Can RTX Remix remaster a game with new lighting and textures in a single click?
RTX Remix is not a “one button” solution to remastering. While producing a mod with full ray tracing in RTX Remix is relatively straightforward, if the game assets are not upgraded to possess physically accurate materials, the mod will not likely look right; the likelihood is many textures will look uniformly shiny or matte.
PBR assets with physically accurate materials react properly to realistic lighting. Glass reflects the world with clear detail, while laminate wood flooring has rough, coarse reflections. And stone, though without visible reflections, is still capable of bouncing light and having an effect on the scene. Without taking advantage of PBR, the modder is not fully taking advantage of full ray tracing.
Generative AI Texture Tools can help you get started with converting legacy textures to physically accurate materials. But the most impressive RTX Remix projects (like Portal With RTX, Portal: Prelude RTX and Half Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project) are chock full of lovingly hand made high quality assets with enormous polygonal counts and realistic materials. The best Blender artists will revel in being able to bring their carefully crafted assets into games without compromising on their visuals.
The most ambitious mods also see modders customize and add new lights to each scene to account for how the game now looks with realistic lighting and shadowing. This relighting step can allow for all the advantages of path traced lights while preserving the look of the original game.
When used alongside traditional modding tools, like Valve’s Hammer Editor, RTX Remix can make mods even more spectacular. Modders can reinvent particle systems and redesign aspects of the game RTX Remix can not interface with– for example the level design, the physics, and in-game AI.