Cinematic Image Effects (Pre Release) package

usually in dark areas, haven't try using higher precision. i'll test it out
EDIT: you know what, nevermind i think it just my setup or something. for some reason kinda hard to repro

 

Two features that I would absolutely love to see for vignettes:
1. Photoshop-like soft light blending mode
2. Randomized edge distortion to make the edge less perfect (random generation of vignette shape done in-editor, fixed at runtime)

I'm an art photographer, and use this style of vignette extensively. It allows for much more extreme vignettes while still appearing more natural.

Here's an example of the effect with an extremely dark vignette:


While the vignette is intense, it's impossible to determine its exact borders, and with said blending mode, it almost tricks the eye into accepting it as an effect of the lighting, not a post-effect.

If something like this could be implemented, I would be beyond grateful.

Thank you in advance for your consideration!
- S.

 

Has anyone considered alpha tested cutout shaders directly feeding the antialiasing post effect with their edge information? This would enable softer edges on vegetation very cheaply.

 

That's a good point, I wonder if MRT would help too. I use standard cutout for vegetation as a) it's super fast and b) has no sort problems.

 

Have you ever tried to use alpha to coverage function that they bring back in 5.4?

 

Alpha to coverage (or AlphaToMask as its called in ShaderLab) works in DX11 just fine in 5.2 or 5.3 too unless I'm missing something. However this isn't terribly useful for deferred rendering since presumably you're using alpha test so you can still get lighting. You're also describing GBAA:
http://www.humus.name/index.php?page=3D&ID=87

 

Heh, I bet you get this quite a bit, but I can't wait until you guys implement motion vector buffers. Not only will it be ofc useful for temporal stuff, but also for implementing a nice motion-blur effect

 

Ouch, talk about rocks and hard places.

 

Hi, I've tried the SSR and have a few questions.

- Why is it that the SSR only works for objects that are near? It also has a distance limit that can't be set too far.

- Some SSR solutions allow for far away reflections but they have another problem. If an object is far away, its reflection gets clipped very "low" vertically. Here's a screenshot of what I've tried with various SSR solutions. You can see that the farthest red column gets reflected only a tiny amount



But, please take a look at this:

I don't know which engine they used but this SSR works great for far distances and it has an extensive vertical amount of reflection for objects that are far away.

I'd love to know why the Unity SSR has the mentioned limitations.

Also, does anyone know of a solution that can reflect like the one in that video?

Thanks

 

The dithering makes a huge difference in dark scenes. The difference is like day and night.

I'm going to have to use the default image effects just for dithering alone. The only thing that I'm really missing are the filmic manual camera controls that Scion offers. ISO, f-stop, shutter speed .etc.

It makes it easier to calibrate your scene to have the same illumination as in a pre-rendered, or real-world light level. Just by using the same camera settings and tweaking the light to get the same image.

 

I really dislike those controls in scion. They cause no end of guesswork and misery for me. Perhaps that's best added as a script that simply converts values so everyone is happy? Basically I'd like it optional if possible.

 

I agree. Coming from the perspective of a professional photographer, I found the inclusion of those settings more confusing than not. Unless you are going for a complete emulation (eg: sensor size, focal length, and aperture affect bokeh; ISO affects graininess; shutter speed affects motion blur), I find the inclusion of such settings both confusing and a bit pointless.

- S.

 

Unity Technologies, does any of these work on a mac using open gl. I bring in the default package and get compiler issues. Clarification would be great.

 

Which package are you trying to import?

I tried various versions from github, they generally work for me on the mac mini.

 

In particular the tone mapping, I get a compile error. And the other effects look pretty choppy, are you on el capitan or yeosamite, I'm also on a recent mac mini model? Thanks

 

Mac Mini 2012 (late), El Capitan, OpenGL 4.1. I grabbed the image effects helper that was posted a couple of pages back here, and let it grab the trunk and set up the camera. Works great for me. I am testing on 5.4 betas though, don't have a 5.3 handy right now.

 

I'm on latest mac min yeosamite, I downloaded the effects of bitbucket and double clicked on the default scene, to which a bunch of errors appears, specially on the tone effects package, I'm on unity 5.3.2f though. Not sure if that makes a difference but I'm not ready to upgrade unity, at least until it appears more stable.

 

Have you tried importing just the effect into an empty project or a project you are working on? I've just tried to open the project I downloaded for the first time and I get compile errors too. The thing is, you just need the "Effects" folder as far as I know and that's what I always went for straight ahead when I used these effects. I never opened the project that comes with it.

I have a hunch that the problem could be with the names of the extracted folder. Afaik there is a limit on how long a total filepath can be under windows (not sure if it's related to certain filesystems and how it is under OSX) and this might have crossed that and and caused weird errors. Actually I'm sure this is it, because the windows explorer won't let me make a new sub folder inside the project path.

I got the project to work by moving the project path to "F:\unity projects\CinematicEffects" and reimporting all the assets. The compile errors went away, please try if it fixes it for you too.

P.S.: I use Unity 5.3.2f1 as well.

 

Thanks Martin,

I'll try later. Sadly there is no documentation and unity technologies haven't told us what to do with the file. Also the cinematic effects on the asset store doesn't even do anything LOL. So you have to get it from bitbucket.

