PBR Color Reference List & Color Calibration for PBR Materials guide - by Grzegorz Baran

This product contains full access to fully functional 'PBR Color Reference List' (in editable excell source version and small PDF file) with all potential future updates I plan to make to it.

The version number below is going to change every time this list receives a signifficant update.

'Version 6 - over 430 substances' - updated 15/03/2024

Color Calibration for PBR Materials-by Grzegorz Baran - E-Book Version 15 : Last edited in December 2023

This list is a 'must have' for any game studio and material artist who creates materials and textures for CG art as it contains list of color and luminance values for over 400 common substances. Therefore this list can and should be used as a fully functional Color Reference for any 'Physically Based Rendering' system. All values shared were carefuly measured with color spectrometer devices.
(PCE-RGB-2 for legacy measurments marked with * on the list and NixSensor Spectro 2)

This product also contains a PDF guide: 'Color Calibration for PBR Materials' which I hope going to help everyone with better understanding of overal color calibration subject and how to use this list in practice.

By purchasing this product you are getting access to these files:

Color Calibration for PBR Materials-by Grzegorz Baran.pdf
- a guide about color calibration for PBR materials

RGB-Color_Reference_List-Full.pdf
- full PDF version of PBR Color Reference List with substance dumbnails included whic can be easily carried on your mobile device etc.

RGB-Color_Reference_List-SOURCE.xlsx
- a large editable source excel file made in 'MS Office 2019' format with all equations used for convertions included. With this file anyone can easily expand this list, reformat it, modfiy equations or simply zoom-in into material preview thumbnails if neeeded.

File names additionally contain the file release/modification date.

Please bear in mind that by purchasing this product you also help to co-fund the further developement of this list as there are still many different surfaces left to measure and share.

Thank you all for your support,
Grzegorz Baran

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Disclaimer:

Most measurements on this list were taken with Nixsensor Spectro 2 color spectrometer under D65 Illuminant and 10 degree observer angle. This way they are inline with the X-Rite Color Checker as well as RAL color validation systems.

The list also contains some legacy measurements (marked with *) which were taken with PCE-RGB2 1002 Color Colorimeter device and converted into sRGB (2.2) gamma space. Since they are in acceptable color range, I decided to keep them for now and eventually replace at some with values measured with Nixsensor Spectro 2 as Spectro 2 is far more superior to PCE-RGB-2.

The list contains values which come from measurements and represent albedo of different substances. Color we perceive in reality is not just an albedo but is made of many other components like specular, glare, reflections, micro-shadows, subsurface scattering etc. Since at the end, what matters is the final matereial look, for this reason I included reference images with the X-Rite Color Checker next to them. This way everyone should be able to evaluate them visually by comparison.

In CG, the final substance look depends on shader computing/simulation, not to mention that no substance in nature is ever fully uniform: therefore its safe to consider that any +/- 10% deviation from these values as being in range.

I do my best to provide the most accurate values possible and I am constatnly improving my tools, samples and measurement techniques, therefore the list is still in constant development and is subject to change. Please use this list as a guide and reference rather then absolute answer to everything. Don’t be afraid to question material look as at the end what matters is always the full light responseNot to mention that I can simply be wrong about something as it’s an uncharted and much wider territory then it appears to be and I believe the reason why there are no so many reliable reference lists out there already.
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