Amplify Impostors - Next Generation Billboards

Thanks!
I've send a email with screenshots to support@Amplify.pt

 

Ran into an issue with Hemi Octahedron and billboard meshes without 1:1 aspect ratio.
From many angles it looks fine, but as you rotate to the front it has major issues.

 

Greetings,

Thank you for reporting the problem. This type of object shouldn't be an issue, do you get the same artifacts farther away or using a spherical impostor?

We'll run a few tests but we would really appreciated if you could confirm it.

Thanks!

 

Spherical and Octahedron are both fine, only Hemi - Octahderon has the issue.
The issue still occurs even if you can barely see the object in the distance.

 

I've been testing this asset out and it's results are impressive.

I'm trying to integrate it into our automated mesh processing pipeline. I need to be able to programatically bake out the imposter resources for hundreds of objects with default settings.

What I've got is an editor script that creates a AmplifyImposter component on my target game object, creates the AmplifyImposterAsset, and configures mesh renderers / lod groups etc. See below:

Code (CSharp):

1. AmplifyImpostor imposterComponent = go.AddComponent<AmplifyImpostor>();
2. imposterComponent.Renderers = go.GetComponentsInChildren<MeshRenderer>();
3. string imposterAssetPath = prefabFolder + "/" + parent.name + "_imposter.asset";
4. AmplifyImpostorAsset imposterAsset = ScriptableObject.CreateInstance<AmplifyImpostorAsset>();
5. AssetDatabase.CreateAsset(imposterAsset, imposterAssetPath);
6. imposterComponent.Data = imposterAsset;
7. imposterComponent.LodGroup = lodGroup;

The last thing I need to be able to do is trigger the Bake Imposters functionality from my script. I can't quite see where this might be triggered in code (I've tried briefly following the inspector script however it wasn't 100% clear). Rather than spending a bunch more time chasing this up, I figure I should probably ask here first as I'm sure others may also find the response useful.

 

I just noticed that your Y axis is not pointing up, since it's an HemiOctahedron we use the Y axis as guide for the bake process. You can use an empty Gameobject to bypass this issue, simply add the car to it and place the Impostor component in the parent Gameobject, this will ensure that the Y axis of the car will not influence the bake.

We might be able to add an optional direction parameter at a later stage.

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

Uhm, we want to eventually have easy hookups for things like this, specially because there will be some runtime functions that we'll make available for load time and runtime impostors. However none of this is available yet so there isn't a single function call you can make that does everything. I can still point you to the bake entry but you have to keep in mind that these prebaked impostors are still completely tied to the editor, more specifically to the inspector. So while the baking stuff is in the main impostor class it's the inspector job to setup everything correctly for baking, and considering that you are creating your own call it's the inspector script you want to look at.

Take a look at the "DelayedBake" function in the inspector, which is called with the delegate:

Code (CSharp):

1. EditorApplication.delayCall += DelayedBake;

Now, at the top of the function you see the single entry point for the baking with the function call:

Code (CSharp):

1. m_instance.RenderAllDeferredGroups( m_currentData );

But do keep in mind that the m_instance var refers to the current impostor while the m_currentData, is the setup of that bake, or more specifically the .asset file containing the bake configuration. This is the object the inspector is responsible for, and if you are controlling it outside of the inspector I can't guarantee you it will work flawlessly, at least not yet. We'll change this in the future. An easy way to make it work is to simply focus gameobject with the impostor script and let the custom inspector do it's job. If it becomes too difficult I can try to squeeze something more substantial in the next update to make it easier, no promises tho.

 

if source object is lightmaped it will bake impostor with lightmaps? If not. Baking at least indirect co tribution would be fine. Or providing a way to lightmaper compute lightmaps for indirect and direct. I use Bakery. A GPU lightmaper for unity. MAy be you could put in touch with the dev as the mapper is maturing and new features like support for impostors could be added in future closer term update.

 

I'm afraid that's not something that we can currently support, only dynamic lighting and probe data.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

I see, but you could still bake the indirect lighting into the impostor tile.

 

All options on the table as long as they are compatible with the technique, we're definitely going to improve a few things with future updates.

 

Ok, allow me an extra question. So, this also works for non static objects? if I've this as lod 1 and the lod is a non static barrel if the barrel/tree/whatever prop is kicked the impostor updates its tile?

