Feedback Better Shaders complaint Q/A

Hi,

I purchased Better Shaders in the hope of using Better Lit Shader as a starting point for some common shaders for my project.

You mentioned in Better Lit Shader that it's basically a demo of features from Better Shaders. So I was expecting to find at least the features of Better Lit Shader represented. In particular, I can't find anything about the stochastic UV sampling. Is this deliberately omitted from the basic shaders? I could really use that.

 

Better Lit was developed to help dog food Better Shaders, along with porting MicroSplat onto it, but Better Shaders does not include the Better Lit Shader or MicroSplat as part of it. If your interested in stochastic, you can read the original paper by Erik Heinz or about my alternative version which I posted about in Unity’s thread of the original technique.

 

Jason, what's with the foul mood? "Go read the paper" is really dismissive, a tone I'm picking up in a lot of your responses to people's questions around the forum. I've bought all your stuff and I'm trying to support you. And I'm leaning on what you say that Better Lit Shader is "basically a demo" of Better Shaders. You shouldn't be saying that when it's apparently super duper not true.

How about being a little more constructive than telling me to piss off and read a paper. Like, for example, can I purchase it from you? I'm not developing shaders for sale. I'm just trying to fix some deficiencies in Better Lit Shader, deficiencies like puddles always being crystal clear even in a storm, which is 5 lines of code to fix, and something you seem completely uninterested in, again fueling the theory that you're in a foul mood.

Dude, it's no fun supporting you and buying literally everything you've ever made even though I won't use a fraction of it. I just want frigging ripples in puddles. But I can't give up stochastic sampling for it. Why don't you care? I feel like you should be trying to help just a little bit more.

 

First, I never said Better Lit shader is a "demo of better shaders"- it's not, it's a product which was built with Better Shaders. I don't owe you source code to everything I ever build using better shaders. Do you think I owe everyone MicroSplat's source code because they bought Better Shaders? Does Vegetation Studio owe you source code because it uses Better Shaders? Does Better Shaders need to include the source for Space Graphics Toolkit because it was made with Better Shaders?

Second, I don't owe you anything other than the product which is sold. It's not my job to teach you how to write shaders because you bought Better Shaders, and you don't get to demand what I spend my time on, or which features I add to my products. And if you can't read a paper an implement it, it's not my job to do it for you. Hell, it wasn't even my job to answer your question in the first place.

If you own the Better Lit Shader, then you have all the source code, stochastic and every other feature, so I don't understand why you're saying you need to purchase something you already have. You also made your feature request for ripples a week ago- what, I'm supposed to cancel the current traveling I'm doing, fly home, and implement your request immediately because you bought a $40 product? How entitled are you? You know how much of my time your $40 buys? ZERO. Do you think asset store authors are your slaves to command, and if they don't drop everything and do what you want that they must be in a "foul mood"?

It's pretty clear you have no idea what you are even talking about. Puddles in the Better Lit Shader don't prevent you from using stochastic, and Better Lit Shaders includes all the source code, so you can modify it how ever you want. Coming in here and basically throwing a temper tantrum because I'm not your personal code slave isn't making me feel like helping you much. People acting like you're acting right now are the reason people leave the asset store and abandon their assets, and quite frankly I'd rather you not buy any of my products if this is how you are going to act.

 

Come on, man, "go read the paper" is super dismissive, and not even trying a little bit to help. Yes, I see that all the source is actually in Better Lit Shader, so no problem. Why didn't you just say that? I stand by my observation that you're being unreasonably dismissive. I have products. I do customer service. I'm never that dismissive of a perfectly reasonable question.

 

And just to address your other points because I'm being strawmanned here. I'm not telling you cancel travel plans to put ripples into puddles, I mean, are you serious? I asked if you would be warm to the idea of ripple normals and I gave you suggestions for the minimal impact way to do it if you were interested. You seemed completely disinterested, just reiterating that the product has puddles. Not even "sounds interesting", or "maybe" or "let's see".

