Highlighting System [Released]

Great news thanks

 

I am using unity 5.5.03 and have some minor problems with highlight effect on iPad 4. I am using Wide preset with Straight blur direction.
When Highlighting Renderer component is enabled on Camera, it claims between 10 to 12 fps by itself and uses 5 to 7 rendering textures, claiming additional anything between 30 to 70 mb of memory.
One way is to keep Highlighting Renderer disabled until its needed, is there any other tricks I can employ?

 

Hi, I see the current description shows: "VR: Compatible with Single Pass (Fast) Stereo Rendering Method"

When I switch on Single Pass, I'm seeing highlights that look like this where the thickness isn't uniform.



This is in Unity 5.6.1p3 (latest patch version). Ca you please check this? Thanks a lot!

 

Is there a way to get this to work with material property blocks?

For example, I want the highlight to be red, but the normal renderer material to be set to white. The following code turns the highlight white.

Code (CSharp):

1. highlighter.ConstantOnImmediate(Color.red);
2.  
3. renderer.GetPropertyBlock(_materialPropertyBlock);
4. _materialPropertyBlock.SetColor("_Color", Color.white);
5. renderer.SetPropertyBlock(_materialPropertyBlock);

 

Dev, FYI, I've been talking with Kriptos, the developer of the Realistic Effects Pack 3 because his affects are supposedly also updated for single-pass, but also do not work in unity 5.6.1. Here's a thread where a couple other people have mentioned issues:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/bumped-distort-shader-unity-5-6-1-vr-single-pass-stereo-rendering.472384/

So I think this issue may be a unity bug, but still I thought you should be aware of it. You ca download 5.6.1 any try it yourself, although the bug may be limited to SteamVR/Vive.

 

@AleksanderN
It's up to Unity to decide how many RenderTextures to keep in memory and when to release them (usually video memory is not released instantaneously so the profiler may cheat you), but the Highlighting System requests only 1 perpetual full-screen RenderTexture and 2 temporary (usually downscaled) RenderTextures which is released every frame (you can check that in HighlightingBase.cs script).
iPad 4 is almost 5 years old device and has relatively high resolution (2048x1536 pixels) compared to it's hardware capabilities, so this is an expected FPS drop. You can reduce screen size for your application (using Screen.SetResolution()) to gain performance and use less video memory.

@Spanky11
Hi! I've never seen such artifacts in my HTC Vive, so I believe that's a new issue for this particular Unity version. Thanks for letting me know! Does that happen even in provided example scenes or only in your own project?

@michelm
Yes, please apply this hotfix. Sorry for the inconvenience!

 

Hi I opened Case 921280 for this. I was also having display issues with the Realistic Effects pack 3 particle effects, and these had been updated for single-pass also. I just got word from Unity:

"I have been able to reproduce the issue and it seems that it has been fixed in the future release. Let us know if you are able to reproduce it once Unity 2017 comes out."

I've asked about where this will be fixed via a 5.6.1 patch, but haven't heard back from them. I would hope they wouldn't leave the current release with this bug, but we'll see what happens.

 

slice, FYI, I am getting this NullReference when using effects on an object which does not have a renderer and thus no material. I agree that it doesn't make sense but maybe there shouldn't be a NullReferenceException (there wasn't one in older versions of the HighlightingSystem AFAIK; happened when I recently upgraded).

Code (csharp):

1. NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
2. HighlightingSystem.Highlighter.FillBufferInternal (UnityEngine.Rendering.CommandBuffer buffer, Mode m) (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlighterInternal.cs:395)
3. HighlightingSystem.Highlighter.FillBuffer (UnityEngine.Rendering.CommandBuffer buffer) (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlighterInternal.cs:436)
4. HighlightingSystem.HighlightingBase.RebuildCommandBuffer () (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlightingBase.cs:507)
5. HighlightingSystem.HighlightingBase.OnPreRender () (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlightingBase.cs:363)

 

Hello slice3d,

I'm looking for a feature to toggle my target. The outline effect looks good for my game. But what I need is a square to cover my target. For example:



If the target shows, I can toggle the target by using a square. Even if the view angle change, the square is still toggle the target.

