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[BEST ARTISTIC TOOL - UNITY AWARDS 2019] Aura 2 - Volumetric Lighting & Fog

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by raphick, Feb 27, 2019.

  1. Unplug

    Unplug

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    About AURA 2, i'm very interested in buying. Can I use it in combination with enviro ? I wish to replace the sun light with aura light and have volumetric effect in my level. My level doesn't use realtime day/night cycle but do load every level on a random time of the day so my second question is : is it possible to change the aura atmosphere preset on real time.

    if (time <10 && time > 4){setting = dawn} would work on awake or start ?

    what about compatibility with stuff like Aquas that doesn't work so well with past solution, same fix as RAM ?
     
  2. khos

    khos

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    Regarding the multi camera issue. Update, once the issue is seen (as in my previous video) if I uncheck the AuraCamera script for the affected camera, then check it again (to enable) the effect shows again (it works), something is not right with the this. Any advise would be appreciated on this please.
     
    xorpheous likes this.
  3. cygnusprojects

    cygnusprojects

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    I've noticed that when dealing with Aura 2 and a light (sun) travelling through the game world the sun (light/sphere) is drawn on top of the terrain. Is there anything that can be set to prevent that (as seeing a sunrise through a mountain isn't something realistic ;-))?
     
  4. transat

    transat

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    @cygnusprojects I had this as well, using Aura 2 and AzureSky. Managed to fix it but I think that was at the AzureSky end. If I recall correctly I had to lower the lighting intensity down to something like 0.15 in the Azure profiles. Might need to increase the Aura light strength as well, or some other parameter. It's all a juggling act.
     
  5. cygnusprojects

    cygnusprojects

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    Thanks @transat, however I'm not using any sky nor weather system just plan (instanced) terrains and a directional light.
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2019
  6. jdclark3d

    jdclark3d

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    I have tried reducing the light factor and they are near invisible when I do
     
  7. transat

    transat

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    @cygnusprojects What happens if you reduce the intensity of the directional light and increase the strength of the light on the Aura Light component you have attached to that same light?
     
  8. cygnusprojects

    cygnusprojects

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    @transat Then indeed the sun isn't shining through the terrain but the sun itself has no intensity thus affecting the shadows. I'm thinking maybe instead of using a global layer volume I should use box volumes placed everywhere in my scene, which is a real hassle though. Will do a small test on this today and report back.
     
    transat likes this.
  9. cygnusprojects

    cygnusprojects

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    Converted the global to a box volume covering the game portion where the player can position himself and looks like this iw working as expected.
     
  10. raphick

    raphick

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    Yes i have.
    Do they use also the same preset for quality?

    Yes it does and enviro dev is also working on a more straightforward interaction between the two ;)
    Yes just call AuraPresets.ApplyPreset() any time you want ;)
    Water solutions are problematic and step by step getting fixed. The fix is somehow alike RAM fix, although I don't own Aquas.

    What solution do you use for switching cameras? Some solutions have been messing with the component on the cameras, forcing to re-enable them.

    Hi this might be because of the non linear depth distribution of the quality. The step before and after the mountain is too big so it just interpolates between shadowed/unshadowed making the shadow to effectively go though the mountain. Can you try with a higher depth resolution and depth bias at 0 to validate?
     
    Unplug likes this.
  11. cygnusprojects

    cygnusprojects

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    Tried all kind of different depth resolutions (ranging from 128 till 1024) and all kind of depth bias values (between 0 and 1) until Unity took up so much of memory I couldn't even close it off properly. Still no luck though:
    Moutain_lightpng.png
    As you also can see the performance is also greatly affected by those values it seems.
     
    NeatWolf likes this.
  12. CloverBite

    CloverBite

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    Hi,

    We have an issue with Aura 2 where the directional light don't cast shadows (rays) past a certain "height".
    Below are 2 GIF examples of what it looks like-

    We have played around with its rotations, putting even more meshes to block out the view, it ignores it all, going through it past a certain height. Increasing Range/depth setting didn't change this either. I stopped at 2000 depth along with 0-1 Bias, as was suggested above.


