Feedback Wanted: Visual Effect Graph

I havent used point cache stuff myself yet. But they are used in at least one of the test scenes that I spoke about earlier in this thread (and shared some of them in an easier format than having to get them off a specific github branch).

They are used in test 09_AttributeMaps, and here is a screenshot from the relevant part of the graph. Sorry for the lack of wires in this screenshot, I seem to have a problem with invisible wired recently and I havent tried to work out why yet.



I havent given this much thought, but possible advantages compared to sdfs is that additional info such as colour can be stored, and there are different sample mode options, and its probably easier to manipulate the data during use in other ways that I havent thought through properly.

As for SDFs, see earlier in the thread, Unity intend to provide more tools for importing/generating this sort of thing. And I already went on about how just because tools already exist to generate 3D textures using 2D textures, doesnt mean these textures actually contain proper and valid SDF data. But I dont want to become a signed distance field bore, and I'm not qualified to really say much more than that.

 

Not sure if private forum conversations support file attachments. But you can send me a message anyway if you want me to try something. Unfortunately I have now run out of time for today, probably, but should have some time tomorrow.

Do keep in mind that I doubt the authors of Mega Flow have any Visual Effects Graph experience yet, that tool was written years ago and we are lucky it even supports the generation of 3D textures (probably offered that feature as there have been 3rd party GPU poarticle systems that could use velocity vector fields in the past). And hard for me to know if there is anything wrong at all with the textures it generates as opposed to our understanding of the data and implications for its use, and how best to use it in VEG. eg off the top of my head, I certainly wouldnt be surprised to see particles not moving at all in certain places if I was using vector info to set absolute velocity. Which is why I posted screenshot of me using that other node, which uses the data to add force to particles, as opposed to completely overriding their velocity (although in my examples I was rather cancelling that out by setting velocity to 0 in previous block). Anyway I am rambling on and am in danger of causing more confusion, I'm still getting used to talking about this stuff.

 

Thanks again for the help... I just now found some documentation on the wiki, this might answer some questions for others as well. Apologies if this was already linked.

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/wiki/VFX-Systems-Contexts-and-Blocks

One thing I am wondering if there is a "POP Wrangle" style node where I can just write a simple snippet of HLSL instead of relying on these blocks and nodes. Is that possible? It is sometimes more powerful and a quicker workflow to write a quick expression instead of building a node graph.

 

Probably better to link to this page, since it has more links to other relevant wiki pages than the one you've found. https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/wiki/Visual-Effect-Graph

 

Ha! No - I had no idea that tiny symbol was clickable. Thank you.

 

Hi, I would like to know how to create vector fields in Unity. There are no tutorials on the Internet at all. Can you make at least a small feedback how you created a vector field for the Unity logo?
If I use my own vector field in effect, all particles just fly away. And why open button don't work?

 

Thanks you so much, I feel so dumb that I didn't that they could expand...

 

Ah yea, forgot to mention this as feedback. Seems the devs could make this more noticeable. I only knew this could have been expanded because I saw it expanded in one of the example graphs they have on GitHub.

 

ErbGameArt, the only way to create your own vector field in Unity is to create a Texture3D in script. Tool-wise, there are a few things out there that convert between FGA and Texture3D (Mega Flow and VectorrayGen) but I found a bug in Mega Flow and have not yet tried VectorayGen.

There is also some sort of script called "VectorFieldImporter" in the Visual Effect Graph package but I have no idea what it does or how to use it. Presumably it turns VF files into Texture3D.

Since this is a feedback wanted thread, my main feedback would be to add a VEG node that ingests FGA files. It is a big speedbump for art directing our effects that we have to spend all this time on troubleshooting conversion utilities. Make it an actual VEG node, not a standalone tool like the Point Cache tool.

 

I wouldnt bother even trying VectorrayGen at the moment, since if you do all you will discover is that it does not actually include anything that allows 3D textures to be saved to your unity assets.

Yes thats what it does, so there is no point trying to use it until Unity make information & exporters available to create VF files.

VEG nodes generally create compute shader code. And the compute shaders themselves are really not the place to handle conversion of file formats. And compute shaders really want to work with data in certain formats - either textures or buffers. So its probably not a good idea to imagine VEG consuming .fga files directly. However, since the VectorFieldImporter that works with VF files and turns them into 3D textures seems to do so pretty automatically in the editor, without having to manually run a tool to do the conversion of each file, it is possible that they will make their .fga importer work in the same way. So you wont have speedbumps in future, even without a VEG node that works with fga files directly.

 

hi guys, I think it is use a volume texture to create the vector fields, And I found this tools to make volume texture. but I don’t know how to use it… I had try a lot of times, but also fail to create a useable volume texture…
if someone want to try, click here! https://github.com/mattatz/unity-volume-rendering
and if you make it work to create the useable volume texture to control the vector fields, please tell me how it work!

