Introducing Amplify Texture - Massive Virtual Texturing for Unity Pro

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Dear customers and enthusiasts,

We hope our technology has Amplified your potential.

As you know Insidious Technologies, makers of the leading technology for virtual texturing in unity, Color3 and EasyFlow, is now Amplify Creations.

We are proud to announce that our new website is online Amplify.pt, check it out and see what can be achieved with our technology.

Be sure to explore our showcase, we have some awesome Amplified projects to show you,among them you will find Simulations from NextSpace, Intelligent Animation, Iketube and videogames like Hardware-Shipbreakers from Blackbird Interactive or Red Frame from Basenji Games.

Amplify Texture Overview​

We have some exciting announcements.

Amplify Texture 2 is coming, we would like to invite you all to take advantage of our early adopter promotion.​

Amplify Texture 2 will build upon the groundbreaking innovations introduced in Amplify Virtual Texturing, to bring the next step of hardware-assisted future-proof massive texturing technology to the tip of your fingers, while taking full advantage of improvements introduced since Unity 4. Whether you’re importing large-scale Satellite imagery, generating giant procedural terrains on World Machine, or painting high-resolution worlds and characters on MARI and MODO, this product will integrate seamlessly in your pipeline and help bring your creation to life.

• Drag drop integration, no coding required
• Multiple virtual textures up to 2M x 2M, or 4 Terapixel
• New real-time WYSIWYG editing mode with improved workflow
• New high-compression, high-performance texture compression
• Spherical page detection system, for fast view rotations
• Light-map and Displacement-map support
• Static batching support
• Unity Terrain support
• Anisotropic filtering
• High dynamic range (HDR) texture support
• World Machine, MARI and MODO integration
• Oculus Rift/VR support
• Hardware sparse texturing support
• Mobile support
• Comprehensive 3rd party plugin compatibility
• Baked Substance support

Pre-order now:
* Save 20% over launch price

* Includes Amplify Texture 1.5 License

* Early access to development builds

* Your chance to help shape this product

On Source Licensing options you also get 20% off, join us and help us shape the future of Amplify Texture 2.​

I would also like to remind all of our users that we are looking forward to your work submission, we would love to feature your work, get in touch.

Post here: Showcase Thread

Go to our website Amplify.pt and try the latest version of Amplify Texture, the leading solution for virtual texturing in unity.

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Wow I must say this is looking very impressive.

I have a few questions, you mention mobile support, could you give a few more details on how well it performs on iOS and android? How much overhead is added to the CPU and GPU?

Also how does using the Amplify texture effect batch count?

David.

 

Hello,

Glad you liked it, we are looking into the best possible solution in terms of visual results and performance.

More information on Mobile support in the near future. Consider following us on Twitter, we will keep you posted.

Ricardo

 

Thanks, ddeaco!

We don't have performance stats for mobile yet.

GPU overhead is very acceptable even on low-end hardware like a Intel HD 3000. CPU overhead, however, is also being dramatically improved in Amplify 2 due to native API access finally available in recent versions of Unity.

Currently, batches are doubled due to added tile analysis/detection stage, but the duplicate is not fill-rate limited. This will be improved in Amplify 2, in the same way that atlasing improves batching, so that the overall batch count will actually decrease considerably compared to non-VT.

Please feel free to try Amplify without limitations, only a small watermark in the corner:
http://amplify.pt/download/

 

Looks amazing, but I don't understand why you don't want to put this on Asset Store?

 

We already did and it didn't work out for us. The Asset Store creates a giant wall between developers and customers. Also, for the sales numbers we had, Unity's 30% cut was causing us to fall below the minimum for self-funding.

 

Any chance it will work for 2D games ? So you can use alot of image texure frames ?

 

The enhancements look stunning

If I recall right, it is not possible to get substances or the baked results of substances into the mega texture. Does this still hold for AT2?

 

As long as they are baked, there shouldn't be any problem. If the demand is high we can streamline the workflow.

 

Not at the moment. This is technique mostly suited for 3D.

 

Lightmapping, radiosity baking?

 

Yes. Virtualization of lightmaps is a top priority feature for the initial 2.0 release.

 

+1 for Substances.

