See also:

Textures

Materials

The steps at a glance

1. Preparing the shoot with the right reference to capture
2. Go out and capture the reference
3. Ingestion (processing the captured reference)
4. Calibrate the captured reference
5. Start in-engine work using the reference and digi-doubles

1. Preparing the shoot

HDRI

When capturing a calibrated HDR image we’ll need a couple of things:

• A metallic chrome sphere (for reflections)
• An 18% grey sphere (for diffuse)
• A color chart (for balancing)
  • A white balance chart (is sometimes included with the color chart)
• A sample of whatever you plan to match in CG (for reference)
• A decent camera with manual controls
  • Optional rig to capture 360s (for HDRIs)

My current mad max level rig with Christmas ornaments

Reference material details

If you don’t want to spend a lot of money for a real VFX-industry grey sphere, the trick is to source the right paint to paint a ball. There’s some online discourse about how to get 18% grey from various paints, but the best advice was to get an 18% grey color chart from a photography shop and bring it to a paint shop.

Diffuse

When capturing diffuse maps we’ll just need a color and white balance chart. A controlled lighting environment like a studio or photography room is preferred, but not necessary. See this page for more detail:

Normal maps (photoscanning)

We can capture really nice normal details from (flat) surfaces using a multi-directional lighting rig. Ready at Dawn made a really nice one for The Order: 1886, but we can also use a simpler setup. See this page for more details:

Foliage

Photogrammetry