Besides, I want to change the shape of the toggle to present the different weapon:


Is it possible to do this by using this asset?

 

Hello! HighlightingSystem not work with alpha in render texture? I`m try use HighlightingSystem with RenderTexture, camera clear flags set to Solid Color and color set with full clear alpha. Maybe you have some solution for this? thx

 

@Spanky11
Thanks for the heads-up! Nice to hear that they've fixed it in Unity 2017 at least. Hope that this fix will also be included in 5.6 cycle since this is their current stable release.

@plmx
Please apply this hotfix. Sorry for the inconvenience!

@AnitaChiu
Hello Anita,
Unfortunately no - Highlighting System can't do such highlighting out of the box.

@OniKys
Hello! It's hard to say how exactly you're using Highlighting System based just on your description.
Could you please send me your example project (via PM or email) so I'll be able to take a look?

 

Hello, very much like the system you made, I have a question you want to ask, because before the purchase I want to determine some things.
Is this system and can not add multiple layers of different colors to an object?
If so, can you choose to turn off a circle of edge switches?

 

Picked this up today and the Dither shader will not compile. Although doesn't seem to be effecting anything I need. This is 2017 p2. Most likely because I have Directx 9 disabled and the shader is not accounting for that scenario.

 

Hi
I have problems using an orthographic camera an disabled see through mode
Is there a way to fix this?

 

Hi,

We are using TAA from post processing stack and together with that we get constant jitter on outlines. Is there some workaround that we could consider or is that something that we should just for next update and get it running nicely after that? If so, is there any ETA for next update?

That would be important information to decide if we should use the component and get it on place before one important deadline or if we should consider some other option (be it other component, or implementing own system). Thanks!

 

Hi Slice,

We're having an issue with your asset, which is we're getting this error:

MissingReferenceException: The object of type 'Material' has been destroyed but you are still trying to access it.
Your script should either check if it is null or you should not destroy the object.
UnityEngine.Material.SetColorImpl (Int32 nameID, Color value) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/runtime/ShaderBindings.gen.cs:290)
UnityEngine.Material.SetColor (Int32 nameID, Color value) (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/Runtime/Export/Graphics.cs:701)
HighlightingSystem.HighlighterRenderer.SetColorForTransparent (Color clr) (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlighterRenderer.cs:198)
HighlightingSystem.Highlighter.UpdateColors () (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlighterInternal.cs:348)
HighlightingSystem.Highlighter.FillBufferInternal (UnityEngine.Rendering.CommandBuffer buffer, Mode m) (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlighterInternal.cs:403)
HighlightingSystem.Highlighter.FillBuffer (UnityEngine.Rendering.CommandBuffer buffer) (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlighterInternal.cs:436)
HighlightingSystem.HighlightingBase.RebuildCommandBuffer () (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlightingBase.cs:507)
HighlightingSystem.HighlightingBase.OnPreRender () (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/Internal/HighlightingBase.cs:363)


It seems that your script is trying to reference the material in your data struct but that material has been destroyed. We can't figure out what that material is or what could be destroying it. Do you know what's going on?

Thank you!

 

Anybody listening?

 

Hey slice3d,

I am not sure of this has been answered but is this asset 2017 compatible?

 

Hello slice3d!

I'm using the highlight plugin and is really great but i've an annoying problem.

If i use a negative value Z-scale i loose the outline.
Normal behaviour


Negative value on Scale


I have to load at runtime some meshes and for some problems of compatibility with other software i have to do this for assure some data congruence.

Is it normal? There's a easy way out? ( I know that i the best answer is "Try to import meshes with normale scaling"but for now is not possibile )

 

It's not working with Single Pass in Hololens. Am i missing something?

Once i enable single pass in the unity settings all i get is screen flashing of the unity boot logo. If i disable the highlighting component on the camera everything renders properly.

