[Coming Soon] SpectraGI Advanced Real Time Global Illumination For Unity from Livenda

I'll vote on anything Livenda asks for ... lol. My game is going occulus ready and will take place on a beach side city. That ocean shader i want so bad.. and that gi solution... The waiting is the hard part. Just wish i knew where they were at with development of spectra. It feels like its so close yet so far..

 

Would it be a fair assessment to say that SpectraGI needs TXAA to work because temporal flickering makes the screen-space path tracing unreliable i.e. non-static depending on camera movement?

Here is a link to the TXAA feature request again, for those that missed it on the other page:
http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/include-temporal-anti-aliasing-in-unity-txaa

 

How long after a probable decision to inluded it, would this be available ?

Also i think they mentioned something aobut path tracing not be a requirment for the GI solution, so maybe it is a non issue and we wont have to wait forever for the TXAA to come.

 

how come nvidia says you need a geforce 600 series card in order to use TXAA.. and how does anti aliasing have anything to do with the GI?

 

[Coming Soon] was a load of nonsense, and mildly insulting tbh. Soon means soon, not almost 5 months of repeated hype.

 

Well, no, clearly Livenda is just using UT's definition of "soon"

 

Hahah, and it was unacceptable for Unity to use 'Soon' as well Still, it's forgiven if it really IS soon, ... soon.

 

It's possible this soon isn't as soon as Unity's soon. Though this soon surely doesn't feel particularly soon at all.

 

I have a feeling we will soon know how soon this soon is comparing to other soons.

 

Why we should be thankful for Livenda:
Through this almost 6 month journey, we've mastered the art of patience.
We've learned how dangerous it can be to blindly wait for sth to happen.

Im using cryengine. So how long this takes doesn't really bother me.
I feel bad for people who really want this to become real, like kurylo3d.

 

I did my GI Proxy pack while waiting for this new GI video , so i guess Livenda has already helped me enchance my game to the extreme. The GI is so sweet, plus is taking up almost nothing and does not need Pro.

BTW, if the video is delayed, should this be moved to WIP forum just to avoid checking every 5 minutes the alerts for the new video. A new thread with the video would be nice when it finally comes.

 

I guess thats the beauty of word soon, you can stretch it very far and noone can hold you accountable for it as it has no proper time definition.

 

Indeed, but the time a thread can be in the main forum without a single pic of the promised GI is well defined, 1-2 weeks would be stretching it already and 5 months is unthinkable

 

Yea for real...I hate it when people say somethings coming at a certain date.. and then say F* it and dont give any explanation why... other then "when its done you'll have it" lol

But at the end of the day, what can you do but hope you see something come out of it. The realtime area lights are cool as it is, but im not trying to wait til halloween to see it.

 

True some people might be holding back project development due to waiting of GI release, but then again if you look it from other perspective, some people can adjust their projects ahead becouse they have been warned few months ahead of GI release, assuming that GI will be released. And then another point is like they said GI is complex work and quite rare piece in games overall so overall there are good things about few months ahead hype and some bad.

 

While you wait for SpectraGI, if you need GI for now, you can test nasos_333 asset, Global Illumination Proxy, no, I was not paid to make advertise, the asset is really good, i hope he can improve it, Many thanks for that.

Really anxious for Livenda´s solution tought,

 

I don't think it's appropriate to advertise competing products here.

 

It is not really a competing product , just a proxy system, but ok, i erase my post

Hopefully we will have something to discuss here soon

 

soon as in any day now... or soon as in... livenda soon...?

 

Lol , i dont even know anymore.

 

It is pretty amazing that this thread was created back in may with the name "coming soon" lol

 

I could understand that, maybe they started the beta then and somethings needed tweaking or something.

It is just in the wrong forum

BTW, i read some things in the thread we could actually discuss about

For example the fact that path tracing seems to be optional.

And there is mention of some pre-processing required, i would love to know if this should be applied every time the scene changes to cover for asset changes or is something else entirely.

 

Normally I'd agree, in this case I don't. Really the fault is on Livenda. Shouldn't a mod have moved this thread to WIP already? I imagine once they actually have a product they'll want to start a new thread anyway so people looking for info don't have to read through 15 pages of "coming soon," speculation and unrelated gossip.

I think it's pretty obvious they had no product to start with and have only really started working on it recently. Beta means (or is supposed to mean) feature complete, just finding and fixing bugs. But the way Livenda avoids making solid assertions about how the product will operate, usability, integration etc, can really only mean they haven't committed to any one approach in any of these areas - which in turn can only be because they aren't yet sure whether they might have to stop their current direction and try something new. Why would someone drum up hype for a product, then say almost nothing about it for months, meanwhile conducting a beta in secret? I think we are pretty used to seeing "beta" releases on the asset store, or assets in actual active betas away from the asset store (Suimono, Amplify Texture, for example), I think I even saw an asset advertised as being "alpha" in a recent sale. Even if they were in a closed beta, restricting the number of testers to keep volume of bug reports low, or to preserve secrecy or something, that wouldn't explain lack of screen shots or comments on basics on how it will work/be integrated.

