[FREE] Introducing Amplify Occlusion 2 – Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion, up to 2X faster!

Hey there, thanks for using AO 2, great knowing you had a good experience with in your last project!
Unfortunately, we've decided to discontinue our image effects, you'd have to use an older Unity version to take advantage of it.

A couple of reasons, be sure to check the full statement bellow. This was not an easy decision, we've been delaying it for quite some time now. We would be happy to issue a refund to anyone that purchased it in the last month, be sure to reach out to sales@amplify.pt.

 

Hello everyone,

After many years and Unity versions, and much consideration, we've decided to retire Amplify Occlusion along with our other image effects. This wasn't an easy decision, we've actually been delaying it for quite some time while doing everything we could to avoid pulling the plug. Unfortunately, due to its declining sales, end of life state, we're forced to put our resources in new products such as Amplify Shader Editor and Amplify Impostors. Considering the growing Unity post-processing options, or changes that might impede the correct execution of 3rdparty content, implementing new features and supporting it is no longer viable .

We've actually dug deeper into the duplication issue present with VR that some of you were looking for but this revealed new problems such as ghosting only present with SRP or even some flickering due to a possible mismatch between views. Due to our limited resources, we simply cannot undergo the considerable reworking involved in making it work.(assuming it's actually possible)

You can still use the plugin in your own projects of course and we would be happy to refund any purchases made during the last month.

Our plan is to open up the plugin to the community via GitHub as we did with Amplify Motion.

Thank you for all your support!

 

Sad to see it go, but thankful it is going to GitHub, which is the best way to retire a code asset.

 

I purchased 2 post processing assets this week and no I wont ask for a refund, but its sad to know that in the future unity versions it may not work and I will have to remove it

 

Thank you for your support. It's sad to see it go but hopefully it can find new life on Github as Amplify Motion did.

 

Amplify occlusion is way better then the unity ambiant occlusion I wish it was still contenued.

 

I agree 100%.

 

Thank you!

Hopefully it will find new life on GitHub.

 

This is really sad, honestly there is no better ambient occlusion asset than this

 

Hopefully it will find new life on GitHub, it's still a viable option for some projects.

 

When do you plan to place it on GitHub?
We want to use it in our new game

 

Sorry, no ETA just yet but should be soon.

 

Any updates? )

 

Soon!

 

One question before it lands on GitHub. What would you recommend as the best looking AO for Unity ATM?

Should we wait for Amplify Occlusion? Or does it look the same as Unity PP Stack v2 one?
Or should we buy something else from the AS?

Thanks

 

My opinion: Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion or the PostProcess Stack v2 AO
I haven't tried the new AI-based AO of PRISM though but the screenshots don't seem like much.
I even prefer HBAO to amplify's solution.
The thing about HBAO is you can make really large ambient shadows and it still works great.
Also, you can stack two instances of HBAO with two diferent sizes for perfect AO and it still runs fast.

 

Wow, thanks for intel!
Do you have experience with this one? Do you think it's worth trying? Or is HBAO simply so good we can skip everything and go straight for it?

 

I haven't tried this one, but keep in mind it hasn't been updated since 2018 while HBAO has been updated 3 months ago. It doesn't mean it will not work, but given the history of Unity's breaking changes every time they release a new version, I would purchase an asset that is being actively taken care of.

edit: it has actually been updated 2 months ago.

 

Makes sense.
And the problem you mentioned "really large ambient shadows" - that happens with SSAO? Or with ground based AO as well? I read ground based AO should be superior to HBAO.
Just trying to understand it all

 

The thing about common techniques like SSAO in general is: the devil is in the details.
You can use a superior technique but do a worse implementation and the result would still be worse.
Also, since screen space ambient occlusion is really fake, diferent implementations will work better than others depending on the project you are working on and your personal preferences.
Personally, I like really big AO shadows because I work with big clean white surfaces and AO make them much more real than tiny AO only in the creases.
The only AO that I have tried that does this great is HBAO.
However, if you prefer other aspects of AO, like a good volumetric shadow under a hovering vehicle, maybe ground based AO is better for that task. (although you can fake it with this blob shadows plugin and it will be way faster on mobile)
Since screen space AO is completely fake, it goes down to your personal preferences really.
My AO of choice right now is HBAO. Maybe this will change in the future, specially with AI-based AO, but for the time being, it's still this specific plugin in the store.

 

The Unity PPS 2, or higher, is currently the safest bet. (also seen some buzz about a technique similar to ours)
Let's keep it on subject folks, this is still the Amplify Occlusion thread

Can't say that we have much experience with other packages(profiling mostly), so we can't recommend them.

