I don't know if it's possible to have pbr materials with torque 3d. It would be a big improvement for the graphics of the game, even just a Fresnel effect. I made an example of a simple sphere to show the difference between what it looks now and what I would like it to look like. I know this is a rather big request, but again, I think it would improve the looks a lot.
Fresnel would definitely make everything look better. I've been trying to implement it myself, but not much luck
It's shaders which are true to real physics. Most importantly with fresnel reflections. Basically materials become more reflective when you view them more parallel to the surface so the light bounce off easier. that, combined with the following maps Diffuse Normal Glossyness Roughness Metalness Specular give you PBR materials / photo realistic accuracy
So basically have light reflection and other graphical details be directly represented by in-game material objects? That sounds cool but also seems extremely resource-intensive.
It is indeed resource intensive, so PBR is probably almost impossible in the current state of the game engine.
Nah you're missunderstanding I think. The reflections will still be cubemaps or rendered cubemaps like they are now. But the strength by which these are visible will be controlled by the angle of the face normal of said object in relation to the camera.
PBR is more than just reflections. It's (as name suggests) a physically accurate representation of materials (which leads to a more realistic looking result) There are plenty of 'What is' videos, just check them: PBR would require all assets textures to be redone. Older ones would look completely wrong. I let you imagine what happens with mods. And no, you cannot have both old and PBR together.
So basically, PiP mirroring but that depends on what are you looking at? Like having mirrors in a VR game actually reflect based on what you are looking at?
No. Forget about reflections, those are a consequence of PBR. PBR gives you more textures to work with. These textures help to mimic materials in more real-looking ways. For example you can control how rough a surface is. A consequence of that is how the lighting affects it, and how reflections would look less sharp and more blurred. It's a mix of all these behavior that happen in reality that gives you a physically based rendering. HDR is also kind of out-of-reach. To adjust that, we would need to fix the gamma conversion of the game. Doing that would make all the current assets wrong, and requires work (less than PBR, but imagine all the mods still) Basically any changes with materials are really risky, in particular for mods, as it risks breaking many of them.
I know that PBR is planned for this game, I read that somewhere in a blog post from the devs a while ago...
Yes, backwards-compatibility is cool, but don't put them over game features that would seriously improve the game. I would personally sacrifice every mod (not forever, but all mods that don't get updated go outdated at some point) for major improvements to the game engine. Mods are a great thing, but if they get in the way of game development that will be much better for the general populace over time, breaking them until they're updated is a much better option than just avoiding the upgrade.
We are speaking about breaking no just some mods, but all of them (levels, vehicles, mod to vehicles, etc.). No thanks