I don't want to sound hostile, If this works, and is ever actually released I will probably buy it on day one. But let's be honest. This is not coming soon. This is coming when its done, and right now Livenda doesn't know when that will be.

 

@Hrothvitnir : Absolutely what I´m thinking. I mean they asked us only two (?) weeks ago what kind of PBR system we would prefer. For me that sounds like they hadn´t even started on that yet. I think they had a vision when they started this project and now they are running into some unexpected problems. I´m not at all sure if this product will be released at all. Sorry to be so negative on this, but the signs are really bad. It just doesn´t make sense, why they don´t show anything. We have stated the fact that we don´t care about shiney Aftereffects videos, we would rather like some more information on what´s going on. Such a video is created in less than an hour. So why not show anything? Is it, because marketing and management say they want to release top PR infos/viedos? Or is there simply just nothing to show?

 

Please stop bumping this thread. Let it sink in the abbys. This guys have trolled all of us. They have nothing to show. This thread should be moved to wip or be closed forever. If they come up with something it is as easy as start a new one showing content unlike the way they've choosen of showing us very nice.... text.

 

Hi Everyone,

We hear you and understand a lot are very anxious to see the progress including more product information. Please be rest assured SpectraGI is in the late Beta stage being prepped for final release and availability on the Asset Store.

We also like to make clear the enormity of technical challenges (lets not forget Unity purchased their solution from Enlighten which has existed / in development for the last 4-6 years) for a product such as this which we have solved to our best ability and fits well with the SpectraGI paradigm.

The most relevant contributing factor for the delay was the completion of other supporting technologies which will be included in SpectraGI as we believe are vital together with Dynamic Global Illumination to close the loop such as PBR, Area Lights, Reflections and many others.

With respect to PBR, it is done and ready and based on Roughness / Metallic workflow with great options. Most current third-party products can be used if you wish such as Quixel suite, Substance and others to generate the textures. The PBR we must say, looks phenomenal! Having said this, you are certainly not bound to use our provided PBR, the beauty with SpectraGI is that it will work with almost every other (some could require slight modification) third-party products.

Lastly, this is an important product for us and we have worked very hard to make some technologies possible, so IP protection is very important, which means what is shown until the product is final.

Cheers,
Livenda

 

Guys, sounds awesome..really.. eveytime you write something about your product, I start to drool

I´m quite sure you worked hard on this product and are proud of it..but.. LOL, what is this nonsense about IP protection. Do you think anybody will steal your technology if you post an image of your PBR system (which looks phenominal, of course) . .

Anyway, I think that is enough now and I will remain silent until you post anything useful.

 

Im curious about your pbr. Any info on how the cubemaps work or are applied per location?

 

I'm starting to think you guys are just waiting to see what unity 5 has so you can attempt to out due them instead of releasing before them.

 

Dude, don`t expect too much from Unity5 Enlighten. I tested the fifth iteration just a few days ago. Nothing has improved as far as issues I mentioned earlier. If you want decent results, you have to wait for a ridiculous amount of baking to finish.
Enlighten GI means low(but acceptable) quality GI changing real-time. For good results, you have to have a huge amount of GI cache data and end up with slow(stuttering) GI update depending on the amount of lightmaps needed to be updated.
In theory, it can never beat Spectra GI, which they claim doesn`t require lightmaps or pre-cached data.
But I`m starting to think they have nothing to show at this point.
Not showing anything for the sake of IP protection,,, doesn`t really sound convincing to me.
They have said the same exact thing as above for the past few months, posting their area light videos.
I`m actually surprised they`ve made it this far.

You seem to be interested in VR games. Well,,VR technology, as it stands, has some issues.
So there is a great chance that some screen space or other GI tricks that work well on PC won`t work as expected.
There is no guaruntee that Spectra GI will fit with your VR project.
If I were you, I`d focus on making things work well and responsive with the VR equipment as that`s the most important and difficult thing.

 

Stop bumping this thread up. I'm also surprised Livenda has allowed this to continued for so long. Half of it is filled with pointless comments and filled with rage & doubt with constants begging of x image of GI. It's almost no difference of the kid in the back seat of the car screaming are we there yet every 10 seconds.

All this constants bumping has just done is just overhype this product with no doubt more rage to come along with x person disappointed in product or being lied too.

I have to disagree with you there. I don't think Livenda was expecting this much attention and the constant bumping of the thread with off-topic conversation in fact i don't think i've seen this much bumping before with Livenda other threads, or other people thread.

 

The bumping is normal, everyone registered in the thread receives an alert and since this is in released assets forum, expects to see the product release info and comes inside all the time.

The thread is in the wrong forum for 5 months, that is the only problem. It is WIP and should be in the WIP forum, like everything else that is a work in progress.