 

Sorry Ricardo
I didn't mean to hijack the thread
I thought it was ok to talk about other options since Amplify Occlusion is no longer on sale.
You're still the best company making plugins for Unity and I have bought every plugin you have made
(except impostors, but that's because I don't need impostors)

 

No problem, just kidding It's ok, but we do worry about it steering too off topic. We will be posting more about Amplify Occlusion later, as soon as it's available on GitHub.

Thank you very much for your support!

 

It's been over four months. Why is it not available on Github yet? You said it would happen soon around the time of the original statement.

 

One does not simply leave Little Mermaid hanging...

 

Apologies, not quite yet, just a bit longer until we move forward with that. Until then, users that purchased can still access it via "My Assets".

Thanks!

 

Hello guys! We want to invite you our new teaser of The End of the Sun game announcing Kickstarter campaign where we use Amplify Occlusion
If you are interested in, add your email here. https://www.endofsun.com/crowdfunding/

 

Hello there!

Thank you for using Amplify Occlusion, the game looks really interesting!

Best of luck with the Kickstarter, we will keep an eye out for updates on Twitter

 

Thank you for creating amazing shaders and effects, Also we are aiming to use amplify motion, and amplify shader

 

Awesome, keeping an eye out! Great knowing that Amplify Motion is till going!

 

Tested many Motion Blur assets and I think Amplify Motion is still the best motion blur. We're still using it but sadly it doesn't have URP support. When we switch to URP I doubt we will find such a good option.

Thanks for developing this asset.

 

Hey @Amplify_Ricardo have you considered a complete postprocess stack like the one in Unity but with all your old individual products together in an optimized and synergistic way.
I think it would be an awesome product. As long as it could support built-in and URP renderers, the success would be guaranteed.

 

Yeah, that's been requested, from long ago. It could still be a great idea.

 

That's good to hear!

It's too bad on that front, it's actually one of the reasons that led us to deprecate our Image Effects.

We did actually, we were looking into this back in the day, along with full color grading tools in Amplify Color, then Unity announced its own. If only we had started it sooner, but we didn't have the resources at the time.

That's a bit tricky right now given the way SRP's are starting to use a built-in stack. It would be cool to develop but not too cost-effective; maybe we can do something later that works directly with the stack.

 

I see that "Renderer Features" can be used to add custom image effects to URP. Might make your implementation easier in future.
Example: https://github.com/Kink3d/kMotion/wiki/Getting-started

 

Yeah, we used to generate those ourselves; maybe it's something we can explore later.

 

@Amplify_Ricardo we want an Amplify Post Process Stack!

 

Tempting

 

Hello everyone,

The wait is over, Amplify Occlusion 2.0 is finally available via GitHub. Thank you for all your support throughout the years, we could not offer it back to the community without it.

Get it here: GitHub
More about our solutions: Asset Store

 

Many thanks!.

 

Does this have URP support?

 

I'm afraid not; it was not made to work with URP.

 

Hi, impressive package! I have one problem. When I build my game for WebGL and use the "High" preset in the quality setting (project settings-->quality) everything is fine. When I build it in the "Very High" or "Ultra" presets in combination with "Downsample" diactivated then I get a fully black screen everywhere that ambient occlusion happens.

 

Did more test building. I found out that the problem occurs when antialiasing is turned on in the quality settings.
@Amplify_Ricardo what causes this incompatibility?

 

Honestly don't know what could cause that, if indeed aliasing is to blame, WebGL can be temperamental.

Is it only with the downsample active? Would be great if we could isolate it.

Thanks for using AO, hope we sort out those issues.

 

so sad that it doesnt support URP because I really like the package...

 

Yeah it's a shame but they were never made to work with it.

 

I know it's been some time but does this work with Unity 2020 HDRP because I'm getting confusing results with the Github instructions etc.

 

Hey there!

It does not, it only worked initially with the Lightweight Renderer but had some issues at the time. Any particular info? We'd be happy to adjust it for clarity sake.

 

No it's all good I think the github and asset store just need quick asterisk warnings at the top so people don't get confused and waste their time like I did. I really liked how it worked with the GBuffer for accurate AO and prefer it over the HDRP one. In any case it's too bad it doesn't work with HDRP I'm currently otherwise really happy with HDRP's graphics:

I was looking to add your AO in replacement of the built-in HDRP one but oh well it's ok.
So far in HDRP I don't even use GI and just modified the default settings and some post effects and look how good things look-it looks like I have GI which is very interesting! :