     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 28, 2019
    NeatWolf likes this.
  13. turboturboturbo

    turboturboturbo

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    I am also waiting eagerly for HDRP support.
     
  14. generalknow

    generalknow

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    Any ideas on getting Aura2 to work when I build for SteamVR?
     
  15. generalknow

    generalknow

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    Trying different things I got Aura2 to work a little bit inside steamVR standalone player. First thing I noticed is that if I apply the Aura2 script to a directional light it breaks Aura2 in my scene. So I made a Aura2 volume sphere around just my play area and then set a spot light with Aura2 script attached at around the same angle as my directional sun light. So now its lighting the volume but seems to ignore the lights shadows.

    Here are some frame grabs.

    Inside Unity Editor:
    Inside Unity.jpg

    Standalone Player:
    Standalone player.jpg
     
    NeatWolf likes this.
  16. cygnusprojects

    cygnusprojects

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    Hi @raphick, I was able to get the expected results be changing my setup. Instead of a global or box volume covering my whole gameworld (25x25 km) I did child a sphere volume to my camera. It didn't work out in the first place until I did go over the documentation and noticed the meaning of the Range parameter (though this was only applicable for the Automatic resize in stereo mode but it isn't). Setting that value towards the far clip plain of my camera did the trick for me. One request though: can you review your UI inspector design so it doesn't take up that much of screen real estate?
     
  17. NeatWolf

    NeatWolf

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    I have some issues with shadowcasting as well, especially when in mixed mode. Looks like Aura doesn't project any realtime shadows when baking a scene with Subtractive mode and similar. Probably it's because it's how Unity works under the hood?
    My dirty hack was to use 2 lights: a baked directional + realtime Aura 2 with full shadows, but... it's far from ideal :D

    I also noticed that several PBR shaders (SSS, particle lit, reflective water) get rendered on top of the volumetric light shafts. They don't use any post processing. Is there a way to make Aura just render on top of them (Targeting Windows, Unity 2018.3.11f1, default rendering pipeline, forward rendering, HDR). Am I missing something obvious?
    EDIT: it seems to be bound to the rendering order of the shaders, but not always it's handy or practical to tweak all shaders. Could you please change the rendering order of Aura, so that it gets on top of opaque and transparent object (or make it configurable?)

    Feature request:
    * automatically sync the noise direction, position and angle with the directional light position/angle, letting us change the direction of the panning (default noise setting, no Texture2D/3D)
    * letting us use shadowcasting impostors if they can speed up the scene in some way
    * allow some "forward" offset to be applied to spotlights: most of the time you want to create truncated cones, but for practical reasons you have to put the origin of the spotlight cone in front of the object casting the light. Being able to just tweak a z-offset to make it appear like the origin was behind the actual sources, without extra setup or layers, would be awesome :)
    * implement some kind of extra near-camera fadeout for light sources that need to be intense at a distance, but not overwhelming when passing through. (at least, I couldn't find a way to do it)
    * local settings: ability to ignore global noise setting inside the volume instead of stacking on it.

    Note: I haven't been able to see any difference when enabling light probes colouring (now experimental), not even by boosting the intensity to 50 or over. I tried every kind of baking and Light Mixed mode :/
    With thousands probes it's a bit taxing nonetheless :)

    Aura2 is pretty fast indeed, I'm glad I upgraded to 2.0 :)
     
    Last edited: Apr 5, 2019
  18. xpachin

    xpachin

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    very nice, but i guess it doesnt work with 2d projects right?
     
