Physically Based Rendering

Welcome to the first chapter of the book! In the next few pages, we are going to start looking at how to set up a scene in Unreal for visualization purposes—we want to make sure that we nail this first part down before we move any further. Beginner or advanced, no matter what type of user you are, we'll need to make sure to take a look at some of the most critical elements that can make or break a scene in Unreal. Things like taking advantage of the right type of lighting, knowing where to look for the most common material parameters, or learning to measure the impact in performance that the shaders have are vital in any project. With that in mind, we are going to be learning about the following topics:

• Setting up a studio scene
• Working inside the material editor
• Our first physically based material
• Creating some simple glass with the translucent blend mode
• Lighting our scene with image-based lighting
• Checking the cost of our materials