This is what unity says about hololens and single pass in case it's useful:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/SinglePassStereoRenderingHoloLens.html

 

@zhao_KK
Hello,
Thanks for your kind words but I don't think I understand you. Sorry! Could you please rephrase your questions?

@snacktime
Thanks for letting me know!
Dither shader is only used to demonstrate LODs highlighting, so you can safely remove it (as well as anything else from the HighlightingSystemDemo folder).
I will fix it for the upcoming update.

@Clockstone2
Hi Clockstone2,
Thanks for your bug report! I've been investigating this issue and figured out that Unity's LinearEyeDepth shader function doesn't work for orthographic camera. For the same reason soft particles doesn't work in orthographic mode, and I believe many other effects and features based on depth (e.g. water foam rendering). I will try to find workarounds, but I can't promise you anything, since I don't know yet if it's even possible or not.

@hepphep
Hi,
Unity's Post-Processing Stack v1 isn't friendly to any other Image Effects, implemented using old OnRenderImage approach. They even deprecated all existing Image Effects and removed them from the Unity's Standard Assets package without providing the way to make them compatible with the new system.
So in order to make Highlighting System work with this new Post-Processing stack - I have to completely refactor Highlighting System and modify the Post-Processing Stack source code correspondingly. So that'll take time, and I don't have any ETA.

@w_adams
Hi!
Thanks for your bug report! I've never seen this issue before. I'll try to reproduce and fix it, but it looks like you have Renderers (either in scenes and/or prefabs) with missing materials (materials which have been created and assigned, but removed from project).

@StormchaserZA
Hey StormchaserZA,
Yes, Highlighting System is compatible with Unity 2017 (just checked it in Unity 2017.2.0b10) except for the Dither.shader mentioned above, which you can simply remove without affecting anything. Let me know if you'll find any other issues.

@Nevade
Hello Nevade. Thank you!
Please apply this hotfix. Also, you might want to apply other fixes available for your version of the Highlighting System. Sorry for the inconvenience!

@TheJavierD
Thanks for your bug report! Not sure if I'll be able to fix this issue without having a real device, but we'll see.
And thanks for providing this link. It was indeed useful!

 

Thank you for providing a hotfix for my orthographic camera problem!

 

Hi,

Version: Unit 2017.1.1f1

I removed the Dither.Shader as suggested but no effect. The highlighted effect is supposed to yellow.

Things I have tried:
Removed Post Processing completely.
Moved script positions.

This is the current result:



And the setting:

 

Hello slice3d,

First off, thanks for your work. We have used this asset on 3D models to great success. However, we are having trouble making it work for multiple 2D Skinned Mesh Renderers. There have to be multiple because it is an animated 2D character.

There are 2 issues:

1) The outline is being rendered correctly, but it is "ignoring" the color attribute, and it is always painting it white. We have identified that the Sprite Mesh Instance's Color attribute is white, and if we change it, the outline does change. (However this is not what we want, because it tints the whole sprite).

2) I need to rotate the image on the Y axis to make the character face the opposite direction and keep using the same animations. However, when I rotate the object, the entire sprite turns white (I guess I'm seeing the back side).

How can we fix this issues? Thanks for your help!

 

Hi.
I have buy your asset «HighLighting » System on asset Store.
I have 3 errors just after importing in a new project.
I use unity 2017.1
Error list :
1. Shader error in 'Custom/Dither': incompatible type for parameter #1 ("vpos") at line 52 (on d3d9)
2. Shader error in 'Custom/Dither': unable to generate code, no legal types for program. at line 11769 (on d3d9)
3. Shader error in 'Custom/Dither': incompatible type for parameter #2 ("s") invalid operands to "div" invalid operands to "div" incompatible type for parameter #2 ("s") incompatible type for parameter #2 ("s") incompatible type for parameter #2 ("s") incompatible type for parameter #2 ("s") assignment among incompatible concrete types at /UnityCG.cginc(1024) (on d3d9)

Please i need your help to fix this.