  19. ZAXIS

    ZAXIS

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    Regarding building to PS4:
    Shader pragma [allow_uav_condition] is missing in PSSL, due to that it is not needed on that platform. You can adjust the code with "#if !SHADER_API_PS4"
     
  20. Nathan_D

    Nathan_D

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    Hi! I also would like to know if Aura 2 functions with an orthographic camera and sprite renderers? Would love to use it, even if it requires some modifications.
     
  21. NeatWolf

    NeatWolf

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    In my experience, with my setup, out of the box: Ortho - no, Sprites - no.
    At least, not out of the box with non-default shaders, but I'd wait for an official answer.



    By using a particle - surface lit native shader on the sprite's material (cutout), and by checking double sided, you can either make it "merge" in the fog, OR, unchecking the double sided, you can actually "mask out" the fog with a sprite.
    None of them are casting a shadow, not even assigning the default surface shader.



    That's pretty interesting :)

    BUT

    I'd wait for an official answer, I'm pretty sure he's working on it and on generic transparent particles getting rendered over the sunshafts (unless they're alphacut) :)

    EDIT:
    I discovered there are actually specific Particle shaders included in the package that work fine with Aura 2.

    Now I'm testing this asset by ToddRivers, who also brought Lit Sprite shaders to Spine:
    Without Aura 2 it's working, I'm now trying to test it without the NGSS2 and Bakery mods.
    https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/vfx/shaders/uber-shader-for-sprites-88191

    Other solutions from GitHub and the asset store have failed so far.
    Will edit the post after the test.
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2019
    Nathan_D likes this.
  22. NeatWolf

    NeatWolf

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    After tinkering some more with a clean scene and clean Unity install, I recorded a self explanatory video of my experience/conclusions based on personal experience.

    There are 3 shadowcasting NGSS2 soft direct lights (one is colour tweened), one spotlight, also soft shadowcaster, and some global Aura2 volumetric simple animated noise.

    Again, please wait for the official answers by the asset publisher, @raphick

    (Please note that these are not the best quality settings for Aura2, but "good enough" for a quick test and recording)

     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2019
    Nathan_D likes this.
  23. Nathan_D

    Nathan_D

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    Thanks for the reply! You're right, I'll wait for an official response, but that test looks interesting! But is that with an orthographic camera or a persepctive one?
     
  24. NeatWolf

    NeatWolf

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    The video is definitely in perspective. It's not working in ortho in my project/specific setup.
     
  25. b152349

    b152349

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    I really wish we had more tutorials on creatively using this asset. I have a dark dungeon and I'm struggling to get good lightning from fire and windows.

    On that note:
    1. Can anyone share resources to use this asset effectively? I only found the one really popular one.
    2. Has anyone used cookies with this? Any tips?
     
  26. raphick

    raphick

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    Sorry about the delayed answers guys, I am currently out of country with barely no or painfull access to the net.
    I try to keep up as possible, you can try the discord as well.

    The issue might stand somewhere else then. Do you use multiple cameras?

    I am not sure but isn't StreamVR working with Vulkan?

    It works but most of the time brings artifacts due to the inadapted space data expectations

    Indeed particular PS4 support will be coming in a later update

    It doesn't work well with orthographic cameras sorry. Maybe it will be part of an update though.

    Thank you very for your tests and your conclusion.
    Orthographic cameras are indeed a foreseen issue.
    I have put the Sprite support to my backlog. I will investigate (hopefully Unity gives everything for it to happen, ahem... :rolleyes: ).

    I am going to publish several tutorials for Aura 2.
    Aura 2 supports light's cookies yes :)

    See you guys, thank you for you support :)
     
  27. generalknow

    generalknow

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    After lots of experimenting I got things working with SteamVR (awesome by the way). My Main problem was the Quality settings where defaulting to a low setting in the standalone player (once found everything looks good). Everything is working very nice now. The thing that caused a lot of headaches for me is that if I use any of the Aura2 presets it will break the scene in SteamVR. If I build my own global volume and assign the camera, lights and volumes manually everything works perfect.
     
    raphick likes this.
  28. raphick

    raphick

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    Hooo I am very glad that you have it working! Share your beauties :)
    I am puzzled that the presets didn't work though... will keep this in mind.
     