Video for v2 looks great. Is there a upgrade path for Amplify Pro 1.x customers?

Thanks.

 

Hello artzfx, contact us directly at info@amplify.pt.

 

Thanks, email sent.

 

Thanks for getting in touch. Any other users out there we were not able to contact?

Drop us an email

 

My question is how well does it work on mobile? Difficult enough making something that looks console quality out there, but wondering how this would help or hurt that. Would it reduce draw calls by removing the need for decals, but at the same time how much burden does it put on the cpu?

 

Initially, it would certainly require a couple of dedicated cores for streaming, which is can be overwhelming on mobile. So this may not be feasible for older generations of mobile tech. Going forward, however, we will also introduce a parallel friendly, and higher quality, variable bit-rate compression format that will allow us to offload some of this overhead to the GPU.

Other than run-time streaming and decompression, our current CPU overhead is mostly caused by asynchronously texture uploads via Unity scripting API. We're expecting dramatic improvements after switching to native DX/GL texture access.

 

i might try it at one point, but for now it wouldnt be financially feasible to make something that can not run on at least a tegra2. I dont mind making things upgradable and lose quality to the lowest dominator (tegra2), but with your system ... its kinda difficult to design for a tegra 2 and up it with more stuff for tegra 3 and 4.

 

The plan is to have Tegra2-level Android devices and iPad3 as our baseline spec. Higher specs will be recommended, however.

Also, we are pleased to announce that, due to high demand, two more features were added to the Amplify Texture 2 roadmap:

• Comprehensive 3rd-party plugin compatibility
• Baked Substance support

We'll be contacting other plugin creators - e.g. visual shader tools, terrain tools, procedural materials, image based lighting, shader libraries, physical shaders - to dramatically improve our third-party support.

 

Brilliant and thank you Diogo!

 

Anyway you can get marmouset skyshop to make shaders that support amplify? Kind of basing my entire lighting around those shaders.

 

Skyshop is definitely on the list of third-party plugins we plan to support.

 

Will Amplify 2 support web builds and asset bundles loaded additively?

 

For now, we won't be able to support web builds due to limitations in the Unity API.

 

Hello!
I downloaded the trial version of Amplify Texture and it seems to work really nice. Looks like all the textures get added to the Amplify texture and the texture memory usage shrinks to a fraction.

I have one question though.

Maybe i misunderstood this part, but isn't it possible to use single textures files bigger than 4096x4096 for one material/mesh with Amplify now? If yes, how do i import such big texture into Unity, since the limit is 4096 in the file settings?

 

Hello,

Currently there are some import limitations, unrelated to our technology. Unity being 32bit will only allow you to import import textures up to 16k x 16k pixels on windows.

With Amplify Texture you can import textures larger than 4k, it will take care of rest in the background and textures will not be reduced.

You can always divide your textures in 16k patches and combine as many as you need.

 

Just to add to what Ricardo said:

Amplify Texture reads textures directly from disk and ignores texture asset import limitations. So, if you have a 8K x 8K PNG texture that shows up limited to 4K x 4K in Unity, Amplify Texture still loads and adds the original 8K x 8K PNG file to the VT instead.

Additionally, after adding the texture to the VT, the texture asset (inside Unity) becomes redundant and ignored during editing, deployment and runtime. This way, you can keep adding textures indefinitely without increasing Unity memory consumption.

I hope this makes sense.

 

question for you, On mobile 2048x2048 is the max... does that mean that amplify could still use a huge 16k x 16k texture on that platform?

 

Hi,

Yes, no limitations imposed. Like the desktop version, patches will be pulled from the massive virtual texture.

In addition to being able to build vast and hyper detailed scenes it will also be a great way to control VRAM usage on mobile devices.

 

Boas Ruben,

Seria injusto para o resto dos utilizadores comentarmos em português por isso vou responder em inglês.

Thank you for the kind words.

Just a quick note for english speakers.

SOULSSAGA complemented the technology and suggested supporting 3rd parties such as Terrain Composer. He also suggested a solution for high-poly geometry similar to Amplify Texture and asked about Beta Testing.