Regards.

 

Thank you! With Cull Off seems both normal and flipped object works. I'll test better. Great Support TY again.

 

Having trouble building with your plugin in the project on the latest version of Unity 2017.2 (release 12th October)

Getting a lot of exceptions mentioning various Unity components not being found although the code shows the correct namespaces and the project runs fine in the editor.

Apologies for the lack of debugging information but should fairly easy to reproduce.

 

@Clockstone2
You are welcome!

@StormchaserZA
Hi,
Are you setting the _Color property on your materials using MaterialPropertyBlock?
Please try to apply this hotfix.
Also, I highly recommend you to remove the HighlightingSystemDemo folder completely from your project and use the Highlighter / HighlightingRenderer API directly.

@CarlosP
Hello Carlos,
Thank you!
1. Please try to apply this hotfix.
2. The easiest would be to change the 'Cull [_Cull]' to 'Cull Off' in HighlightingTransparent.shader, but that'll force both sides of all highlighted objects to always render so that will affect rendering performance. Better do this only for objects which can be flipped:
I have a check for the SpriteRenderer in HighlighterRenderer script which obviously fails in your case since you're using custom 2D rendering solution (Anima2D?):
if (r is SpriteRenderer) { replacementMat.SetInt(shaderPropertyID._Cull, cullOff); }
So another option is to modify this line to make it disable culling where necessary. I have a task related to this.

@gringan
This is due to someone at Unity has forgotten to write an auto-updater script this time to properly update existing shaders in accordance to the changes they made in cross-fading shader macroses.
So you have to manually replace Dither.shader with the one I provided here.
Sorry for the inconvenience!

@Nevade
Glad that helped to fix your issue!

@Jimbobalubob
I was unable to reproduce your issue.
Sounds like your Library folder has been corrupted. Try to Reimport All assets (Assets > Reimport All).
Then replace Dither.shader to fix the remaining issues.

TO ALL:
Highlighting System no longer works in Single-Pass Stereo Rendering mode (VR) in Unity 2017.2.0f3. I'm working on a fix.

 

Hi slice, just fired off an email to you about the Single-Pass Stereo mode, and now I see this post. Thanks for working on this, it is really important to us. I'd happily test patches, just send me a note.

 

Hey, I have a quick question on a best practice using the highlighter component.

In my project, objects are supposed to be highlighted whenever a player closely looks at them (via raycast detection).
The scene contains quite a lot of objects (200+) which could be potentially highlighted (not at the same time though).

My question is, in terms of performance, is it better to attach the highlighter script at runtime to an object at the very time it is hit by the raycast, or should I add the highlighter script to each object (prefab) in advance so that it is just available when it's needed? Are there even considerable differences between these 2 approaches?

Thanks!

 

I add the highlight component at the time of the raycast, I use it for every interactable - I started by adding it to each prefab at level creation and the frame drop was noticeable

I then remove the highlight component once it's no longer needed

 

I have quick request, or perhaps its silly and I'm missing something:

is it possible to exclude transparant object or entire "layers" from the highliter, ??
manually adding a blocker script seems inefficient. and with transparent shaders I'd never want highlighting anyway,, This also goes for particle emitters.

I've seen a very old post that you'd remove particle emitters from highliting, but it seems its still enabled.
Anyways an easy way to disable the transparent component of your higlighting, ? or a quick replacement transparent shader that just is empy as a hack?

cheers

 

How is LODGroup supported? By the lastCamera camera set in OnWillRenderObject?

 

hi, first thanks for the great hightlighting extension.
I met with a weird scenario. When I put some objects(which don't have the 'Highlighter' script) before a big box(which has the Hightlighted effect), they all become shinning. Especially, you can see the edge of the objects' hightlighted and non-highlight parts. PLS help! Here's the screen snapshot:

 

Hi, I'm trying to integrate this plugin but I have a problem with the occlusion.
The highlight is not occluded by the mesh in front. I use a custom shader (attached) made with shader forge, so that must be the reason. When I use the standard shader, it works.
Any idea what settings I should change in the shader to make it work?

