(PROPPING) Dynamic Experiences

This is specifically for experiences in motion. Take for example adding wind or Vfx to your environment. Those add the details that bring an environment to life and in my opinion push the fidelity.

For a game experience, you’re going to want to do a dynamic props pass. Props that get tipped over when hit or cause things to move around just by explosions happening or things being hit by bullets. These add so much when it comes to making your environment feel like you’re affecting it and it is affecting you.

These are only a handful of examples but should give you the understanding to be able to push the fidelity of whatever you are building that much further within production and technical constraints. Don’t forget that it should come later in production and should be very targeted, that way the time spent is not going far over previous estimations.

As always here are some links to resources that can help you to push your own fidelity.

High-Detail Smart Masks / substance painter Vol 02 HIGH-DETAIL SMART MASKS - VOL 03 Roughness Imperfection - 44 2k Texture maps

Until next time, I will see you in the streams or on our discord!

If you would like these posts emailed to you as they are posted you can subscribe here