And yes, having to rebuild Better Lit Shaders without access to stochastic sampling *would* be choosing between puddle ripples and stochastic sampling. Not the case now, since you include the source with Better Lit Shader, which was my whole original question, which you answered by telling me to go read a scientific paper and work it out for myself, because clearly you didn't care.

The right answer to the original question would have been "the source is in Better Lit Shader", it's compilable in Better Shaders, to which I would have responded "thanks, Jason, you're awesome!".

 

You asked in the better shader thread, an asset about developing shaders, for info on an effect which was based on a paper Erik Heitz wrote, and I improved/simplified- so I directed you to the correct places where you could find that info. If what you had really meant was "Where is a place I can copy paste the stochastic code from?", then you should have asked that instead. I answered your question based on the context in which it was asked, and then you threw a temper tantrum claiming I was in a foul mood because I didn't magically infer what you really wanted to ask but didn't.

 

No, I asked specifically in the context of the Better Lit Shader being "basically a demo" of Better Shaders, and therefore being surprised at not finding stochastic sampling in the toolbox that provides literally every other feature used to build Better Lit Shader. But let's leave it here.

 

Any of those immediately become "You promised you'd do X! Whah!". I don't tell people what features I'm going to add until they are at least partially added and I'm sure the result will be something I want to ship. Freaking out that you can't get puddles with ripples a week after making the request is childish.

Your original question did not say "Where is the source for Stochastic in Better Lit Shader?". Instead stated that stochastic could not be found in Better Shaders, and that I had somehow promised this, which is not true.

 

You keep quoting this, but no where have I said the Better Lit Shader is a "demo of better shaders", it's not, and never was. If you want, I can make up imaginary things you said and then demand that you owe me something because of it.

 

If I'm buying Better Shaders to build the ripples myself and just asking where stochastic sampling is, how much am I really "You promised you'd do X! Whah!" and "Freaking out that you can't get puddles with ripples a week after making the request is childish".

I feel like maybe you're projecting general customer service frustrations on me. I get it. There's a question users of my product ask 10 times a day, and no amount of documentation or dialogs is able to preempt it. But it reflects poorly on me if I start telling my customers they're stupid. Now I have the answer sitting permanently in Notepad++ for pasting.

 

Look, it's not my job to correlate what you're doing across 10 different posts in 2 different threads over a week timespan and figure out what you're really asking. If you can't write a question that either asks exactly what you're asking for, or contains the complete context required, I'm going to answer it AS WRITTEN. I get roughly 50+ questions a day between all my assets and support channels. A simple:

Hi, I'm trying to find out where the source to stochastic sampling in Better Lit shaders is.

Would have been clear. But instead I get a false quote which I did not make and a bunch of statements about a completely different asset than the one you're actually talking about. And after answering the only real question in this statement, I get a follow up which both attacks me personally and brings up all kinds of context not in the original "question" as if I'm supposed to keep track of hundreds of people's personal projects intimately. I'm not projecting "general customer service frustrations" on you, I'm responding to you making up quotes from me that are untrue, freaking out in the thread and insulting my character in response to a perfectly reasonable answer.

 

why are ripples different? What causes animated refraction?

 

I'm not going to relitigate it. But I am concerned. This is far too much reaction to a question that, at worst, is awkwardly phrased.

It's well-known that unscalable small businesses reach a breaking point. You're showing a lot of indicators, as, unfortunately, am I. The administrative burden is ever increasing, but the sales are not. At some point, you start neglecting customers or snapping at them. This is an indicator that if the business can't grow beyond its current level, it will fall apart, as the founder grows frustrated.

I've tried to hire someone to do customer service for me 5 times. But it's too technical, and I end up doing all of it. I do deal with "stupid" customers a lot, and unfortunately, I have also snapped at people in ways they didn't deserve. But I more simply neglect people because I'm overloaded. That can make people frustrated if they're blocked on activation or a crash.

This interaction is a wakeup call for me. This kind of behavior is the beginning of the end, and I need to do better. Starting with a customer I snapped at yesterday because he reported the purchase as fraud with PayPal out of a simple tech support question that I'm readily available to answer. But this is just not good enough, and when I post this reply, I'll get in touch with him and make sure it's working for him.

