Regression: Lighting difference between 3.5 and 3.6 with Principled BSDF #109494

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opened 2023-06-29 11:21:19 +02:00 by Mark Stead · 3 comments

System Information
Operating system: Windows-10-10.0.19045-SP0 64 Bits
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080/PCIe/SSE2 NVIDIA Corporation 4.5.0 NVIDIA 531.61

Blender Version
Broken: version: 3.6.0, branch: blender-v3.6-release, commit date: 2023-06-27 08:08, hash: c7fc78b81ecb
Worked: 3.5.

Short description of error
I'm observing a difference in lighting on some surfaces, and I'm wondering if it's expected - or whether I need to investigate further.
I'm guessing it could be related to this.
"Improved Fresnel handling of the Glass BSDF for better energy preservation and accuracy of results at high roughness."
https://archive.blender.org/developer/D17149
My surfaces are high roughness, but they are using Principled BSDF with a fairly standard setup. One tree is using displacement.
The lighting is harsh, one Sun with an angle of 0.5 degrees, strength 2.5, and another Sun with an angle of 5 degrees and strength 0.25. (Note I've turned off the fog, and the difference is still observed.)

Exact steps for others to reproduce the error
I'll attach some images. You probably need to load the images in separate windows so you can switch between them.
Please advise if you need me to investigate and break it down into a simple test scene.
(If this is just an expected difference for Principled BSDF - then that's fine.)

The main difference here is the upper part of the trunk on the right:

Source Image
Blender 3.6.0 Blender_3.6_F1024.jpg
Blender 3.5.1 Blender_3.5_F1024.jpg
Diff First Diff

This one the tree on the left is the difference:

Source Image
Blender 3.6.0 Blender_3.6_F0050.jpg
Blender 3.5.1 Blender_3.5_F0050.jpg
Diff Selond Diff

In both cases I guess it's the glancing angles of the light that are darker in 3.6.

I should mention I'm not using Light Trees - and yes this is with Cycles.

**System Information** Operating system: Windows-10-10.0.19045-SP0 64 Bits Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080/PCIe/SSE2 NVIDIA Corporation 4.5.0 NVIDIA 531.61 **Blender Version** Broken: version: 3.6.0, branch: blender-v3.6-release, commit date: 2023-06-27 08:08, hash: `c7fc78b81ecb` Worked: 3.5. **Short description of error** I'm observing a difference in lighting on some surfaces, and I'm wondering if it's expected - or whether I need to investigate further. I'm guessing it could be related to this. "Improved Fresnel handling of the Glass BSDF for better energy preservation and accuracy of results at high roughness." https://archive.blender.org/developer/D17149 My surfaces are high roughness, but they are using Principled BSDF with a fairly standard setup. One tree is using displacement. The lighting is harsh, one Sun with an angle of 0.5 degrees, strength 2.5, and another Sun with an angle of 5 degrees and strength 0.25. (Note I've turned off the fog, and the difference is still observed.) **Exact steps for others to reproduce the error** I'll attach some images. You probably need to load the images in separate windows so you can switch between them. Please advise if you need me to investigate and break it down into a simple test scene. (If this is just an expected difference for Principled BSDF - then that's fine.) The main difference here is the upper part of the trunk on the right: | Source | Image | | -- | -- | | Blender 3.6.0 | ![Blender_3.6_F1024.jpg](/attachments/da60941f-6329-4a76-99b2-16e6cb4a03d7) | | Blender 3.5.1 | ![Blender_3.5_F1024.jpg](/attachments/2e1b449b-fc96-4c8a-8c45-b173c925fb10) | | Diff | ![First Diff](/attachments/c2b4875f-cd68-4cd8-8a57-7f41bcb7f7b9) | This one the tree on the left is the difference: | Source | Image | | -- | -- | | Blender 3.6.0 | ![Blender_3.6_F0050.jpg](/attachments/7605a6ca-6062-409f-b039-ae99c65dfdb1) | | Blender 3.5.1 | ![Blender_3.5_F0050.jpg](/attachments/a45a0504-f60d-4572-a65b-dd47004cc071) | | Diff | ![Selond Diff](/attachments/182e9110-6578-4033-9768-e77ccce7782f) | In both cases I guess it's the glancing angles of the light that are darker in 3.6. I should mention I'm not using Light Trees - and yes this is with Cycles.
Mark Stead added the
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labels 2023-06-29 11:21:19 +02:00
Member

#109404 also included some changes to lighting. #108996 might be related, but considering you have such a low angle, it's not that likely.

To me the result seems more or less passable.