 

Yes, you can transform impostors. Soon you'll also be able to generate them at runtime allowing for swaying vegetation or similar effects.

Wait for it...

Quick note, the checkered quads where used for reference only, they don't represent the actual impostor mesh.

 

This is bananas, I've already atlased all the stuff, culled layers by distance, computed occlusion and still need to lower the drawcalls, specially for console I need to lighten teh game and I don´t whant to mof the camera clip any closer, This asset definetly seems like delivers, added to purchase queue. the only downside I see is that if they're far they'll get no direct shadows and no lightmap so they may pop a bit... I think I did read they support lightmproves, if so that should fix the issue, still I'm aquiring in close term.

 

Hope it helps! Be sure to let us know if you run into any issues, we can use all the feedback we can get.

 

Just a tought. If you record a person on a greenscreen with an array of cameras, could something like this be used for volumetric video instead of real mesh and bad quality seeing in recent projects?

 

It's an interesting concept, as with external rendering, the only challenge here would be extracting proper normals and depth that you could then use with our impostor system.

Thanks!

 

Just bought the asset without knowing that this doesn't work with lightmap. Oh well... I do really hope lightmap support is coming.. because normally, you use this kind of tech on static props or background elements and they normally do get the lightmaps. It's such a pitty...

 

It could be a bit tricky but we're on the lookout for possible improvements.

Thanks!

 

Finally took the plunge and bought the asset... Definitely full of potential.

I'm wondering why my impostor bakes are all much more fuzzy (blurry) than anything you show in your demos. I've tried increasing the texture size but unless I hit 8192, the albedo is almost unrecognizable.
- so yes I totally get that impostors are meant to be viewed from a distance, but I'm testing on objects comparable in size to your demo barrels (I'm using simple bushes) and while yours are recognizable as barrels, my bushes are just a blur.

At that quality I just can't begin to imagine how I would ever get the visual fidelity you show in your main asset store image of the 3D Construction Kit cliffs/boulders.

Are you setting up things in a certain way to get that kind of quality? I have tried tweaking the Impostor material settings but with no discernible effect.

A s I say, if I increase bake settings to 8192 things are better, but I'm guessing the texture memory overhead is going to offset any gains I've made by losing the polygons...
I've found the Bake Preset really useful to minimize this issue (reducing the scale of some of the maps, changing compression, removing some of the maps) but it's still a worry to me. Any advice would be much appreciated. Perhaps also, it would be good if you provided additional presets rather than just the default.

A few thoughts...
Would be great if the '+' button 'save asset' remembered the previous file path so that you didn't have to drill down through folders from the root of the project to get back to the same place each time.

Also could you add a traditional billboard mesh (intersecting quads) as a Bake Type? That's also an impostor, just a more traditional, old school version. Would be a great add-on.

 

Hey there, thank you for your support!

Are you using Octahedron impostors? They break down at close range making them look "fuzzy" and distorted. If you want higher-resolution impostors at closer distances you'll have to reduce the number of frames baked as this increases individual view resolution.

For better results at "closer distances" be sure to use the Spherical Impostors, unlike Octahedron impostors they hold up quite well but do not provide smooth blending between views.

Can you show us your test object and desired distance? We would be happy to recommend adequate settings.

Our screenshots use mostly 2k and 4k impostors, we didn't use any special setting other than reducing the number of frames to an acceptable value depending on the type of prop.

Thank you for the folder tip, it's actually something that we intend to improve soon.

The intersection quad option is not ideal for this technique, impostors provide an alternative without noticeable intersecting geometry.

Thanks!

 

Of course, that makes sense. Hadn't thought of reducing the number of frames to increase the available space

For anyone reading this, it's also worth mentioning that I'm finding the way that the impostors are displaying in-game is a lot less obviously low-res than I might have made it sound. While working on creating LODs I think you're much more attuned to visual degradation. While testing gameplay I'm actually finding that the transition to the Impostor LODs is sometimes not even noticeable. Initially I had to keep checking my LOD distances to see if it actually was working!

 

No problem, we're actually looking into other possible enhancements(sharpening, etc), be sure to stay tuned.

Great to know it's working well!

 

Hi @Amplify_Ricardo !

