Beautify! - Improve image quality producing incredibly crisp and vivid scenes

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Check out the finalists and winner of the 1st Annual Beautify Contest!​

Beautify is a full-screen image processing effect that improves the image quality in real time producing incredibly crisp and vivid scenes.

Check out the comparison image below (a sample capture from Unity courtyard demo scene). White rectangles show areas affected by Beautify - compare the bottom one, the stairs, look how Beautify is capable to restore detail:



Beautify uses smart algorithms in a single pass, resulting in a very fast image effect, and can be used in mobile:

- Improves local pixel contrast, enhancing visual features and producing sharp images.
- Reduces or completely removes banding in gradients, usually seen in sky boxes due to color quantization.
- Adjusts pixel saturation, boosting pixel color without oversaturating the image.
- Implements several heuristics to reduce or remove any artifacts over edges or thin objects, like wires.

Beautify is very easy to use, just add the image effect to your camera, choose a preset and that's all.

Works with forward and deferred rendering paths as well as linear and gamma color spaces.

Check out the video and screenshots below for a few examples of what Beautify can do:

A dew demo scenes are included to demonstrate the different presets and their effects. This is what a simple Unity terrain and the standard skybox in the scene looks like with Beautify:



Thanks to Beautify, the mountains on the right look sharp, with better perceptual resolution and the sky is smooth and vivid (no banding). This same example works on mobile with almost no performance impact.

In addition to its unique image enhancement algorithm, Beautify also includes the following effects:

• High quality and performant Bloom with threshold, intensity and fine-tuning customization options + Anamorphic Flares!

• Lens Dirt with angle to light source or brightness based, intensity controls and customizable dirt texture (includes two dirt textures).

• Genuine and GPU based Sun Flares with lot of customization options.

• Depth of Field + Bokeh with advanced options like transparency and exclusion layers..

• Vignetting - colored vignetting with intensity+radius control.

• Night & Thermal Vision with nice effects like distortion, GPU noise and scan lines.

• Sepia classic effect.

• Outline - add colored borders around objects.

• Frame option - add a subtle colored frame around the image.

• ACES tonemap operator - no need to add an additional tone mapper - ACES included and processed in the correct stage along the rest of effects!

• Eye Adaptation and Purnkinje Shift - simulates retina reaction to quick changes in rumination or color blindness under low light conditions.

Grab Beautify now and boost your game visuals with a single click. Thanks!

Beautify
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/61730

 

Just bought, really great effect. Doesn`t need eyeglasses in my level anymore.
Only my skybox doesn`t look good anymore, is it possible to exclude it from this effect ?

 

Thanks @unicat.

Try choosing a different preset or try different values for luminance relaxation and clamp sliders.
Also send me a screenshot to contact@kronnect.me of your skybox and the image effect parameters.

We're prepping v1.1 so that's a good suggestion that we'll add. Thanks.

 

How does this work in conjunction with other post effects? Would this be the last on the stack?

 

In our tests Beautify works better before Antialias and also after Tonemapping.

 

V1.1 is now available with additional depth controls. Now you can define the depth range where beautify will be applied:

- Decrease max depth to leave skybox or far areas untouched, bringing focus to the front.
- Increase min depth to set the focus ahead, like a cheap depth of field effect.

Cheers!

 

Hey @Thrawn75 I've acquired Beautify recently and I hooked it up in one of my lanscape scenes. Well the result is incredible! I took the time to refine custom settings to suit my needs and in just a couple of minutes everything is working perfectly.

It reveals a lot of small details, sharpens things cleanly and overall image quality is increased. I suggest everyone to try it and I bet once you've tried it you won't deactivate it from your post FX stack anytime soon. Well done!

Without Beautify on the left side and with Beautify on the right one:









Assets used in the above scene:

• Beautify
• Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion
• Tonemapping & Color Grading from Cinematic Image Effects
• Gaia
• HQ Photographic Textures Grass Pack Vol 1 & 2
• SpeedTree Giant Redwood Package
• Time of Day

 

Thank you very much for sharing those pictures. The detail is mind-blowing!

 

Does it work with Scion or does it replaces it?
Actually the question is which FXs can I remove from stack as redundant?

 

Hello!