 

Hi, I maked this. Maybe this asset will be useful to someone
https://yadi.sk/d/q7n3GtpLiwZ_Ww

 

Shader error in 'Hidden/VFX/ParticleQuads': failed to open source file: 'Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition/Runtime/ShaderLibrary/ShaderVariables.hlsl' at /Users/Windows10/Downloads/ScriptableRenderPipeline-release-2018.3/com.unity.visualeffectgraph/Shaders/RenderPipeline/HDRP/VFXCommon.cginc(2) (on d3d11)

Compiling Vertex program
Platform defines: UNITY_ENABLE_REFLECTION_BUFFERS UNITY_USE_DITHER_MASK_FOR_ALPHABLENDED_SHADOWS UNITY_PBS_USE_BRDF1 UNITY_SPECCUBE_BOX_PROJECTION UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING UNITY_ENABLE_DETAIL_NORMALMAP SHADER_API_DESKTOP UNITY_COLORSPACE_GAMMA UNITY_LIGHT_PROBE_PROXY_VOLUME UNITY_LIGHTMAP_FULL_HDR

How to solve this problem, thanks！

 

Hey. Guys I manged to set up the visual effects graph to work with the HDRP 4.01 and so on from the package manager. How ever I'm having a slight issue. If the Actual Transfrom of the effect is not in camera view the entire effect get culled. Am I doing something wrong ?

 

I have two quick feedback questions about point caches and vector fields (I checked the source but still don't exactly get it):

1. How do the addressing modes for the point cache work? I can only get decent results when I use "sequential" but it seems like "index" and "index relative" should work too. I also tried modulo-ing the particle index by the point cache total point count to no avail. What is the correct way to sample a point cache?

2. For vector fields, are their centers at 0, 0, 0 and their extents 1,1, 1 by default? Does that mean I have to give a field transform of -0.5 in each direction to match it up with a spherical emitter of size one at the origin? I have been using this source to try to figure out the addressing mode:

https://github.com/Unity-Technologi...ks/Implementations/Forces/VectorFieldForce.cs

Thanks!

 

Thanks! Definitely clears stuff up... maybe "relative index" can be "normalized index" and "random uniform" can be "deterministic random" or something with the word "hash" in it.

Can you elaborate a bit more on how the Sample2DLod and Sample3DLod addressing modes work for point caches? How would the 0-1 uv/uvw coordinates map to a point in the point cache? Is it based on bounding box or something? And are looked-up point cache values then interpolated?

 

Can we send arrays to the VEG ?
Like an array of Vector3[] to be used in a loop or something ?

 

Just a quick question: Does this work on Mac Unity 2018.3 beta 7 ? I have downloaded the SRP from github and changed my manifest.json file so that I have Access to HDRP and the Visual FX Graph but I cant seem to get any output. a lot of shader errors reported when I import an effect for example... Just dont want to be struggling in vain.

 

Is there a way to scroll simplex (or any) noise to animate turbulence, or somehow animate the turbulence module? Even the shuriken particle system has that. I must be missing something... because why on earth would there be a turbulence module without animation?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Some bugs:
- Exposing a Gradient parameter doesn't allow to set color in HDR... pretty annoying for particles
- In exemples files I saw a "trigger" block that is link to a "GPU Event", but doesn't seem to be able to add it to new graphs, doesn't appear in the list

 

Anyone managed to get the VFX Parameter Binder component working? Nothing happens when I click the "add item" button under "parameter bindings"...

 

ThomasVFX shared a quick tutorial how to do this on Twitter - https://twitter.com/peeweekVFX/status/1057665614909726720

 

I'm testing out the C# API, are we only allowed to upload 2D textures or can we also upload 3D textures with this function:

setTexture(int nameId, Texture t)

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/wiki/VFX-CSharp-API

 

Is visual effect graph going to get into package manager soon? I noticed that 4.1.0-preview released today and is now at package manager but visual effect graph wasn't included among the packages.

So for the time being, one can use it from https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/tree/4.1.0-preview but it's not as convenient.

 

Just saw this talk on VFX in Star Citizen (They switched over to GPU particles) that they did at their convention about a week Before Unite LA. At one point the speaker talks about collision from scene depth buffer

and I thought "This is probably in the VFX Editor/Graph let me check" Load up a project and I find the Collider (Depth) Node



so I was happy to see that it's in but I have no Idea how to hook the scene depth buffer to the texture slot. Any info on if that's how it should be used or if it needs a premade SDF texture?