Amplify Texture 2 will introduce comprehensive 3rd-party plugin compatibility, stay tuned for updates via our Website or Twitter.

Beta testing is only available for early adopters.

Amplify Mesh, I quite like that name.

Your work looks great, get in touch via email we would love to explore a possible collaboration. ricardo@amplify.pt

 

HI THERE RICARDO!

Thanks for the Cool Answer !

( I deleted my post / as you quoted ... Just to not highjack it for any most rare lusitanian purposes xD )

- Lol Brazileiros há muitos / portugueses de PorTugal Assim de Gema ...Haha eu só me lembro de ver nos os dois por estes forums e bandas hahaha.. Reaaly !​

ANYWAY I think you Are making a AMAZING JOB.
This product commed a long way with amazing qualities, congratulations !

THANKS FOR THE COLLABORATION OPPORTUNITY ...

- WOrks mine you say ... hum let me see what i have here :​

Well For EXAMPLE !:

Imagine a Whole Massive landscape .. full of details / and full of Meshes above it ...



You sure will be able to lightMapp it with Vray and Max Maya C4d or other Render engine ...

And bring it on AMPLIFY-TEXTURE !

Even at Whole Levels of Detail ! WOuld be able to Be Backed and bring into unity , with VRAY Lightning QUality ! In realtime ...



Now that is something UnHeard !...

Also imagine a Whole Gigantic Million polys mesh !



Made in ZBRUSH ... Painted in MARI ...



All brought into unity !

And yes that is quite what here at the SOULS ProJect We been working at ..

I still think we got somewhere a oldest Amplify Beta Version ...
Also one Customer a year ago Bought it For a project and we worked since then with it here and there ...
Its quite a Older version we use / but Still got its charm ! ​

I can say WIth some experience WIth Amplify Sistems / One can Release itself from Usual Tedious Mapping limit ..

Expecialy if bringing Lightmapping / Baking Capabilities to it ...Is Awsome .

No Longer needing to Make / long Time Consuming WOrkflows for Gigantic Levels ...
- No need to owfull Uv Setups ...
- - One just make a Cubic Uv Map / Automatic Pack Shells Even of Hundred objects Toguether
- - - Export to Mari or Mudbox ... And paint it there a Mega Pixel Image ..

Then Amplify Mega Texture ... Brings RAGE ( the game ) Type of Megatexturing Into your Work ...



​

Yup that is the future ... Today at your hands ..

- If you can SImplify And Amplify ! .. You SHould ! .​

Niçe moto ...


Im kind of Looking Forward to Test some of this Amplify Sistem Conected to Other Unity Extensions ...

For EXample :

- Test it with Terrain COmposer.com / WorldComposer
- Test it with RTP2/3 _ Relief Terrain SHaders ...

- TEst it WIth SKYSHOP ... Expecialy the NExt VErsion with Terrain Shaders Oclusion Map comming next month ...
​

But SERIOUSLY ! DO you Want to Know What i think RICARDO ! ...
- To achieve Custom SHaders Degree at a High Level !

- DO 2 Major Integrations :

- First Integrate it With STRUMPHY SHADER EDITOR ! That now is Open Source ... http://goo.gl/4dM6rB

- Then Make it COmpatible with SHADERFORGE ! ... http://goo.gl/VbRuzT ​

Integrate AMPLIFY as Nodes to those Sistems !
ANd just there you will have All your Custom shaders compatibilitys solved For everyone !

​

THANKS SO MUCH FOR LISTENING ! And Be there WIth all Entusiasm ..

And be so close to the community ...
Even at 2 Am Working hum... lol​

Cheers man.
All the BEst to you and all your Team And products !

ANd remember ! You Rock and We Roll !

​

RUBEN DINIS / SOULS STUDIO

 

Hello Ruben,

Thank you for the kind words of encouragement. It’s an awesome feeling to see people so excited about our technology.

Thank you for your thoughts, we are exploring quite a few possibilities but as you may understand we prefer not to discuss them publicly until we know for sure if we can deliver. We will strive to bring the best improvements possible to all our users.

That is some great art you got there, with a few adjustment I’m sure you could get it running in Unity.

The trial version is fully functional, the only difference from the full version is that it displays a watermark at all times.


