I recently came across a GDC talk from Remedy by surprise, and I wanted to save these "safe" albedo color values in a more accessible format. I’ve taken screenshots from the video and saved them here. While the colors might not be 100% accurate, I color-picked them, and the values are close enough for the 0-255 range.
According to the slides, this research was originally based on work from Remember Me, which was done a few years ago.
For albedo, the darkest blacks should sit around a value of 50, unless you're working with black plastic, where it can go down to 30. The brightest values should be capped at 232, except for fresh snow, which can reach 243. The reason behind this is that, unless you're dealing with absolute black, even dark colors reflect some light.
I’ve also included a screenshot showing the albedo values for metals. You can find more of these guidelines in the Substance documentation here, the PBR Guideline.
The talk, given by Benjamin Lindquist and Miro Vesterinen, also covers some interesting techniques they used in their environment design.
If anyone knows of a tool for Substance Painter or Designer that can help check albedo values to ensure they're not too bright or too dark that simulates what Benjamin is doing, (or perhaps make one for us AS!) please let me know! I'd love to share it in this article.
All rights to the slides and content belong to Remedy Entertainment.