 

Hey all, I've been writing some custom nodes (different analytic SDF etc.) and it is all pretty straightforward but I can't figure out how to write a custom renderer. I'd like to try my hand at a ribbon renderer at first to get some fake-ey spline trails. Does anybody have any guidance?

 

hey guys I would like to know how to generate custom Vector fields and SDF for this new system. For example the VFX graph comes with a default SDF that is a teapot. Can someone tell me how to turn a custom mesh into a SDF file to use in the graphs ?

 

im getting issues getting the vfx graph to work. using your easysetup here I actually get it to open and see the graph and can edit it there. (previously i get no nodes). but now with this getting all these shader errors. no changes. just using the this repo after running the .bat. using unity 2018.3.0b8

 

@Pikkewynman Just use com.unity.visualeffectgraph from https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/ScriptableRenderPipeline/tree/4.1.0-preview for testing Visual Effect Graph on 2018.3 betas for now, repo also includes test project. Make sure you use 4.1.0 HDRP with it (you can use package managers 4.1.0 version too since it's the same release).

 

@rizu ive tried this. it runs, no errors. but for some reason the graph nodes are not working and no fx display if I open any examples. the vfx editor panel is there. I can see the blackboard and gameobject attachment things. but if I try to view any node graphs or add a new node or do anything else nothing happens. so kind of stumped.

edit: seem to have gotten it to work after the 4th time importing the package. dont know what i did wrong. thanks for the assist
no not actually. graphs dont load and still cant view any effects

 

This subject has come up multiple times on this thread already. Unity plan to make tools to help with this stuff, but they arent available yet. I've spoken at length about various things that can fill this gap for now, but there are no perfect and simple answers, especially not with SDFs.

See this post for example of Unity talking about future plans for SDP etc utils: #21

 

Re: custom SDF you can make a one-channel 3D texture in C# script. To make it useful you would need to import a SDF from another program. Try a basic Python script in Houdini to export a SDF where each line of the file is a single float.

Basically you gotta make your own SDF-to-3DTexture converter because Unity doesn't include one!

Mega Flow and VectorayGen both include code for a FGA-to-3DTexture converter which is a somewhat similar problem (that is how I have been generating vectorfields for VEG).

 

Ah, so I can use a render texture for the input? When I tried that it removed the texture as soon as I drag it to the slot or select it. I must have setup the render texture wrong, going to mess around with it some more and see. looking forward to it being supported in 19.1 thanks for the info Julien

 

Great Stuff here.

I and some others in different forums have similar problem
with an Shader error in
Hidden/VFX/ParticleQuads:
EvaluateAtmosphericScattering:
no matching 1 parameter function......

I set
(80) float4 fog = 0.0;
in
VFXCommon.cginc
for a dirty fix.

I use
HDRP, CoreRP, ShaderGraph, VisualEffectGraph 4.1.0 preview in Unity 2018.3.0b7 and
VisualEffectGraphEasySetup

Anyone an idea how to fix it without disabling the EvaluateAtmosphericScattering(posInput) call.

 

Is there any plan to add a Kelvin Temperature node like the one for the lights in HDRP? This would be nice to have when creating energy effects to get accurate color values and the gradient would still be there for something more artistic. It would also be nice if you are able to have a range selection (if the effect will change temperature over time) as well as being able to set a single value for it.

 

In addition to whatever mesh->SDF tools we get 'officially' at some point, sounds like Robert Cupisz (of Unity graphics demo programming fame) has made a realtime one and plans to share it!

https://twitter.com/robertcupisz/status/1058079006644412418

 

When will VEG come to LWRP?

 

When laying back any of the GraphicsTests scenes am getting the following error>

VFXViewPreference.cs(74,67): error CS0103: The name 'SettingsScope' does not exist in the current context

I have switched Scripting runtime to .Net4. Is there some other preference that needs changing?

 

Hidden/VFX/ParticleQuads:
EvaluateAtmosphericScattering:
no matching 1 parameter function......

pls fix this

 

heartbeat.)
some realtime sdf gen
https://twitter.com/robertcupisz/status/1058079181412687872
and
https://mobile.twitter.com/robertcupisz/status/1058079006644412418?s=17

hope it is possible to get some little higher accuracy.

 

No particles are seen (or rendering) kindly resolve

 

Same here

 

Played a bit with the new VFX Graph, it's powerful and fun to play with
https://twitter.com/blackfirestu/status/1059540759458779137

 

Mind sharing your graph. Would be nice if we could get an early start on some learning resources. I might start a collection of things I find on the forums and my own experiments with this one so people can learn from it.

 

I made a little tutorial to fix it step by step. You can find it here : https://imgur.com/a/EJtWiSG

Not sure if it works for all of those these Hidden/VFX/ParticleQuads

 

A bit hard for anyone to help you without knowing a bit more. It's working for other people so it's something specific to you.