  29. generalknow

    generalknow

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    I will post some more screen grabs soon.
    Portals_1.jpg


    I noticed when I target the Aura2 Volume Component from Playmaker that the API does not have public properties I can set like I can on an Aura 2 Light Component.. Any chance you could make more properties public in the API for volume component on one of your next updates?
     
    raphick likes this.
  30. generalknow

    generalknow

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    raphick likes this.
  31. raphick

    raphick

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    Sweet!
    All the variables that are exposed in the inspector are publicly exposed. They are actually nested into relevant classes and structs.
    Have a look at AuraVolume.cs line:33 to know what you need to look for in Playmaker ;-)
     
  32. generalknow

    generalknow

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    I see the properties there that are exposed.... the ones I'm looking for are for when you use a volume as a light and then setting that light intensity/colors.... I don't see those there like they are from the GUI panel.

    here are some screen shots of volumes Vs Lights in playmaker.

    Lights:
    light in playmeker.jpg

    Volumes:
    volumer in playmeker.jpg
     
  33. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Can't get Aura 2 to run in one of my projects. I'm in Unity 2018.2.10f1.

    The scene uses the Oculus VR camera. I had the same scene working with Aura 1, and liked it, so I upgraded to Aura 2 .
    Aura 2 does load into a blank new project, but when I copy the asset folder from my real project into that functioning project, I start getting the same errors again, so something is conflicting I've attached a screenshot .
     

    Attached Files:

  34. generalknow

    generalknow

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    Backup your working project... then import Aura2 from the asset store into working project... then move your OculusVR scene into project and test that. Alsa I am pretty sure you will need to delete all references to Aura1 before you start using Aura2.
     
  35. khos

    khos

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    I reckon that should be included as a popup when 1st loading the plugin.
     
  36. generalknow

    generalknow

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    Says right on the asset store page before you buy Arua2.......

    "Aura 1 and Aura 2 are not compatible with each others. Please delete all references to Aura 1 before importing Aura 2 in your project."
     
    raphick likes this.
  37. raphick

    raphick

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    Dang, it seems playmaker isn't capable of recursive research... should think of properties accessors...
    Bolt can do it. Maybe you could contact playmaker dev to talk about it as well.
     
  38. raphick

    raphick

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    It seems Aura 2 will be the first volumetric solution to support Sprites then :D
    upload_2019-4-17_11-9-28.png
    Sprite support will come in a future update ;)
     
    led_bet, NeatWolf and cygnusprojects like this.
  39. generalknow

    generalknow

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    me again .... tracking down some bugs....so I noticed that a point light only works in SteamVR builds if it has no shadows applied to it. As soon as I turn shadows on a point light it stops lighting the volumes in SteamVR....only on the build not inside Unity. As a work around I had to add 2 point lights (one to light the volume and the other to cast shadows on other objects.)
     
  40. PxoGeorgSochurek

    PxoGeorgSochurek

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    Heyho all and @raphick , I have a question or maybe feature request.
    We just bought Aura 2 and were pretty impressed by all it's costumizability, but unfortunately there's one thing missing, which will keep us from using it:

    We're trying to create Underwater caustics including godrays. We have a small script thats rapidly switching through 60 textures in the Light's cookie slot - but unfortunately Aura 2 doesn't update accordingly when the images are switched.
    Is there a way to update Aura 2, so it will use the image sequence in the cookies for its calculations?
    Or am I doing something wrong?

    Thanks a lot and all the best
     
  41. raphick

    raphick

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    Hi! It seems Aura 2 point lights's shadows sometimes have problems in builds. I must track and fix this.