Beautify does not replace Scion - in fact, it's an all new image effect that improves the overall quality of the image. It's quite compatible with the rest of image effects like bloom, AA, tone mapping, SSAO/HBAO, although you may want to try different order combinations to get the look you like best.

For example, this shot, which has beautify applied on the right and normal on the left (click over the image and notice how Beautify boosts details on the grass, rock, even makes existing bloom and shafts look more dramatic):



Uses the following stack:

- HBAO
- Unity's Bloom
- Unity's Sun Shafts
- Tonemapping & Color Grading (from Unity's cinematic effect package)
- Beautify
- Anti-Alias (from Unity's cinematic effect package)

Bloom and Tonemapping could be provided by Scion or other packages, same for AA.

Beautify is very easy to use, you will get immediate results from the moment you add it to your camera. And it's very performant (single pass, mobile compatible) and includes different presets and weight controls to match the best look you want.

 

Bought!
But after import I got this error (Have your fog installed):
Assets/VolumetricFog/Extra/DynamicFog/Scripts/FogVolume.cs(15,17): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `DynamicFog' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

 

Also, quick start guide from Dynamic Fog was replaced by quick start guide from Beautify
And after re-importing Volumetric Fog I'm getting this:

Assets/VolumetricFog/Extra/DynamicFog/Editor/BeautifyEffectInspector.cs(11,17): error CS0246: The type or namespace name `Beautify' could not be found. Are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?

And both assets are mixed inside Volumetric Fog folder.
Completely stuck now.

 

Hi and thanks for purchasing!

Unfortunately we recently found V1.0 conflicts with Dynamic Fog & Mist. Version 1.1 which included a fix was submitted immediately but has not been approved yet.
Please send me an email to contact@kronnect.me with your order number to get latest update which does not show this issue.

Thanks!

 

The screenshots to the right were produced with Beautify with default settings, just after drag and drop onto the camera.

It's interesting to note how Beautify fixes the extra blur produced by antialias, it's the perfect combo! Drop Beautify after Antialias and play with the sliders to get the most of your scene!

 

Beautify update v1.1 is now available.

IMPORTANT:

If you have already Beautify 1.0 in your project, you must remove it (delete the folder) before importing this new update!


Thanks!

 

New screenshot (click to enlarge):

 

Oh man, another must have tool from you (in a good way). What will the full price be?

 

Well, Beautify is being a serious hit, most popular shader at this moment, and we are focused right now in helping customers and working with others making some cool demos and examples.
Any price change will come with a future upgrade but no date yet. We'll keep you posted through this thread.
Thanks!

 

Thanks, I appreciate that .

 

Sir OP, what kind of graphical wizardry or witchery is this?

 

V1.3 has been submitted. Among some improvements, this new update includes:
- a compare mode, where you can see a side by side comparison of the image effect
- a daltonizer option, which helps those with some degree of color blindness deficiency
- a slightly faster mobile shader variant.

And a new screenshot (click to enlarge)!

 

New set of screenshots using Unity's Corridor Lighting Example. Imported project, added Beautify to the camera and chose 'Exaggerated' preset this time.

Beautify on the left, normal image on the right (click to enlarge):

 

Congrats on a very cool system, certainly interested in getting a copy of this, quick question though we are using DOF in our project and it seems from the new screenshots that your asset almost removes any blurring DOF adds in, would you say it is not possible to properly use your asset if you have any kind of blur already in the scene?

 

Thank you!

In that case, you may either limit the depth range at which this effect applies (there's a min/max slider option for that) or just put DOF after Beautify in the image effect chain.

 

Splendid, will invest come pay day, thanks.

 

Beautify 1.3 is now available:

New Features:
- New compare mode which shows a side by side comparison of Beautify effect.

Improvements:
- New Motion Sensibility option to reduce sharpen while camera moves/rotates
- New Daltonize option to boost primary red, green, and blue color to compensate color blindness deficiency
- Very minor but useful internal improvements, like a slightly faster mobile variant.


Already got Beautify? Share your screenshots!



(click over image to enlarge)

 

Beautify 1.4 is now available!

 

I'm loving Beautify, it's one of my favourite assets.

What sequence do you recommend for the image FX stack? I’m using this - any comments? I noticed you've placed anti-aliasing after Beautify in one of your screenshots.