 

Things is Livenda claims to have roughness metallic workflow in play with it. Which I dont really care about since theres several of em already including unity 5s. Which is why i say.. maybe there waiting on unity 5 lol. No gaurantee it works in vr.. and if it dont... then i wont buy it, but the screen space reflections from livenda do last i heard. So not sure why they would make one work and not the other.

 

How can livenda not be expecting this much attention? You put out videos and yell to the heavens "coming soon" typically... thats an expectation of attention. .

Also... kiss my ass. Ill type what i want. Espeacially if its questions about the product which seem to not get answers at all...

 

It's the comment going off topic toward the product and the constant bashing towards the product which is the problem.

"kiss my ass" lol if you are going to keep posting questions then discuss it privately instead. And the whole thing about expectation no some people are going overboard, and now are becoming obnoxious. The whole video thing was people demanding it, trying to push it out of him.

 

We have not seen anything yet, so there is no actual product to speak of. This is the root of any other problem.

That is why there would be a trouble free thread if it was in WIP forum. Keeping alive a thread for advertisement here is logical and fine in my book, but expecting to move calmly is funny

Everyone is waiting for the imminent release with the thread here.

 

agreed. thread reported

 

Really? Your acting like they didn't say it would be released end of august. lol.. And you also make no sense. Discuss questions privately? Wtf ... unless you mean private message them.

 

One thing I can say for sure is If this is real, Unity5`s Enlighten integration, which Unity rendering team has spent a few years on, will be of no use. If I were David Helgason and knew this is going to come up on the appstore, I`d seriously consider changing the whole Enlighten integration plan.

 

Baking that takes forever vs no Baking,, It`s no brainer.

 

Lol using that as a excuse to justify yourself. Do you even know what month we're in. So for more then 2 months you've gone on to complain and complain and force answers out.

So you know what i am talking about. Yet you chose to confuse yourself with a wtf.

 

They have confirmed there is baking a few posts back. So in both cases you have to bake something, sure it seems to take a lot less in Spectra though and is a far better case.

The thing is that what Spectra promises seems harder and harder to believe is true, since it would be a first on the planet to do GI so well and with seamingly no drawbacks.

Though if it is indeed true, will be a big celebration day for Unity users .

I am mosty anxious to see the performance and baking times in a real game, with super complexity and vast levels and a multitude of shaders and dynamic objects etc, that is why waiting for this GI video is so hard, because the video itself will hardly mean anything until the system has been tested on actual games, which may be a long time after that as well.

Livanda with all the cool features of Spectra that make any other GI system look terrible, has given back the full meaning to the "i can't wait" phrase

 

Well there is something wrong, because Enlighten shouldn't take that long to pre-compute. When I used it with FB engine you'd be looking at several minutes, not several hours to pre-cache a medium sized indoor scene.. It's still a beta after all!.

Well if it works as they say it does good on them, it's an issue that only CryTek (that I know of) seems to have cracked and they have more rendering R&D specialists than some mid sized studios have staff. There is the upcoming VXGI by Nvidia which is quite interesting...

SVOGI is a no go even though it looks great, only LPV seems a viable solution at the moment for truly dynamic GI and even that has plenty of drawbacks.

Does beg the question, why can't Epic crack this issue and Livenda can? As I say very curious even if only from a technical standpoint.

 

The thing is, if Spectra's GI is so much higher quality than Enlighten like it sounds, I imagine it also has a much bigger performance impact. That, or it's magic.

 

Well, I have to think in some ways LiveNDA might be just that... They might be just waiting for their law firm to say "OK we're able to protect your IP", before they release anything.

Really... why release a video when you can release a working demo... but if they release a demo and this is everything they say it is, well then what game engine company in the world wouldn't love to get their hand on this and try to reverse engineer it somehow... unity included...

They just might be getting their legal ducks in a row...

Just a thought...

 

They cant reverse engineer a video or screenshots though, so why not show at least that ?

Afterall they said there was a GI video coming and the only problem was encoding it, a few weeks back, so we can expect a video at least. Hopefully with an fps counter

 

I think that way too... but videos can be faked and demos can't, if they released a video then you would still have the nay sayers crying out foul!

 

I would not call them naysayers, since every system final judgement is in practical use. But at least we would have a first view of the system and some more info hopefully on performance and what to expect.

Plus most of all, we would know the system is actually done or near done and we have a chance to get it in a reasonable timeframe, which is crucial when deciding what GI system to use and how.

 

Hardly calling forcing answers out when I've been waiting since may when this forum started. Its been a long "coming soon" And then they annoucne beginning of august for release.. then end of august lol.... And if complaining forces answers out. THEN AWESOME. Should have some espeacially if your looking forward to supporting a product.

 

Still waiting on this "very soon" from July. When are you releasing this information?

P.S. At least this is moved to the correct forum finally