#109404 also included some changes to lighting. #108996 might be related, but considering you have such a low angle, it's not that likely. To me the result seems more or less passable.
Author

To me the result seems more or less passable.

I don't disagree with that.

However, I've done some more research and created a test file attached that highlights the differences.
Issue 109494 DisplacementBumpOnlyLighting.blend

The scene has a cylinder for the tree trunk, a moon (icosphere), and a sun light where the moon is. (The moon is only to indicate the position of the light and does not illuminate or cast shadows - it can be deleted.)
image

When I created the cylinder I made a mistake that actually accentuates the problem. I turned on Smooth, but forgot to set an Auto Smooth angle. Hence the cylinder looks like this:
image

So, rendering the attached file, generates this image:

Source Image
Blender 3.5.1 Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image A.jpg
Blender 3.6.0 Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image A.jpg
Diff Diff

Blender 3.6 is brighter, and the lighting wraps further around the cylinder.
Blender 3.5 appears to not have smoothing applied - you can clearly make out the faces of the cylinder.
Blender 3.6 looks much better, though it is perhaps questionable that the light should wrap around that far - but then the normals are messed up due to not using auto-smooth.
With regard to the lighting difference, sampling a random pixel on the brightest part of the cylinder shows the luminosity as 0.4323 (Blender 3.5.1) and 0.4819 (Blender 3.6.0) - about 11% brighter.

Now, what's special about this file is the material has a Noise Texture applied to the Displacement. However Displacement is configured as Bump Only.
image

I'll disconnect the Displacement node from the Material Output:

Source Image
Blender 3.5.1 Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image B.jpg
Blender 3.6.0 Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image B.jpg
Diff Diff 4

The two images are much closer.
The Blender 3.6.0 image is about 4% brighter (sample of 0.4829 vs 0.4649).
The main difference is just the top of the image where the smoothing/shadowing appears to be handled differently.

So, what if I use a normal map, instead of the Displacement/BumpOnly thing? I've loaded a normal map from Poly Haven (bark_brown_02_nor_gl_2k.exr), but you should be able to use anything.
image
image

Source Image
Blender 3.5.1 Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image C.jpg
Blender 3.6.0 Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image C.jpg
Diff Diff 5

The only difference is a 13% difference in brightness (0.4651 vs 0.4102).

Finally, going back to the original configuration with the Displacement Noise texture (no Normal Map). I will turn on Auto-Smooth at 30 degrees.

Source Image
Blender 3.5.1 Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image D.jpg
Blender 3.6.0 Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image D.jpg
Diff Diff 6

The only difference is an 8% difference in brightness (0.4428 vs 0.4114). Now only the first face of the cylinder is illuminated, instead of the light wrapping further around.

Anyway, I guess I'll leave it at that.
I'm not concerned specifically about the change in brightness. I'm assuming the approach now is more accurate.
While the smoothing applied to the (capped) cylinder was a bit dodgy. It still could be technically valid in some circumstance. There's definitely something a bit strange happening - but only when using Displacement. Note that Displacement Only doesn't do much in this case because there's no geometry, but the same anomaly is seen with Displacement+Bump. And I would certainly agree that Blender 3.6 looks better than Blender 3.5.
(Also FWIW, the tree trunk in the original scene used an un-capped cylinder - so was not subject to any strange smoothing normals.)

