InstantOC - dynamic occlusion culling + LOD

Hello PixelNAUTS_Alex,
I'm glad you like InstantOC, thanks!
I haven't indeed updated the manual yet with useful occludee info! Sorry
You basically have to follow this steps:

• create a new layer (call it occludees for instance)
• choose this layer in the IOCcam script as the "Occludee Layer"
  
• add the IOClod script manually to the objects you want to behave like occludees
• they also must have a collider like regular IOC obejcts and must be on an IOC managed layer (NOT the occludee layer!!!)
• mark the "occludee" checkbox of the IOClod script

That's it!
A couple of notes, occludees in InstantOC are really meant only for transparent objects, as there is no computation difference by marking some objects as occludees.
The occludee layer is needed, but automatically managed by InstantOC, do not place objects on this layer.
Hope this helps, let me know how it goes!

 

I have animated molecules on a cell terrain. Is Instant OC able to occlude these I am unsure if this is the case as curerntly despite following the steps, it hides everything I set tag to IOC, and the layer to its name then in the camera i set to the object layer I want to hide, occludee layer to occludee, tag to IOC, the objects(tagged as IOC) but it seems to hide it all the way despite looking at it. so its working perhaps I have the wrong set up. what am I doing wrong?

 

Hello sgtkoolaid,
thank you for your purchase, could you please send me a couple of screen-shots, or even better share with me a sample scene that exposes the problem, so that I can figure out what's wrong?

 

i figured it out. I applied IO CLOD to the objects manually rather than use a Tag. only issue is now I have a flickering problem with the molecule objects. namely with the molecules moving across in the "sky" a bit away from the camera. they do not have shadows enabled on them. however they do flicker quite a bit. Should I send you the project scene? see what the issue is?

 

Sorry for the delay,
sure, send me your project folder via Dropbox or similar, I'll look into it and report back.

 

Hey dude. I'm still hoping to get in touch with you over skype but i didn't get a response last time I saw you online. I've got two weeks before my game is set to launch and i have a very specific need to get IOC working. Please message me on here or there as soon as you're able.

 

Hello,
sorry for that, I'm online (invisible but online) right now, what is your Skype nickname?

 

hello all!
it works with unity 5.3.1?
doesn't give errors, but the demo scene seems to do nothing different using or not instantOC

 

Hello ghiboz,
just tried it, it works flawlessly with 5.3.1, toggling InstantOC on and off in the demo scene (pressing "i" key) shows quite a nice performance improvement. Also take a look at the stats window to check the drawcalls difference.
Could you perhaps share your PC specs? Maybe you have a very powerful CPU/GPU in which case there could be no much noticeable difference.

PS: do gameobjects hide/unhide when you toggle InstantOC on/off? Maybe there is some problem with layers (if you import InstantOC in an existing project, that may be the case)

 

ok, thanks @frenchfaso now seems to work...
I've included the script into my project, and there's something strange...
a question: the occludee layer what do?

 

The occludee layer is for example for transparent objects (glass, crystals, etc..) if you want InstantOC to manage transparent objects, you need to create a occludee layer (name it as you wish) and choose it in the IOCcam inspector panel. The transparent objects themselves must be placed on an InstantOC managed layer(s) not the occludee layer, this one is automatically managed by InstantOC at runtime.

 

@frenchfaso
Any word on updates ?

 

Currently working on these:
- automatic LOD Margin (no more fiddling around to find the sweet spot)
- 4 LOD levels
- IOC Zones

First 2 should be submitted in the next couple of weeks. Oh, and of course some more code refactoring/refining as well!

 

Hi,

Does it work with SimpleLOD and/or AutomaticLOD?

Rod

 

Hello Rod,
thank you for your interest in InstantOC!
I haven't tested it with this 2 systems, so I'm unsure.
Both seem to be able to generate LOD levels from high-res meshes, so in theory it should be possible to use this LOD levels with InstantOC's LOD system. As of using them directly also to manage the LOD level to render, this could be tricky.
One LOD system that works pretty well with InstantOC is QuickLod, thanks to the efforts of @chillersanim

PS: just realized you are the same Rod from the email I responded to

 

Hello there,
I would like you to try this beta demo of InstantOC 3, which features a new powerful optimization based on the Unity Culling Group API, it will drastically reduce the rather annoying "popping effect" of distant/small/sparse non-moving objects, and enhance the overall perceived quality specially when using low Ray Samples values (for instance on CPU-constrained platforms like WebGL and Mobile).
Enable the HUD by pressing "H" and play with the "Samples" and the "Culling Group API optimization" values.
When the latter is enabled you can get pretty decent results even with as less as 10 Ray Samples!!!

Other useful features of the upcoming (free) update are:
- automatic "Lod Margin" (manually overrideable)
- more freedom in setting up your Game Object hierarchy (more then 2 level childs)

 

Hy there,
just published InstantOC 3.0.0 on the Asset Store, if you installed Unity 5.3.4 you will be notified of the update as soon as it goes live.
I'll make a blog-post with some more details about this release and the new "Culling Group API" optimization for static objects.

 

btw, if you published some project powered by InstantOC, I would really love to hear about it!

 

@frenchfaso
Im assuming you are using bounding spheres with the culling groups api, how are you handling different object sizes ?

 

I get a bounding-box of the IOC object (can have one or more game-objects) and then create a bounding-sphere with center = bounds.center and radius = bounds.extents.magnitude.

 

Hello there,
I finally published a post with some more technical details on the new features in InstantOC 3.0.0.
Oh, and it's live on the Asset Store

 

This sounds really nice! I enjoyed using the webdemo, which was impressive. Looking forward to popping it in a build before long.

