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Fully Dynamic Diffuse Global Illumination

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by sonicether, Mar 29, 2015.

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  1. smetzzz

    smetzzz

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    Wow, thanks for the great update @sonicether ! I wish I could try your demo but unfortunately for me at this time I'm on a mac. :( Could you make a browser build? Thanks for the hard work!
     
  2. blueivy

    blueivy

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    Just tried the demo and I have to say, when this is released this is really going to be a game-changer! Even if it only works with a directional light, being able to change the sunlight in that sponza scene and see the lighting bounce was awesome! It's also a very clean looking GI technique which I thought was great, usually I see splotches of color bleeding everywhere, but not with this demo. It ran great on my end and I'm very excited and can't wait for the future of this asset :D
     
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  3. IronDuke

    IronDuke

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    Just tried the demo, and I think you've sold me. :p It looks just like real life, which is what I wanted, and is also fully real-time, which is what I wanted. The only thing missing now is support for point and spot lights, because there's a lot of those in a space game. I understand that it's hard to implement though, so I'm delighted at what has been done already. Oh, and your light bloom. Did I mention I like your light bloom? Is it the builtin Unity effect or is it yours? (Probably the latter, because it looks so good.)
    Keep right on going!

    --IronDuke
     
  4. elias_t

    elias_t

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    Wow! This is the best rt gi solution I've seen in unity by far.

    Hardly noticed any artifacts.
     
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  5. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    Quality Real time GI requires heavy computing , it's not for today computers, and if you make a game suing that technique instead of baked, as always, you will target less computers range. It's a choice like using UT5 to target a large PC people or using UE4 to target a lower people range as UE4 is not for low or mid PC specs.

    A Hoverhead is meaning these effects are more consuming using real time GI insteda of UT5 Enlighten ?
     
  6. nasos_333

    nasos_333

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    Looks amazing. And the fact that needs no shader changes makes it even more so !!!

    Is there a possibility that this is released soon, maybe as beta so we can start implementation and then be refined ?

    What are the main reasons that we could not perhaps use it for prototyping GI right away ? Given the final look wont be much different from the lighting side of things.

    Also another question about point and spot lights, will those cast to the environment as normally do without the GI ? I want to use this with GI Proxy for spot and point light bouncing, so this is critical to know for the current prototyping of lighting in my RPG.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2015
  7. Seith

    Seith

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    Just tried the demo; it looks fantastic! Super smooth on my machine (in 1080p). That is really impressive indeed. Now I've been burnt (like nearly everyone here) quite a few times with seemingly serious GI devs who stopped communicating and then gave up development altogether.

    So experience dictates caution. But that demo (along with the respect @sonicether seems to muster) made a believer out of me.
     
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  8. Pulov

    Pulov

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    Pffffffffffffffffff duuuuuuuuuude. That demo is breathtaking. Its a bit demanding for my rig. 32 stable fps on the cloths patio and about 35 in the no cloths patio.
    in a GTX560TI. Its a bit old card. The ressults are trully amazing.

    Curious how will scalate with higher polycount scenes or an openworld. may be a cuttof for GI computation would be interesting having for the rest backed lighting, something similar like Beast did have with dual lightmaps.
    My faith bar is fully restored.;)
     
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  9. Zeblote

    Zeblote

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    You could just add an option to disable the expensive effects and target a much larger range.
     
  10. eskovas

    eskovas

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    The demo looks incredible :D
    Like Pulov, my rig is a little old, using a GTX 650 in 1080p i get 20 constant FPS.
    Of course we should absolutely not expect this type of high quality fully dynamic global illumination to function at 60+FPS on old hardware, that's not how things work ;)

    Anyway, it looks very high quality and i'm looking forward to seeing more of it.
    Maybe a benchmark with different types of quality? :D
     
  11. SteveB

    SteveB

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    See now this makes the masses happy!

    Also that demo is damn impressive. If I were to guess I'd say my framerate was in the teens (ASUS ROG i7, 16 gigs 970m) and what struck me was how coherent the is it.

    I'm guessing just the single direct lightsource with no skylighting?

    Very nice sonic :D

    -Steven
     
  12. SteveB

    SteveB

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    Hmmm I ran the demo one more time, trying windowed vs. fullscreen, 720 vs 1080...

    ...windowed runs buttery smooth in both resolutions, and 720 feels like 60 fps. 1080 fullscreen is more like eskovas, upper 20's, not the teens as I reported earlier. (computer needed to warm up? :p)

    Yea this is very nice.
     
  13. Pulov

    Pulov

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    TEsted also on 720p and almost 60fps all the time.
    This is huge.
     
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  14. chingwa

    chingwa

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    No problems here.... everything looks and runs great :)
     
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  15. Zeblote

    Zeblote

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    There is some kind of barely visible dirt / noise texture overlay in this demo... it doesn't move if I rotate the camera. I though my screen was dirty so I cleaned it... turns out it wasn't, same effect on my second screen...

    I have no idea what it is but it's driving me insane, especially when looking at the darker areas.
     
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  16. Mauri

    Mauri

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    @Zeblote Funny that you mentioned it. I saw the same. Good to see in darker areas.
     
  17. smetzzz

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    Nice, glad to see the positive feedback. I trusted @sonicether could deliver. I am looking to target mobile for static architecture rendering. Could this be a feature? The ability to bake the GI would be amazing.
     
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  18. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    The frame rate is too low on low-mid range PC.
    This could work for simple adventure games, or low poly style games, not for today complex open world games.
    But it looks nice.

    What is the interest if you turn back to baked GI ? UT5 offers you Enlighten already to bake GI.
     