    You're doing it right. For obvious reasons I do only copy the cookie once. I'll dm you for a workaround ;)
     
    PxoGeorgSochurek and NeatWolf like this.
  42. ohbado

    ohbado

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    Hello.
    I asked for support in the support email but there is no response.
    Is your support email alive?
    Thanks.
     
  43. raphick

    raphick

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    Sure! When did you write? I'll check on the spam folder

    EDIT : OK found you in the spam folder, among 2714 other emails offering me to see some titties...
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2019
  44. roryo

    roryo

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    Hi there - just starting out with Aura 2. Very impressive. I have a question: in the default example scene for Directional Light, dynamic objects seem to emit a shadow trail in their path. Here is an example with spheres with rigidbodies attached. What settings should I adjust to remove the rails?

    Aura2 DynamicObjects.gif
     
  45. NeatWolf

    NeatWolf

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    Hi there @raphick !

    I did continue tweaking shaders and rendering order, but, the fact that Aura 2 gets rendered *before* the transparent pass is really creating a lot of headaches.
    First, the particles, now the foliage and water shaders.

    Isn't really any chance you could cache the Aura pass and overlay it at a custom depth?

    Things as they are right now really require the user to use your version of the shaders for anything.

    But, this is of course not always possible, as there are 3rd party shaders from all over the store that aren't so trivial to change to make them work before the transparent pass.

    Could you please find a workaround to this?
    Maybe a little bit slower (optional) alternative to just render the aura pass on a texture and blit it at a later time?

    That would seriously reduce the hassle of changing/recoding (when possible) most of the shaders in the project, and would allow the asset to be a lot more compatible with what's available on the store, such as lit particles, custom particles, transparent effects, water reflections, etc.

    As it is right now, all of them get rendered in front of the sun shafts/volumes, and it totally breaks the effect :(
     
    Propagant likes this.
  46. khos

    khos

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    I am sure there are many much better use cases than mine..would it be ok to share how I am using aura2 in my game? I like it :) See below:

    Some sunsets:
    5.png 6.png
    Sunshafts and such:
    7.png
     
    raphick, Neviah and Quique-Martinez like this.
  47. ZAXIS

    ZAXIS

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    Being on the latest patch I m constantly getting this error:
    upload_2019-5-2_14-3-17.png

    It seems it can't call CopyTexture from TextureFormat.RGBAFloat to RenderTextureFormat.ARGBFloat
     
  48. raphick

    raphick

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    Hi! This is due to the combination of reprojection and aura occlusion culling. Try to reduce/disable reprojection or disable aura occulsion culling.

    Hi, we talked about it several times already and I answered your review. ;-)
    The aura pass is cached already, changing the transparent shaders is to actually access the cache.
    What you want wouldn't be correct and would look very wrong but I can tell you what to do if you really want to...

    Hi! I have feelings like you want to build for console, am I right?
    Even if this is the same for us, Unity won't recognize them as being the same. You can track the location where the required format is set and change it at the base.
     
    NeatWolf likes this.
  49. FreeReignPublishing

    FreeReignPublishing

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    Hi, will aura 2 have support for orthographic and sprite support for 2d?
     
  50. NeatWolf

    NeatWolf

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    Yup, I changed it. This was before the review, I guess. And, now I should change it once more, lol.
    I was wrong and you were right, I felt very Jon Snow :)
    I noticed it's nowadays a tech limitation that other assets have as well, when using this, fastest, approach :)

    and

    I discovered the particle shaders you're providing are lit and shadowed!
    This solves so many of my issues with the third party car smoke shader I was using, I had no idea!

    Is there any chance to add a normal map on one of the alpha blended particle shader, and add support for intra-frame spritesheet blending and the native soft particles? (directional shadows would be cool, but I know it's going to be quite a stretch :p )

    I also discovered that integrating Aura2 with the Amplify Shaders is not that hard at all :)
    (btw, at first I couldn't find the nodes because you have to force a reimport to make them show up in AS properly).