> To me the result seems more or less passable. I don't disagree with that. However, I've done some more research and created a test file attached that highlights the differences. [Issue 109494 DisplacementBumpOnlyLighting.blend](/attachments/afa7a3e8-6e0b-4044-9568-3c4c7611adc8) The scene has a cylinder for the tree trunk, a moon (icosphere), and a sun light where the moon is. (The moon is only to indicate the position of the light and does not illuminate or cast shadows - it can be deleted.) ![image](/attachments/38f3e4e0-be80-4127-a4ec-8d9e6dcfc6d0) When I created the cylinder I made a mistake that actually accentuates the problem. I turned on Smooth, but forgot to set an Auto Smooth angle. Hence the cylinder looks like this: ![image](/attachments/43a9a7d6-e96a-4fd9-893b-7f3b42c316a5) So, rendering the attached file, generates this image: | Source | Image | | -- | -- | | Blender 3.5.1 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image A.jpg](/attachments/f09e6a1c-2160-4088-8c5a-62c5613afa0f) | | Blender 3.6.0 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image A.jpg](/attachments/494421da-be6f-4b2a-a1e6-7fb31b904c33) | | Diff | ![Diff](/attachments/31ad8e2c-c7e5-4f16-9bc5-c16763ffff5a) | Blender 3.6 is brighter, and the lighting wraps further around the cylinder. Blender 3.5 appears to not have smoothing applied - you can clearly make out the faces of the cylinder. Blender 3.6 looks much better, though it is perhaps questionable that the light should wrap around that far - but then the normals are messed up due to not using auto-smooth. With regard to the lighting difference, sampling a random pixel on the brightest part of the cylinder shows the luminosity as 0.4323 (Blender 3.5.1) and 0.4819 (Blender 3.6.0) - about 11% brighter. Now, what's special about this file is the material has a Noise Texture applied to the Displacement. However Displacement is configured as Bump Only. ![image](/attachments/a448d581-6baa-4119-b04c-1e46704ab146) I'll disconnect the Displacement node from the Material Output: | Source | Image | | -- | -- | | Blender 3.5.1 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image B.jpg](/attachments/c7a14bd2-e96e-41f5-a760-1696d8c4febb) | | Blender 3.6.0 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image B.jpg](/attachments/a7dde4bd-3e03-4547-ac56-30af1719b34f) | | Diff | ![Diff 4](/attachments/e255524b-0806-41df-be98-c78ede5a5c36) | The two images are much closer. The Blender 3.6.0 image is about 4% brighter (sample of 0.4829 vs 0.4649). The main difference is just the top of the image where the smoothing/shadowing appears to be handled differently. So, what if I use a normal map, instead of the Displacement/BumpOnly thing? I've loaded a normal map from Poly Haven (bark_brown_02_nor_gl_2k.exr), but you should be able to use anything. ![image](/attachments/b7c33023-6e75-4051-bb45-17f62617ce7a) ![image](/attachments/8f0360e2-744b-479f-b0b3-ab42a7919817) | Source | Image | | -- | -- | | Blender 3.5.1 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image C.jpg](/attachments/8d7d4755-9f63-4db2-8cdd-0c281022268c) | | Blender 3.6.0 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image C.jpg](/attachments/83c3ed00-fa9d-49f5-94b9-7e1f90e38078) | | Diff | ![Diff 5](/attachments/bc79e96f-69c1-4d31-be62-cb990e525928) | The only difference is a 13% difference in brightness (0.4651 vs 0.4102). Finally, going back to the original configuration with the Displacement Noise texture (no Normal Map). I will turn on Auto-Smooth at 30 degrees. | Source | Image | | -- | -- | | Blender 3.5.1 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.5 Image D.jpg](/attachments/1464503e-225b-4203-ae33-04e01664f451) | | Blender 3.6.0 | ![Issue 109494 Blender 3.6 Image D.jpg](/attachments/add5f177-9e6f-414b-a84b-e05a8735e0e4) | | Diff | ![Diff 6](/attachments/b4ff9def-5f9e-473f-b2fc-de01f426a3ef) | The only difference is an 8% difference in brightness (0.4428 vs 0.4114). Now only the first face of the cylinder is illuminated, instead of the light wrapping further around. Anyway, I guess I'll leave it at that. I'm not concerned specifically about the change in brightness. I'm assuming the approach now is more accurate. While the smoothing applied to the (capped) cylinder was a bit dodgy. It still could be technically valid in some circumstance. There's definitely something a bit strange happening - but only when using Displacement. Note that Displacement Only doesn't do much in this case because there's no geometry, but the same anomaly is seen with Displacement+Bump. And I would certainly agree that Blender 3.6 looks better than Blender 3.5. (Also FWIW, the tree trunk in the original scene used an un-capped cylinder - so was not subject to any strange smoothing normals.)
Iliya Katushenock added the
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Render & Cycles
label 2023-06-30 14:52:56 +02:00
Iliya Katushenock changed title from Lighting difference between Blender 3.5 and Blender 3.6 with Principled BSDF to Regression: Lighting difference between Blender 3.5 and Blender 3.6 with Principled BSDF 2023-06-30 14:53:04 +02:00
Iliya Katushenock changed title from Regression: Lighting difference between Blender 3.5 and Blender 3.6 with Principled BSDF to Regression: Lighting difference between 3.5 and 3.6 with Principled BSDF 2023-06-30 14:53:18 +02:00

Thanks for investigating this. This is due to intentional changes to bump mapping from #105776. That was not mentioned in the release notes, I've added it now.

Thanks for investigating this. This is due to intentional changes to bump mapping from #105776. That was not mentioned in the release notes, I've added it now.
Blender Bot added
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and removed
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labels 2023-07-03 14:34:40 +02:00
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Reference: blender/blender#109494
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