 

just bought it after having a look on it for a very long time

the only problem i have with it
that it does not work fully with opsives third person controller

if I add the occam to the camera

it bounces back and forth from the anchorpoint of the camera to the model


any ideas?

 

Thank you for your interest in InstantOC and your purchase!
Would you mind sending me a basic scene that exposes the issue, with just the 3d person camera and InstantOC, so that I can test it? (perhaps via dropbox, onedrive, etc..)

 

No Problem, tomorrow

 

so finally came round to send you an email
dropbox link is included

 

Hello Arganth,
thanks, I'll do some tests and report back.

 

Hello Arganth,
to let InstantOC play nicely with the Obsive Third Person Character Controller, please try the following:

• create a new layer for the camera
• put the camera on this layer
• in the "Camera Controller" script, under "Look Options" --> "Obstruction Ignore", select the newly created layer

This should fix the issue, let me know if all goes well

 

will try it soon

 

woah you fixed all of my problems
woah great

thx so much

this fixed the "bobbing" issue

the one with the ray fov
fixed the error messages popping up

 

Hi,

I am trying to get this asset working in my test scene. I have followed the tutorial video but it seems to be missing a few of the parameters such as tags in the IOCcam script. Right now there are certain objects that are hiding but it is not performing properly because certain objects are hidden that are not occluded while others are popping in and out continuously.

In addition to that, I was wondering if there is a way around the requirement to assign a specific layer to all IOC objects. I am using layers in my project for other purposes (lighting) so this would make implementation much more difficult.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mac

 

Hello Mac,
thank you for your purchase, I replied to your email
please check the following:

• use colliders (mesh or compound) that resemble the shape of the object rather precisely to obtain predictable results
  
• either add manually the IOClod script to objects you want to be managed by InstantOC or use the TAG system
• in the IOCcam inspector, as "Layer mask" you can choose 1 or more layers, you no longer are constrained to 1 layer only

Let me know if this helps.

 

Is it possible to have SpeedTrees show billboards by default and let InstantOC handle the LOD switching?

 

Hello @ThomasBrix
thank you for your interest in InstantOC, I'll have to do some tests and report back.

 

Can I use this asset with CardBoard SDK?
I mean, does it support two(or more) cameras at the same time?

I'm having trouble with setting dynamic occluder setting with native unity oc,
Hope this asset save my project!

 

Hello @Iocus84
thank you for your interest in InstantOC!
Yes, you can use it for VR (every VR sdk). You just need to attach it to only one camera (left or right eye is up to you).
InstantOC does support dynamic (moving) occluders, and also procedural content (meshes generated and/or loaded at runtime).

 

Hello,

A quick question - any chance to use InstantOC combined with additive scene loading?

 

Instant OC was designed to work with dynamic environments, and that includes additive scenes. It gives you a lot of flexibility, it's easy to set up, and it's very fast.

 

Hello @Jog
thank you for your interest, as @hopeful kindly explained, InstantOC is very suitable for dynamic and/or procedural content, like additively loaded scenes.

 

Hello, first of all thank you for this great piece of software.
Now, the problem: I have added IO Ccam to the camera, I have put all the blocks that should be occluders on a layer called BLOCKS, and I have added this layer in the IO Ccam component.
It doesn't work.
To test it, I have simply changed the shader of the blocks into one transparent, and I see the whole scene gets rendered continuously.
The only reason that comes to my mind is that the script takes into account the fact that the shader is transparent, thus letting it draw all, otherwise I can't understand why it's not working.

 

Hello @megmaltese
thank you for your kind words! I'm glad you like it!
Sorry for the delay, a couple of questions:
- do the blocks have colldiers
- do the blocks have the IOClod script attached OR are they tagged with an InstantOC managed tag?

PS: InstantOC uses colliders to "sense" objects, transparent shaders do not affect this behavior
PS2: you can though set transparent objects as "occludees", in order to let InstantOC "see" through them

 

For what I understood, it was enough to put the objects in a layer managed by IOC, isn't it like that?
And yes, of course the blocks have colliders, all of them, and they are not triggers.

What is the best performance? Add a tag to the objects or put the script on them?

 

InstantOC needs you also to either attach the IOClod script or assign TAGs to the objects you want to be managed by it.
There are no performance differences between these two approaches.
As for optimization, If you don't need full collision detection, you can set the colliders as triggers only, InstantOC works either way.

 

OK thank you, so I'll also add tags on the objects

 

OK got it working. However, I tried to use a button to activate and deactivate the component, but it seems there's some problem in deactivating it: it keeps culling off the objects that go out of the camera scope, and it doesn't reactivate them.
The only way to test performance is to make two builds: one with IO active and one with IO inactive.
Is there a way to do it with a button at runtime?

 

Excellent!
Just drop the Prefab called "IOChud" in your scene, then toggle InstantOC on/off by pressing "i" on the keyboard or touching/clicking the InstantOC icon on the top-right corner of the screen.

 

Thank you very much, dude!

 

Hi - Not sure which version of IOC I'm using. I have a problem with probes because they block the raycasts to the IOClods. If I make the probes too large then the IOClods just stay invisible. Too small and the light goes on and off. Is this a problem you have looked at?

 

Hello @The_Mean_Fiddler
normally it is just a matter of finding the "sweet spot" between probe's radius and probes count, but when this is tricky, you can add and place probes manually.
Would you mind sharing with me some screenshots, so that I can perhaps give you some more specific advice?

 

Thanks but I fixed it. I made my probes very very small and saved all their positions. Then every 5 frames I directed some raycaster rays straight at them to see if they were visible. It works perfectly. Placing them manually was a great help. If they are placed randomly they often end up bunched together. I can send you the code if you wish.