Hello. I'm messing with a spaceship in Unity 5(the new "Standard" shader). I've messed with both the metallic and the specular workflow, and I'm not getting the results I wanted. It is my fault though, see, a mostly metal material(regardless of workflow) won't be seen much regardless of lighting, unless it has something to reflect. For non-metallic things, this isn't a problem, as the albedo color let's it show the diffuse lighting, but in the case of metal, the albedo should be black(or even with the metallic workflow the albedo is no longer only albedo, rather turned into reflective color if something is metal). This is understandable, as a PBS shader is trying to mimic real life, and in real life(unlike what you see in Star Wars/Star Trek) a fully metal ship in very low lighting would actually black if there isn't much to reflect, or at least that is how I see it. And since a typical space scene skybox is mostly black/blue with some stars, nebula, etc... there isn't much to reflect.

Now, Unity let's me use my own choice of cubemap separate from the rendered skybox in order for there to be reflective lighting, so it can render the star skybox in the scene, and use something else to decide what lighting/ambient the scene will have for the PBS materials, which is great. I've tested with a few things though, and I can't get a very good result. This includes a basic cloud filter texture, an actual cloudy sky, and even solid color, and frankly it doesn't look very good for this scene. I'm sure if you were under sky on some planet, then I could get something looking right, but in outer space, what would you guys recommend? I'm sure I'm not the first one to make a game in space using PBS materials, so what works? Thanks in advance for your suggestions and help.

OK guys, thanks for the suggestions. I think roughness combined with some things(like suns) in the skybox will probably work. If not, I will either go with last-gen non PBR shaders, or fake a cubemap(gray just for some lighting) to get something on the ship. I will post what worked after messing with it some more.

Honestly, I don't have any screen shots. I've kind of ended up scrapping the project in this form. This is why it is a good thing to work out projects in advance like this instead of diving in with no prototyping or anything. The game design is going to be top-down, and while there are some cool things I can do if I go fully 3d rendered(especially with PBR) with it, it is also a thing of time, which I don't have much of. I can't sprite for squat, but if I pre-render some simple models I can get acceptable results if I do it right, so I think I'm better off that way. And I avoid much of the texturing, UV mapping, steps as well. I can also use the full power of Blender instead of only what can get exported directly to a 3d engine, so things like Blender's procedural textures, tons of triangles if I need it(as in I don't have to optimize for the most part the models if they get lots of tris for some reason), any of the animation features, etc... just basically, I get better and faster results that way. And even better, even the "lowly" GameMaker Studio can handle the project like this, and it is better suited to 2d games so...see where I'm going with this. I would like to get done in this lifetime, and I know me, I would spend too much time on less important things in the project. Better to have figured these things out now rather than later after getting deep into the thing.