I've just started using Amplify Impostors and I'm loving the results so far. However, I found a bug and I was wondering if anything could be done about it.

I'm using an orthographic projection camera with your default tree prefabs. Up close (small orthographic size) they look good:



But when I zoom out further, impostors further from the center of the screen get distorted:



I guess it's due to the fact that impostors turn to always face the camera, which would be correct in perspective projection. Could you please ask the devs if they could add orthographic support out of the box?

 

Hey there, thank you for the kind words and support!

Orthographic cameras should already be working correctly, so this is an unexpected issue that you've stumbled upon and we apologize for that! Could you please send us a simple sample so that we can run some further tests, as it would greatly speed up our debugging process? Feel free to do so privately through support@amplify.pt, thanks!

 

Do you have any plans to create a lower hemi octahedron bake type? This would be very useful for large trees that would never be viewed from a top down camera (VR).

 

Thanks @Amplify_Borba , I'll send the project in a few minutes.

 

We're actually planning the add a parameter that would allow you to define which hemisphere to bake. I'm not entirely sure if this would be ideal for trees in that specific application but you can test it in the current Amplify Impostors version.

Since we use the Y axis as guide for the bake process. You can use an empty Gameobject to bypass this fixed limitation, simply add a rotated tree to it and place the Impostor component in the parent Gameobject, this will ensure that the Y axis of the tree will not influence the bake.

This is not ideal of course, it will be easier to setup in future AI versions.

Thanks!

 

@Amplify_Ricardo The test works. Trees that are at player level and higher than the player can use the hemi octahedron bake type this way. They get the higher precision without distortion when viewed from below. This will be great because the environment is like a crater. The player will see trees that are at player level and elevated around the boarders.

 

Good to know, future improvement will definitely help. I recommend using the spherical impostor whenever possible, they don't break at close distances.

Thanks!

 

HDRP? any ?news

 

We'll be available soon!

 

Hi, Do you have any plan for making a 2D version or feature?
What I'm thinking is 2D perspective scroll game faking 3D(or 2.5D). For example,we provide several angles' 2Dsprite, then combine/bake them into one quad, so that when camera moves the imposter show different result(Like billboarding).
Is it possible?Thanks.

 

Would it be any problem to create island impostors based on our terrain islands that have had trees, shrubs etc populated by veg studio? We basically want to have our islands in a distance be impostors and then swamp them out for the real thing as you get closer. I am guessing this would be possible but was unsure of how it would handle generating the impostors that are being built by something like veg studio.

 

I don't think Impostors are ideal for that specific use as the technique involves using baked normals and depth, something typical sprites do not provide. However, there's a similar technique that allows you to use standard sprites, we actually include a similar sample in our ASE package.



Learn more here: Amplify Shader Editor

Although I cannot speak for any workflow specifics regarding other packages, you can bake multiple objects into a single impostor. Depending on the amount of meshes/detail in your islands, it might be useful to split up the impostors into specific groups but I can't know for sure without seeing more about your project.

Thanks!

 

Hi @Amplify_Ricardo,
I am working with a VR project that requires me to instantiate large city/ buildings on a virtual table-top. The models are imported at runtime from a server (with Trilib). I was wondering if it is possible to use Amplify Imposters to reduce the amount of tris and draw-calls at runtime. If yes, then this would be like striking gold for me..

 

Sounds like the perfect job for Amplify Impostors!

I'm not familiar with Trilib but you can think of impostors just as any other standard object, once it's created it should display its effect without any special requirements. Let us know if you run into any issues, feedback is critical.

Thanks!

 

Just one question.. does it work for mobile at runtime? I am developing for oculus go and vive focus.

 

Do you mean generating Impostors at runtime? If so, not at the moment, but it's something that should available soon on all supported platforms.

Impostors, baked in-editor, work on all your target platforms.

Thanks!

 

Yeah. We need to generate them at runtime. We'll keep a close eye on this thread. Will you be able to speculate on the timeline for it?

 

Definitely keep an eye out for updates, no official ETA but it shouldn't be too far off.

Thanks!

 

Hello, purchased this just now and am struggling to just get a consistent output.

