Physically Based Materials

The new material system is finally humming away. Apart from improved batching and faster scenes, one of the best features has to be support for Physically Based Shading in Unity 5. Obviously Daggerfall can’t take full advantage just yet, those tiny textures are never going to cut it. But with the Standard shader now… well, standard, those of you with an artistic mind can start authoring high quality materials to take advantage of everything Unity has on offer. Combine physically based materials with some higher quality models and there might come a time when Daggerfall could be genuinely breathtaking.

In the meantime, here’s an Ultra HD screenshot taken from on top of Castle Daggerfall. There’s a little SSAO, bloom, and some global fog thrown in for good measure. Click for full size.