Talk:Physically based rendering

What does this article need to succeed?

I have never started an article on a topic that matters so much to a particular discipline before, and indeed did not intend to be a primary contributor to this page. I thought many experts would come out of the woodwork to contribute, but that has not happened yet, and this concept is becoming required study in a vast many fields of computer animation by now.

I would love to see it succeed. I would love to know what kinds of expansions would work. I think it is important that PBR be established as an article about a scientific co-discipline between computer animation//computer graphics and optics, with a reasonable emphasis on theory, over and above any particular engine that implements it.

I believe it needs pictures and have tried to provide some free to the community, but better and more historically important sources can no doubt be found.

But what are they? I am inclined to name Marmoset as a leader in this space, but this encyclopedia is wary of leaning too heavily on any one commercial source, and the wider breadth of scientific research needs to be discussed.

Anyone who has been to SIGGRAPH to discuss PBR would be exceptionally welcomed as a contributor to this page. CaliCoastReplay (talk) 11:31, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Simple. We need competent people who are willing to make worthwhile contributions and who understand what physically-based rendering is and that writing about physically-based shading in this article is off-topic since it belongs to its own article. Though this undertaking can succeed only if both articles are written in conjunction and link to each other since they are closely related.

But perhaps this topic is awfully vague since "physically-based" is just a marketing term without a definition and we will have to argue which techniques qualify at all. Though I hope most authors understand what rendering and what shading is.Manuhart (talk) 09:27, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

First off, if you are going to respond here, please use proper Wikipedia response syntax as denoted by the colon characters in order to properly format your responses for readability. Second - there's hardly even enough information here about PBR yet to justify one article, much less two. The difference between rendering and shading is no doubt important, but it's technical on a level that does not warrant separation yet. "PBS" isn't even a real keyword for the industry, unless you mean the television station, so I'm unclear why you feel it is so important to separate the articles earlier rather than when the depth of information warrants it. And third - if you are going to separate them - then you need to do it all at once, not remove useful information with a vague intent to put it in a new article later. Best. CaliCoastReplay (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I came here looking for comparisons with earlier techniques, so that would be a cool thing to add. Even if it's only links to them or a comparison page. I don't think I've edited a page here in over a decade probably close to two by now. If I can find what I'm looking for, I will try to remember to come back and add it. I'm no expert though. Headhunter45 (talk) 06:05, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Frustrating resistance

Unfortunately it is impossible to write a proper article about physically-based rendering since people keep vandalizing this page. --Manuhart (talk) 14:30, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

@Manuhart: No, reverting the bad edits you made which stripped out a bunch of useful information is not "vandalism". If you have objections, state them. Don't just clear-cut an article that currently teaches students at least the fundamentals of what PBR is trying to be as a discipline, it's a lot more than just the engines that use it. CaliCoastReplay (talk) 22:26, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

This article has been re-written

The recent re-write of this article removed much information about the history (and even the basic definition) of physically-based rendering. The article probably needs further editing to restore this missing information. Jarble (talk) 06:02, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Why was this edit made?

As the original author of this article, I fail to understand in what manner, shape, or form this revision is considered more proper and informative than what was there before. All of the scientific and historical information on the basic principles has been removed, and it now reads like a software advertisement. Can someone explain why this edit was made? CaliCoastReplay (talk) 21:31, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

@CaliCoastReplay: I restored some paragraphs that were deleted in this article's recent re-write. Jarble (talk) 19:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jarble: Bless! Thanks for helping preserve useful information. I think that it's much better this way. CaliCoastReplay (talk) 22:26, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Misuse of “offline”

> […] offline applications using ray tracing or path tracing.

None of this has anything to do with network connections. The entire sentence needs to be rewritten to make sense.

— 2A02:3035:664:C35F:1ABB:241B:21A4:825E (talk) 09:31, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

@2A02:3035:664:C35F:1ABB:241B:21A4:825E Fixed as of most recent edit ~2026-47731-33 (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

@2A02:3035:664:C35F:1ABB:241B:21A4:825E There is an argument to be made that this entire closing sentence of the intro should be removed. Not only was the distinction between real-time and non-real-time no longer relevant for ray-tracing (also was removed in the most recent edit), but the specification that PBR can be implemented using shaders, RT, or PT seems odd. These methods are all somewhat irrelevant to PBR specifically. They can be used to implement any variety of rendering method, but the wording makes them sound unique to PBR ~2026-47731-33 (talk) 21:05, 2 September 2026 (UTC)

Poor wording is abundant

This article contains confusing, subjective, or incorrect wording in most sections. Value judgements such as referring to graphics programmers as "savvy", non-standard terminology such as using the word "metallicity" in place of "metalness", and needlessly long sentences are generally ineffective in an educational article. ~2026-47731-33 (talk) 20:41, 3 September 2026 (UTC)