The sheen / falloff parameter is essential for creating any kind of velvet, satin, or sateen fabric on furniture. Without it, Enscape users are severely limited in the kind of materials that can be shown on furniture, drapes etc.
Velvet looks entirely different from fabrics with less sheen, such cotton, linen, and nylon. The current workarounds do not get anything close to what a velvet material looks like, and a simple parameter for even an approximation of fabric sheen would make a world of difference.
Is this something that is impossible with a real time render engine, or just not a priority for the Chaos team?
Twinmotion allows this with the “fuzzy” material setting, so this feels like something that could even be faked into the material for the falloff effect.
Even Blender has been able to display sheen within their real time render engine + viewport preview for many versions now, so it is definitely possible.
To answer your question directly: this isn’t a technical limit. A sheen approximation is possible in real time, and you’re right that other engines do it. It’s a question of priority. We try to keep material controls simple, so we add new ones where they help the most users.
Two details would help us: is this mainly for interior projects where clients choose between fabrics, and do you usually show it in close-ups or in room-wide views? If others need the same, please upvote and share an example image.
Until then, the closest result comes from a fine fabric bump map, a slightly lighter tint and a touch of Metallic for the soft highlight. This thread shows the approach. For final presentation images where the fabric must read exactly, Enscape Envision gives you more control over materials.
Most design firms that specify or create custom FFE will run into this obstacle when trying to render any fabric that would require a falloff parameter (i.e. velvet/satin/sateen fabrics on curtains, chairs, sofas, pillows, etc.).
This is an effect that is very visible in both foreground and background geometry. Looking at the velvet chairs in this image, the falloff effect is very noticeable at multiple distances, and even with the bump mapping trick this is currently impossible to do in Enscape.
It is more specific than something like the rough/glossiness setting, but for anyone who needs to render interiors with these fabrics, not having a falloff parameter is like trying to render a glass house without being able to make a glass material.