Here's what I did
1- Install Amplify Imposters
2- Add Amplify Imposter component to an object
3- Bake

We use a lot of custom shaders (forwardbase vert/frag, no deferred, no surface shaders) and AmplifyImposter produces empty textures (100% black). So... I temporarily set our materials to use the Unity Standard shader to get some results...

Though, if I change Texture Size and rebake, the imposter no longer displays and the baked textures become 100% black.

Also, if I then try to adjust parameters in the Billboard Mesh options, this error spams the console.

Code (CSharp):

1. IndexOutOfRangeException: Index was outside the bounds of the array.
2. AmplifyImpostors.AmplifyImpostorInspector.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/AmplifyImpostors/Plugins/Editor/Inspector/AmplifyImpostorInspector.cs:964)
3. UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.DrawEditor (UnityEditor.Editor[] editors, System.Int32 editorIndex, System.Boolean rebuildOptimizedGUIBlock, System.Boolean& showImportedObjectBarNext, UnityEngine.Rect& importedObjectBarRect) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorWindow.cs:1367)
4. UnityEngine.GUIUtility:ProcessEvent(Int32, IntPtr)

So I guess two questions...
# Is there something I'm missing with the setup that is causing these bugs?
# Can we configure the 'baking camera' so it uses forward? Or rather, that it can render just the same as the Game camera see's it.

Thanks!

 

Sorry some more questions...

Cannot get Imposters to look like the objects they are representing. It appears all the lighting information on the original is ignored. As you can see below , the imposter looks nothing (in terms of shading) like the original. Our scene is 100% baked, so we want imposters to represent the static objects they are baked from.

(Imposter on Left, original on Right)


Is there an option to simply "render what we see" and only bake an Albedo? Would be great to have a static Imposter that really looks like the object in the scene and doesn't need to try and work under dynamic situations.

Albedo only would also help drop 2/3rds texture memory requirements and perhaps allow at least 6 of the 15 tex2DBias samples to be dropped?


It's grateful you guys have provided all the source code and shaders... but am keen to hear of any plans to address the above before modifying too much locally. Cheers!

 

Thank you for your purchase, we really appreciate it!

Unfortunately, only shaders exposing a Deferred path are supported for baking, such as Unity Standard shaders. Custom shader support is currently provided via ASE, which is something we intend to improve in the future.

The error itself is not expected, any chance you can share a small sample with the issue present for further examination on our side?

What's your current Unity version?

Amplify Impostors currently don't take baked lighting information into account, hence the difference; we do plan to offer additional bake options in the future.

Thanks!

 

Ok, then this feels like it will require us to support/maintain deferred paths of our shaders just for this.

Is there a technical reason why this isn't supported? With our own RTT imposter work it was simpler to capture the final composited frame regardless of render path, which gives a good representation of how the original asset really looks in the Scene - albeit completely static.

I completely understand that these sorts of imposters can't rotate and won't respond to dynamic lights... but for large scenes that are 100% baked it works well.

Imposter on the Right with one of our tests

Ok! We might revisit the plugin at that stage! I really like the clean interface and workflow... it's just the flexibility to fit into our pipeline that's blocking us adopting it at the moment. Keep up the good work!

 

Hello,

Baking is not supported but the actual runtime shader works in both Deferred and Forward. It's not a technical limitation, more of a design choice, deferred is ideal for what we're doing.

Indeed, we'll definitely look into it, we received quite a few requests.

Thanks, I hope you enjoy our upcoming updates!

 

Hello,
I'm having some troubles while trying to bake my impostors.
First of all, using all the default settings, the Emission & Occlusion texture generated is completely white.

https://gph.is/2AAafo9

I tweaked that around, and eventually edited the texture manually, swapped some color channels and inverted it.

https://gph.is/2yGiX33

This is what I got, and it's still pretty off.
Any idea what's going on, what am I missing?

 

Hey there,

That's definitely not supposed to happen.

Are you using Unity 2018.3.b03? If so, I'm afraid we are currently unable to support beta releases, support for 2018.3 will be available at a later stage.

What's your current Amplify Impostors version? (Window > Amplify Impostors > About)

Thanks!

 

Hey, thank you for being so reactive.

I was using Unity 2018.3.0b5, that was indded the problem.
Thanks a lot !

 

No problem, an update will be made available as soon as possible.

Thank you for understanding.