  19. smetzzz

    smetzzz

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    UT5 can't bake GI during runtime. The architectural visualization project I'm working on will be procedural and the user can build and edit during runtime. Therefore the changes in the geometry would need to be rendered again but not dynamically updating every frame so as to free up processing for further editing.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2015
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  20. Zeblote

    Zeblote

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    Yes!

    As long as it doesn't take longer than a couple seconds at least.
     
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  21. smetzzz

    smetzzz

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    I would love to see a screenshot for us deprived mac users:confused:
     
  22. zenGarden

    zenGarden

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    It's a specific need for visualization purpose.
     
  23. DennG

    DennG

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    here you go (1080p)









    @sonicether this is freakin' awesome!
     
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  24. smetzzz

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    Thanks @DennG ! Can you ramp up the bounced light intensity without blowing out speculars?
     
  25. DennG

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    that's how it looks with the sun shining directly in



     
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  26. smetzzz

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    Looks amazing! The blowouts are fairly realistic considering its direct overhead sun. Thanks for sharing.
     
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  27. Zeblote

    Zeblote

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    This ugly noise texture in the black part... what is it... why is it? :(

    It's terribly distracting as it doesn't move with the camera rotation, after you notice the overlay you can't unsee it.
     
  28. smetzzz

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    Hard to tell what noise you are talking about since the image just has two tones...
     
  29. Zeblote

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    You'll need a screen that isn't set to "almost invisible" and then look carefully at the dark part. There are way more than just two tones.

    You can also observe the effect by going into the dark area in the demo (behind the side curtains) and then slowly turning the camera.
     
  30. smetzzz

    smetzzz

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    I can't play the demo. Maybe someone else can chime in on your two tone image because all I see is black and tan and no my screen isn't almost invisible as you condescendingly suggest :) Perhaps you are working in a colorspace other than sRGB? Maybe post another reference.
     
  31. sonicether

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    That is dithering caused by the tonemapping image effect to reduce banding at low light levels due to Unity's limited color buffer precision.
     
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  32. Zeblote

    Zeblote

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    Well, is there any way to fix it? Higher quality settings maybe? Or at least have it not be a static dirt overlay that doesn't rotate with the camera?
     
  33. sonicether

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    Unity's color buffer precision is limited to 16 bit float per channel. Perhaps the effect could be less distracting by animating the noise being applied to reduce dithering.
     
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  34. Slaghton

    Slaghton

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    at 1680 x 1050 i'm getting 95 fps at fullscreen or windowed. Really nice =).
    Cpu is g860 dual core 3.0ghz
    GPU is 290 Sapphire Tri-x
     
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  35. Zeblote

    Zeblote

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    Can the noise effect just be disabled completely?
     
  36. Slaghton

    Slaghton

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    Hm, I didn't notice this my first play through but i see what you mean about the static noise in dark area's. Its likely something that can't be disabled because its tied in with how the lighting works. You'd probably have to find a way to make it less noticeable/mask it.
     
  37. RB_lashman

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    it's worth noting that Sonic is talking about Unity's built-in tonemapping effect ... not something that is added by his GI solution
     
  38. Slaghton

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    Ahh i see. I don't know to much about unity's technical stuff so i'll chill on the sidelines while people discuss it. It's not that noticeable to me so I don't really mind.
     
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  39. IronDuke

    IronDuke

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    I tried the demo on my brother's computer. It's somewhat faster than mine, and his screen is way bigger.
    Processor: Phenom II X2 560 @3.31 GHz
    RAM: 12 Gigs
    GPU: Radeon HD 7950
    Resolution: 2560x1440
    FPS: 20-30
    Pretty cool.

    --IronDuke
     
  40. Slaghton

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    It seems screen resolution is what affects fps the most. Feels like if I had a 1080p screen my fps would be around 60 with 1440p around 35-40.
     
  41. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    70-75fps on mine at 1440p using fraps to measure. Very nice!
    specs: 780 ti mildly overclocked.
     
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  42. Slaghton

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    ooo that's really nice
     
  43. CWolf

    CWolf

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    This G.I solution looks very good. I'd be very interested in it if support extended to point and spot lights, as mentioned before - space games use a lot of those =).
     
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  44. Mauri

    Mauri

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    Emissive Materials would be great, too.
     
  45. Seith

    Seith

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    That's right! And even medieval games with torches and mice running around need point lights GI...! :D
     
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  46. Elecman

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    The thing I like about this approach is that it will work with dynamic objects. If you have the inside of a car or airplane cockpit, the GI should still work because in relation to the sun, it is still "static". But somehow Unity doesn't get that.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2015
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  47. IronDuke

    IronDuke

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    Exactly! Most image effects are per-pixel, and this one is probably no exception. On my computer, with an ancient 1280-1024 monitor, I get around 50-60 FPS with a Radeon HD 5850. My brother's monitor has 2.8 times as many pixels as mine. :( I'm so jealous... :p

    I agree. If I walk into a cave with my trusty knights, and we light a fire, I want to see the bounced light behind the rocks and my knights. In a newer setting, a flashlight tends to illuminate mostly by bounced lighting. Try it with the lights out and look in the opposite direction of the light, you'll see what I mean.

    --IronDuke
     
  48. DennG

    DennG

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    Can't wait for this.
    Any news when it's coming?
     
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  49. smetzzz

    smetzzz

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    The dev @sonicether just released his great SESSAO on the asset store. He will probably be working on this next and will release it when its ready.
     
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  50. RB_lashman

    RB_lashman

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    actually - he's working on an update for his bloom right now :) but yeah - after he's done with that - he'll get back to working on the GI :D

    PS. the SSAO is GREAT ... I mean - it has colour-bleeding, for crying out lout!! :D how cool is that?
     
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