You’ll get used to it It’s one of those things where we knew we had to change it sooner or later, but we’ve been putting it off for too long for exactly the reason that you mention.
I’ve never really understood the hangup with people insisting you use falloff curves for reflections. Perhaps it’s because I grew up doing 3D’s in an era where fresnel was available in most render packages.
Not really much of a hangup. I’ve used fresnel myself mostly but we are always experimenting and trying new methods. Falloff certainly has advantages with controlling reflections at particular angles and also in colouring reflections.
I believe he’s meaning he’s using a falloff map to create a custom fresnel curve, rather than just specifying an IOR number with fresnel enabled in the material.
See I have the opposite reaction every time I open something that uses falloff curves instead of fresnel. This ain’t 1999, do your research and use proper IOR values (is what I say to the imaginary asset creator, not to the OP specifically).
This is kind of true, however there’s a certain amount of artistic license that can go into these things too. If I’ve a static scene or a particular lighting scenario, I’ll often use a falloff curve that looks very similar to a fresnel and then tweak the curve a tiny bit to have a bit more performance - I might want to get a really nice roll-off between reflective and not as an example. The thing with real data and accuracy (which is typically what my day to day activity is) is that you can replicate something really accurately, but accurate / real can sometimes look a little underwhelming. If you’re doing cg for live action integration for example, the DOP may have put in some additional lights or bounce cards if the objects had actually been there on set for him / her to see.
I’m voting against the fresnel default, because I too keep getting caught out on the change. But I guess I’ll get used to it. I know it’s more accurate, but you just get used to doing things a certain way (and I’ve been doing them for a long long time), and change is hard.
It’s one of those things where we knew we had to change it sooner or later, but we’ve been putting it off for too long for exactly the reason that you mention.