Another topic i want to open is the discussion about pbr, Physically Based Rendering. As mentioned in a post i cant remember :D, we will be able to have diffuse, spec, normal, and parallax maps for our textures (maybe Ambient Occlusion too).
But does that make sense? All the big engines, like cryengine, unreal, and so on will use this new rendering system. And they are even working on it for the jMonkeyEngine (http://hub.jmonkeyengine.org/f…based-rendering-part-one/)
What would are the advantages using this render technique?
PBR, is another way to calculate light interaction with 3d objects. It is a wrapper term, which describes all methods to achieve photorealistism via physical based calculations of light.
For those, who don't know, lighting controls how you see everything in the game, it affects how every single part of the game looks.
In the end the goal should be to have realistic looking stuff, without a big cost of ressources.
In productivity, it is like saying "This is leather, this is steel, this is that..." based on the use of physical values like the refractive index. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractive_index)
(I tried to stay simple with the explanation, it is very complicated maths behind this topic and i am not professional.)
Did you devs have a look at this? Or do you stay at classical lightning solution? What do others think about it?
