What candles said. I.e.: plastic, polished wood, leather and stuff like that. The basic difference is this: Dielectrics usually reflect light without any change in color to the reflected image, but they tend to be not as clear. Metallics on the other hand reflect a lot more clearly, but tint the reflective image with their albedo color. (Albedo is the the basic color of the material on it's own without any light affecting it.)
does that mean a mirror actually tints the light as well since its a metal backing that does the reflecting?
I am honestly not sure...I think glass is another kind of animal altogether. And then there's also this thin layer effect that's not yet implemented in PBR at all.
It's related to surface roughness, diffuse vs specular reflection and perception of color. Suffice to say, mirrors are so incredibly smooth on the coating that there's zero diffuse reflectivity. If you make a mirror out of perfectly smoother copper, it'd look very similar.
Just something to share on the new UE4 update: http://youtu.be/-xai0iBffUc http://youtu.be/4249b94KtyA
I played around with creating an Empires-like game in UE4. Porting models is one thing (and very very easy). Writing all the code and getting the game to actually work is another. I had some ideas for a commercial sequel to Empires, but there is absolutely 0 interest for that to happen.
Hatpires, yes please. The thing is, you won't probably need such system if the game is kept developed by voluntaries and not salaried peoples.
You definitely still would need such a system. You just do what Valve does and let content creators earn something for the content that they make. The goal of the game isn't to make money - it's to get more quality content. Allowing content creators to get paid for good work passively controls and curates the system.
So just an idea but..... What about reaching out to another Dev team ? Nuclear dawn is in the same state as Empires. Imagine what could be accomplished by combining both sets of developers. They have always had way better infantry and AI. I just think it would be amazing combining both game on a new engine.
Why not? Contact them... as player, it doesn't make a difference if the game has a commercial backround or not. I like to play "RTS & FPS" and it is a question of time, before other developers will see potential and the idea behind this. The complete concept is online on Steam and the official manual of Empires. Natural Selection 2 might be the first step!!!
if it goes commercial it makes a huge difference if you hold IP rights (for concept and assets) or not - apart of that even if it doesnt, noone will risk his game being taken down due to claims. also what do you contribute? ideas? we all have ideas - create content (useable content) or code, then you have a chance in having a say at anything. sure sometimes ideas alone are helpful, its the rare exception of the rule though - usually its work that needs to be done. but lets assume devs today decide to port to UE4 (or any other engine). apart of the time it takes and even if empires models get reused, exept of nicer lighting, everything will still look as shit as before and even worse there will be null maps, null props, null textures, null nothing apart from horribly outdated looking game assets. and will everything be working? the rigs, the animations ... see, theres so much work to be done before it gets realistic. thousands of work hours. whos gonna do that? theres noone getting payed, its all people doing things in their spare time and ever single one of them is having their own ideas they care following more then those of others - who at worst just want to tell them what to do ...
Hm? I'm suprised, you don't know me. Anyway, change the story, the concept and the look a little bit and you can make your own game without risks.