• Super Sampling SSAA (Anti-Aliasing)
• Amplify Occlusion
• Amplify Bloom
• Amplify Color
• Beautify

 

Thank you very much!

Regarding antialias, I have used SMAA, which does a better job than other AA like FXAA, does not blur so much - so it can be put after Beautify. But if you ever use something like FXAA, it's better to use it before Beautify so the extra blur applied to textures are removed.

Try this stack and compare:

Amplify Bloom
Amplify Occlusion
Scion
Amplify Color
Beautify
SMAA

I guess you will miss super sampling but the performance should be better?

 

Fantastic! Thanks very much, changing the sequence clearly makes the scene much better.

And thanks for the tip about SMAA - I will try that later today.

 

Posting this as it might help new customers: (purchased today for evaluation)

Under DX9 I got the following error spamming the console:

Invalid pass number (2) for Graphics.Blit. Material=Beautify(Clone), npasses=1
UnityEngine.Graphics:Blit(Texture, RenderTexture, Material, Int32)
BeautifyEffect.Beautify:OnRenderImage(RenderTexture, RenderTexture) (at Assets/Plugins/Beautify/Scripts/Beautify.cs:222)

Resolved for us by adding #pragma target 3.0 to each pass.

 

Thanks for the warning @Games Foundry .

EDITED: this is already fixed in current version.

 

Hi @Thrawn75 , I'm keen on getting your plugin. Just wondering did it work with 5.3x and 5.4x? Worried about compatibility issues as well as the support will stop...

 

@Rumbleboxer works great with all Unity versions - fully tested with Unity 5.1 and up, including 5.3.4, 5.3.5 and 5.4beta on Mac and Windows.

 

I was playing around this morning. I built a simple terrain using Landscape Builder, added a sky with Time of Day. Then I started playing with Beautify. Here is a nice shot.

 

Working on a little project, here is a comparison of post fx including Beautify. Click on the image for full scale then you can notice how the post fx in the top picture dont only boost colors and contrast but sharpen every detail of the textures and water reflections/refractions. Really love the results of this asset

(short video of the results)

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https://twitter.com/phannDOTde
https://www.peter-hann.com

 

@Tinjaw look at those mountain details! Nice shot.

@OnklPeta your game looks now very vivid! Nice use case for Beautify. Thanks for sharing!

 

Does Beautify work for 2D games?

 

Sure! Try it!

 

It does indeed work for 2D games, but it doesn't work with WebGL from what I can tell.

 

@Exeneva Beautify does indeed work on WebGL, It works well on our tests. Are you getting some error of some kind?

 

Some captures using Beautify on Village Interiors Kit from 3DForge (@S4G4N):










Beautify improves lighting and shadows, and especially boosts the details everywhere (check the swords shot for example).

 

Only an error saying the browser cannot cache enough memory and that I should request less memory to be cached. I'm using 256MB, which is the default setting for WebGL that has worked well for me in the past.

 

Can you please show some sample images of Unity 2d project https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/11228 with Before/After Beautify has been applied to it.
How much is the performance impact on mobiles in terms of ms.

 

@Exeneva about the WebGL memory issue, what configuration of hardware and Unity/browser do you use? Modern setups should have no issues with memory cache of 512MB or even higher.

Also, copying from other threads try the following:
Set stripping level to other value different from disabled and...
Enable Exception = None or Explicitly ...

 

I have a pretty high-end system (i7 CPU, 2x AMD 7970 running in CrossFire, 16GB RAM), testing on the latest version of Firefox. I do have a lot of tabs open in Firefox, but I still couldn't get it to load in Chrome. However, it loads if Beautify is not toggled on my main camera when building. It only gives me that error when Beautify is active (I set Beautify to Mobile).

I've done the engine stripping and set no exceptions allowed (I try to not allow exceptions even in editor, so this is usually not a gamebreaking issue for me).

 

@Exeneva so does it run on Firefox but not on Chrome on your PC? Are you using Chrome 32 bit version perhaps?

 

Oh, I should have clarified. It is not running on either. I get the 'not enough memory' popup on Firefox. On Chrome, it just sits there and never loads.

 

@Thrawn75 this does a great job of bringing out the details, here's a pic from my game The Last Vampire. Thanks

 

@punk thanks for sharing, much appreciated. The Last Vampire looks awesome!