I need to get through the hundreds of unanswered support emails. I need to read people's questions properly and try to understand what their problem is. And it's just not right if I make them feel like they're stupid or unwanted. It's because of them that I have a product that still makes launch money 7 years later. I need to wise the frick up.

Jason, I think you should search your soul and evaluate at what stage of your business' life cycle you are.

And I think it's valid to ask what your plans are for the future. I and others are basing significant decisions on your code. What happens if you're no longer around for whatever reason? How many years can Better Shaders or MicroSplat go through Unity API changes until it breaks irreparably? Do you have a plan of succession? You don't have to answer, because these are probing question. But they are things we should all think about.

 

It is wrong to think of this as anything remotely akin to ordinary software business. It's a bandaid solution, generously provided at fractions of its cost (lifetime of expertise and analysis led to this), incapable of ever being more than a novelty provision, not much more than a couple of times more than its current sales, and something that should never have been needed in the first place.

There's an interview with jbooth that goes into all this. Watch that, for more insight than you wanted but probably less than you need:

Again, to my question... how hard is it to make refractions that animate? This is a serious question. Why is this a sticking point?

 

Do you mean refractions or reflections? It's easy to make waves in reflections, it's just jiggling the normals with a noise pattern or even just some sine waves. This was why I bought Better Shaders, assuming that the asset store listing was to be taken literally, that Better Lit Shader was "built with the Better Shaders framework" (quote). So I expected to find the stochastic sampler when all the other tools are provided, and was asking if it was intentionally omitted, and why. Still appears to me to be a clear, single-threaded question with proper context. I'm dizzy from the reaction.

So if you're actually after the same thing as me, waves in puddles, I'll be adding that to the Better Lit Shader, and I'll post the changes here if you want to make the same changes.

I'm thinking to be primitive about it, that instead of an actual noise pattern or texture, to just have a couple of sine waves in each of the X and Y directions at different frequencies, just enough to create ripples that aren't obviously repeating.

 

Reaction? You're the one who started calling me names when I referred you to paper you were asking about. You literally blew up because I referred you to a paper about stochastic sampling for information about stochastic sampling, and kept pushing a quote that I never said as some kind of fact. Even now you're implying that I'm somehow being deceptive because the asset store listing says "built with the better shaders framework", when that is 100% correct. Better Lit was built with the Better Shaders framework, fact.

@hippocoder
Any chance you can clean up this thread and delete all this nonsense this guy is spouting? It's a support thread, not a place for him to rant about how he runs his business and make up stuff about mine.

 

Jason, I think your behavior is absolutely shocking. And now with censorship as well. I've brought more people into the room, and while we agree that I could certainly not have reacted as I did, everyone also agrees that my question was clear, and Jason's responses started with brush-offs and evolved into ad-hominems.

Moderators, I request that you do not delete this thread. I'm happy to stand by my imperfect responses, but Jason's communication is infinitely more hostile and unconstructive, and this is important knowledge if you're considering basing a project on Jason's work. I have already seen this tone in other threads, and it's making me question my choice to rely so much on Jason's products, which is a critically important business decision, one that you will censor away if you remove conversations such as these.

 

I mean refractions.

Am currently trying to figure out how to fake refractions in an unlit shader's "influence" on things around it.

Know nothing about stochastic whatever it is... nothing at all.

It just seems, to me, that ripples and their effects (both refractions and reflections) are far easier in a lit world than they might be in an unlit one.

 

Am not a shader programmer.

Am going to need become one, there's a few things I want to do that seem to only be possible in shaders.

Is it that "Better Shaders" is a way to wrap around what is a shader, and then write shaders?

If this is what it is, for a complete newb, wanting to work with unlit shaders in odd situations (totally unlit world), is it ok to start with Better Shaders shading ways?

Or is it that mastery should be gotten somewhere else, and when I need Better Shaders I'll know I need it?

