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Debugging Lighting & Physically Based Rendering Inputs

This tool provides a range of modes designed to validate art and lighting, addressing various scenarios, aiming to identify and rectify inconsistencies in both the coding and art.

This tool can be activated using the debugLighting CVar or directly accessed in the World Editor view within idStudio.

Debugging Options​

Albedo​

Command: debugLighting albedo

debug albedo

Specular​

Command: debugLighting specular

debug specular

Smoothness​

Command: debugLighting smoothness

debug smoothness

Normal Maps​

Command: debugLighting normals

debug normal maps

Lighting​

Command: debugLighting lighting

debug lighting

Diffuse Lighting​

Command: debugLighting diffuseTerm

debug diffuse lighting

Specular Lighting​

Command: debugLighting specularTerm

debug specular lighting

Environment Probes​

Command: debugLighting envProbesCheck

debug environment probes

This mode is intended to debug environment probe content.

  • See if the scene reflections have any interesting and bright source/contrast, so final reflections look good.
  • Combining this tool with the HDR range visualization (type r_HDRDebug 3 on the console to enable) provides additional verification of the range of the inputs in the reflection.

HDR Debug​

Command: r_HDRDebug

HDR Debug

In combination with the environment probe visualization, r_HDRDebug 3 shows if the range of values from the probes have a good contrast between bright and dark areas.

  • Blue: Dark areas. This is below r_hdrDebugRangeMin (default is 0.01).
  • Red: Bright areas. This is above the r_hdrDebugRangeMax (default is 1.0).
  • Grayscale: Relatively bright areas. These are between the r_hdrDebugRangeMin and r_hdrDebugRangeMax.

Ambient Lighting​

Command: debugLighting ambientCheck

debug ambient lighting

Lighting Overdraw​

Command: debugLighting lightingOverdraw

debug lighting overdraw

This mode shows the amount of overdraw on the screen coming from lights and environment probes. This is a good indicator of performance issues.

  • Blue: Good.
  • Green: This area has about 5 lights overlapping. Keep an eye on these regions.
  • Red: More than 10 lights overlapping. This will likely hurt performance.

Lights Overdraw​

Command: debugLighting lightsOverdraw

debug lights overdraw

Similar to Lighting overdraw, but this mode helps track whether too many lights are affecting specific regions.

Environment Probe Overdraw​

Command: debugLighting envProbesOverdraw

debug environment probe overdraw

Similar to Lighting overdraw, but this mode helps track whether too many environment probes are affecting specific regions.

Decal Overdraw​

Command: debugLighting decalsOverdraw

debug decal overdraw

  • Blue: Good.
  • Green: This area has about 5 lights overlapping. Keep an eye on these regions.
  • Red: More than 10 lights overlapping. This will likely hurt performance.

PBR Validate All​

Command: debugLighting pbrValidateAll

  • Green: Valid albedo and specular values.
  • Red: Invalid non-metal albedo. The value is too low.
  • Yellow: Invalid metal albedo. The value is too high.
  • White: Invalid non-metal albedo. The value is too high.
  • Red (Striped): Invalid specular.
  • Yellow (Striped): Ambiguous specular. This value can be valid or invalid depending on the intended material. Less common surfaces like gems, oxidized metals and treated metals will fall into this ambiguous range. While, common materials like wood, plaster, stone and clean metals should not.

PBR Validate Non-Metals​

Command: debugLighting pbrValidateNonMetals

Similar to PBR validate all, but the metal surfaces are not considered (set to grayscale).

PBR Validate Metals​

Command: debugLighting pbrValidateMetals

Similar to PBR validate all, but the non-metal surfaces are not considered (set to grayscale).

PBR Validate Smoothness​

Command: debugLighting pbrValidateSmoothness

This mode is used for evaluating material smoothness. The smoothness input is divided into categories/segments so that it is easier to judge the relative smoothness of various surfaces. Materials should fall into a category that is reasonable given their microsurface properties.

  • Dark Blue: Flat material.
  • Blue: Matte material.
  • Green: Semi-smooth material.
  • Yellow: Smooth material.
  • Red: Glass/water material.