 

Yes, I'm having the same issue. The highlighting no longer works in Unity 2017.3 with Single Pass. 2017.1 didn't have this issue.

 

The unity assert store shows this asset as Deprecated. Has development ended?

 

Why is this deprecated?

 

Would also like to know if this is still maintained!

 

Bummer to see this isn't available anymore. I would at least think the dev would make available the Single Pass rendering fix. I did follow the instructions in the last post from the dev above, and the coding change did resolve the issue.

 

Don't worry, Highlighting System has been deprecated on the asset store only because it contained single JavaScript file and I don't wanted to release the new version with only this file being removed without any other improvements I've been working on in the last months. I just need more time to finish them up. The ETA is late March / early April (Significant improvements are coming!). I will be able to answer all your questions once I'll release the new version. Thanks for your patience and I'm sorry for any inconvenience!

 

Hi, great news. I had a feeling that given that you mentioned a 4.4 update (with the single pass fix) that it was likely you would release this at some point. With that single fix working, things seems to be working fine for me now. Curious about what new updates you have in the works! Great asset, and you have provided good support for it. I know it must be difficult to respond to all the questions.

 

Really glad I paid for this asset after trying out several different ones, looking forward to the new version!

 

Hey slice, will the updated version you are working on be compatible with the new scriptable render pipeline? I'm trying to migrate a project to it and noticed that the highlight stopped working.

EDIT: Actually scratch that, might also be because of the single pass issue.

 

hi slice3d ,
I have problem need you help ,
I Do Flip camera using matrix ,when i FLIP CAMERA , it draw color such as Image ,
Please help me, thanks so much !
Link Image - https://ibb.co/b1mdbc

 

Can anyone please shows me on how to use this asset with Orthographic Camera ?
any help is appreciated.

 

any news about release date?

 

I just submitted Highlighting System 5.0 to the Unity Asset Store. Please wait a couple days until it will be released.

WebGL demo: http://deepdream.games/demos/HighlightingSystem/
Documentation: http://docs.deepdream.games/HighlightingSystem/5.0/

New in this version:

• Fully reworked and improved Highlighter component which is now capable of covering more than 90% of all highlighting use-cases without any scripting.
• Now you can inherit from the HighlighterCore class to implement custom highlighting logic without having to worry about breaking compatibility with the future versions of the package.
• Highlighter / HighlighterCore has been optimized and is no longer using Update() or Coroutines. (See 10000 update calls Unity Blog post for more info)
• Flashing highlighting mode has been replaced with fully-featured tween, which supports color gradients.
• Implemented ability to specify Renderers and submeshes of each Renderer to highlight (RendererFilter's).
• Fully reworked demo scripts intended to teach you the best and most performant ways of using Highlighting System in your own projects.
• Implemented solid fill alpha value control (affects all Highlighter's).
• Orthographic Camera Projection mode compatibility.
• Fixed rendering to texture when Stereo Rendering is enabled.
• Improved documentation, which is now also available online.
• All demo scripts have been moved into the HighlightingSystem.Demo namespace to avoid type name collisions. You will have to add using HighlightingSystem.Demo; directive to reference them from your own scripts.
• Fixed highlighting of negatively scaled Renderers. https://trello.com/c/nUOlKQ6S
• Fixed NullReferenceException in Highlighter.FillBufferInternal. https://trello.com/c/zIfJdCkY
• Fixed setting material properties (e.g. _Color) via MaterialPropertyBlock also affects highlighting if property name matches. https://trello.com/c/WUfBXE8B
• Fixed Dither.shader won't compile as of Unity 2017. https://trello.com/c/QIM6kksZ

In memory of my mother Nina and my friend Darwin.

 

Thank you sir!

 

Is there a way to set up through which objects player can see silhouettes?