 

The later - You likely want to start with a shader graph or surface shaders, depending on if you prefer node based or text based tools, as there's a ton of tutorials and resources for both. Better Shaders is targeted at people who already know shaders well and are looking to work across render pipelines or have a text based solution in HDRP/URP.

 

@hippocoder don't censor the last exchange. It's quite revealing.

 

Jason, this is deeply unfair. Your response to my question about where the stochastic sampler was, was to go read a scientific paper and build my own. And then all kinds of name calling. I don't think it's right to tear people new you-know-whats over asking relatively simple questions. I've seen it in other threads, shutting people down for having the nerve. I'm kind of still on nerves from all the venom.

 

That said, if anybody cares, and that's probably a big if, here is the original suggestion from the other thread. This is a naive implementation of puddle motion, just two sine waves for each X and Y direction.

It has a grid feel to me, but that was the experiment, and it avoids samplers. A noise pattern might be better.

And this would be for line 281 in StackablePuddles.surfshader.

Code (CSharp):

1.           waterNorm.x += 0.01 * (sin(d.texcoord0.x * 80 + _Time[1] * 7) % 1) + 0.01 * (sin(d.texcoord0.x * 160 - _Time[1] * 7) % 1);
2.           waterNorm.y += 0.01 * (sin(d.texcoord0.y * 140 + _Time[1] * 5) % 1) + 0.01 * (sin(d.texcoord0.y * 300 - _Time[1] * 5) % 1);
3.  

Again, not the best motion, but then at least that method has been tested.

 

This was the response that got you so upset:

"Better Lit was developed to help dog food Better Shaders, along with porting MicroSplat onto it, but Better Shaders does not include the Better Lit Shader or MicroSplat as part of it. If your interested in stochastic, you can read the original paper by Erik Heinz or about my alternative version which I posted about in Unity’s thread of the original technique."

How is this name calling? You basically blew up in your response to this message saying I was being "foul", and that I was telling you to "piss off", and that I was being deceptive and making up quotes which I never said as a way to show how I was deceiving you. What, exactly, in this post illicit that type of response? You're clearly projecting a lot of your own issues onto it, because nothing in that message takes the kind of tone you're imparting on it.

And why do you think I should treat someone who blows up on me like that with any respect what so ever? Oh, because you spent a few dollars on some of my products you think it gives you the right to call me names, make up lies about what I've said, and accuse me of deception? All because you decided to read all kinds of things into the message above that isn't there? Or decided that one product was a demo of the other when no such thing has ever been said by me?

 

Jason has made his position clear and I don't think it will change. There is no point in discussing it further.
Just take your own conclusions and move on.

 

I moved the back and forth arguments between a customer who didn't understand they still needed to code things (it's a technical asset) and the author who is tired of repeating this fact to a new thread here, so the original thread can still function properly as a support thread.

I expect further exchanges which are argumentative to happen over PM or infractions/warnings/etc will occur.

 

Dear hippocoder,

Just correcting a small thing, this is not about needing to code, but having purchased both shader systems where it's described that these functions are part of the toolbox and not being able to locate them. And then being brushed off and yelled at. I don't have anything to add, except correcting this. I'm all code, I barely use the Unity UI.

 

Correction, being yelled at after yelling at the author and accusing him of things and making up quotes which were never said.

 

Dear hippocoder,

I'm OK if you delete this thread. As a separate thread, it has unusual prominence.

Jason, please see the example above with the sine waves for puddle motion. That was what I meant in the other thread, to close that off. I have a better version with less of a grid feel, but potato potato. It's a good idea for your puddle shader.

We'll probably not interact a lot going forward, but I'll finish with saying that I think you're doing excellent work, and your source code is good. I didn't really feel the cause of the charge of your responses, but I definitely could have been less trigger happy and stopped the ball rolling. Either way, I'll try to work my way some things in your shader compiler. Brilliant as it is, I'm nervous about basing a 15-year project on it and future Unity curveballs. But that's for me to wrestle with. Take care.

 

That's all I take from this thread and I completely agree