How do you import the effects, do you just simply extract and then drag it into the asset folder, or do you have to import it using the menu inside unity? I don't know if that's possible.

 

When I import such things I usually just copy the relevant files or folders using my default file manager and then switch to unity and let it do its thing. Sometimes I delete the .meta files manually before I do that, but I'm not sure if that is necessary or even a good idea at all (probably not, especially for textures etc.). Make sure that if you delete or move stuff that is already in your project, you do it inside of Unity and NOT with a file manager like finder or explorer, otherwise things could break. Then after the effects are inside your project and Unity has compiled them (happens automatically) you can either drag them on a camera or add them with the add component menu (can be a bit hard to find there depending what else you have installed).

 

(Try the helper that was posted earlier in the thread)

 

What? What helper. It shouldn't be this complicated?

Here are my steps
1. Download from bitbucket
2. Extract
3. Create dummy unity project
4. Drag Effects folder into asset folder.

Doing this I get...

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/ci...re-release-package.372562/page-3#post-2465352

 

Please write down your steps to use this file?

I still have no idea. I download it onto the desktop then double click. Then it does something and bam errors!

 

LOL I'm using 5.2.3. Dyslexia. How the hell did I miss that. Boy oh boy was it a bad idea upgrading... baking is taking so long now with a texel size of only 2 pixels. Time to revert.

 

Just trying these out for the first time (pulled from the repo/beta, not the asset store package) - curious as to what scenes the temporal SMAA has actually worked in? Putting it into the Viking Village scene, it's completely unusable on any temporal setting, artifacts when the camera moves - I'm guessing this is Unity's bad motion buffer, but it's still surprising giving it's a scene of 100% static objects?

 

It's unusable until the guys solve the tricky problem of actually having a high performance velocity buffer

 

Speaking of which, Cinematic motion blur sounds so good doesn't it, Unity? Really would seal the deal for Unity's new post

 

It does! But as someone else said:

 

It's called gentle, yet desperate nagging with infinite gratitude.

 

I know this is for only DX11+(or similar) but could you use UAVs(or similar)+vertIDs to cache positions? Or would the performance/drivers require more workarounds than that?

 

@Tim C : Any chance to make SSR working with transparent objects?

 

What alternatives are there? Personally I'm feeling that there could be some sort of buffer for dynamic, and probes for the rest.

 

Aw man. . . . . what about reflection for water then, is there any alternative, just like what hippo asking? by using rtt reflection it always resulting the reflection are different than the actuall scene (No shadow and fog). or is there another updated technique for planar reflection in unity5?

 

I like the fact SSR isn't necessarily Y based, you reflect against the sides of things as well - that's a nice touch. OTish comment below.

Spoiler

One issue with multiple cameras is: culling happens for each. So I'm thinking that it's kind of a cool idea to just gather up things that should planar reflect and mix with reflection probes and some draw mesh stuff. So meshes get a component, and when they go near a reflective surface, they draw themselves again offset by wall (plane) distance. It's expensive I guess, but the shader for them could be a lot cheaper/approximate. No idea how to blend that texture with reflection probes though. Probably could get sampled by water (transparent) as it'd be created before main geo pass so it affects everything before and after... sorry for rambling, just it's a nice topic.

 

If anyone's checking out bitbucket, see the surprise SSAO there. Sexy!

 

Wait, really? Nice! Was wondering when they'd get around to it...
The whole thing's starting to shape up quite nicely.

 

Yeah I'm totally vibrating at this point dreaming of motion blur which isn't promised or even mentioned, but you know, these guys are dream makers.

 

Biiig step up from the old SSAO in the standard assets. Good job UT!

 

it's the new ssao from keijiro isn't? been following his development on it and it looks great visually. haven't check the latest version but the last version i'm trying it have some kind of shaking artifact on the SSAO, i guess it's due the temporal filtering, hackish way maybe. i hope it's fixed in the latest version on the repo.

Please do add built in planar reflection capture or included as cinematic effect pack. The one that included in blacksmith are too expensive. And how about the reflection are different with the actuall scene (shadow and fog) any tips on those?

 

well i do find the issues
Oh and what the usage of the "Ambient Only" check box?

 

Me too. I have Amplify Motion, but having a built-in solution would be quite nice. Especially if it's open source, which may make it easier to combine several effects into an ubershader

 

Hoping Unity will spare what little hair I have left and do that combine step but the reason for wanting it native is that Amplify has to work around missing engine features, and its a lot heavier as an effect than it could be. I know it eats a heck of a lot of my frame, at least.

AFAICT it's just it affects the ambient part of the render, so that you don't have unrealistic fuzzy halo over the bits touched by light.

 

Which reminds me: a big difference I noticed, when I played around a bit with UE4 yesterday, was how most options that I checked had very descriptive and informative mouseovers, while stuff in Unity often has either no mouseover or one that doesn't explain it well. All the other options of the new SSAO are great examples of how I'd like it to be handled: Short explanation that says what it does and how the influence on performance is. Also I like to see suggestions for good default values here.

 

I just downloaded the latest Unity 5.3.3 and downloaded the latest effects from bitbucket. The SMAA is a treat!

I'm having trouble with a grainy look when using tonemapping though, did anyone else get that? It was there before and it seems to have improved in the latest version but it is still distracting.

Cheers!