Consider joining our early adopters group, it’s a great way to be in touch with us and directly influence the development of Amplify Texture 2.

Amplify Texture 1 users also have a great deal of influence over the next updates.

We do our best to keep in touch with all our customers, our products are shaped by you, the developer.

Let me know if you have any issues using Amplify Texture ricardo@amplify.pt

All the best,

 

Thanks, im not too concerned with vram usage on mobile. I mean most of them have around 512 mb to work with like todays consoles. Though i am interested in being able to break up the look in the scene without having to use decals since overdraw is very painful on mobile. The question there is whats worse of a performance hit, some scattered decals or the processor doing its thing for the virtual texturing?

 

Ricardo meant that using VT you can show more texture detail with less memory.

Unfortunately, virtual texturing does come at a cost of shader runtime performance hit, so it might not be feasible for low-end mobile GPUs. To make up for that, in v2 we'll have several features to improve draw call batching. We might have some numbers starting next month. Our test machines will be a Xperia Tablet S (Tegra3/Android) and iPad3.

 

cant wait! Low end id want to run on tegra 2... with the proper look of the game on tegra 3 and up. Draw call and overdraw usually hurt the most so curious to see how much of a performance hit things are and what would need to be sacrificed to get it working decently on a tegra 2 level.. if thats even possible.

 

From what I've tested on other products (amplify color motion), I really doubt anything below T3 will be able to handle this.

 

Purchased yesterday. Very happy indeed.

This is a must have product.

Excited to see the future developments of this package.

 

Thank you for the support, MoHoe! If you like v1 then you will love v2. It's shaping up very nicely and we should have some news soon.

 

I'm also interested into skyshop compatibility.

If I correctly understood, Amplify texture uses its own custom shaders replacement for unity built-in shaders, and that is also the way skyshop works, so it's why currently they are not compatible.

 

We could easily mix both and get the best of two worlds.

 

Hello Guys, I was thinking to buy Flatiron but was wondering if it would effect the performance of Amplify?

to be more specific. I have some FPS buildings to create with furniture ect. If I use Flatiron I could just render to texture all the rooms furniture, walls, floors ect to one UV and texture map.

Would this effect Amplify in a positive or negative way?

Thank you for your time

 

Go for it, it’s a great tool. It won't have a negative effect on Amplify Texture.

 

Thanks

 

I'm a beginner with unity and I was indeed wondering if it was possible to write some kind of meta-shaders which would allow to override existing shaders in mixing them up for example.

I see that Amplify texture could be useful in the case of multiple uv sets per object, for displaying high-resolution textures, but if i'm correct, unity only allows two uv sets per object, the second one being reserved to lightmapping...

So to have multiple uv sets to work with Amplify texture, one workaround would be to break one's meshes into submeshes which would have each their own uv in unity, is it right ?

That way one could optimize textures loading with Amplify and keep high resolution details per specific region ?

 

Just for clarification, we're talking about very special cases, right? What kind, for example?

In Amplify Texture (AT) you can choose, on each VT, which of the available channels you want to be used as reference for virtualization. In v1, however, you can only use one VT per-scene. This will change in v2, where you'll be able to use multiple VTs per scene, each one can use a different channel. However, you still have the limitation of 1 uv set per VT.

AT doesn't force you to use a specific resolution. You can go ahead and use one 16K x 16K texture for a piece of cutlery and a 64 x 64 for a whole terrain, it's really your choice. AT will maintain the resolution you pick. In the future we might add some optional tools to normalize the texture resolution across all surfaces, based on world scaling or something. You're in complete control of what resolution ends up on the VT.

 

Would you mind specifying what do you mean by channels, in relation with to VTs ? Perhaps I may have not understood really clearly how VTs are working in AT.

For example, in modo or mari (both supported by AT), one can set multiple uv per mesh (multiple uv tiles), which allows to retain the maximal pixel density for displaying multiple high resolution textures on the mesh.

Unity only accepts two sets of uv per mesh (one for color maps, one for lightmaps), so I understand that VTs can also only use one set of uv per mesh because it depends on the core of unity engine. That was my original question: materials use textures, textures are associated with one set of uv (one per mesh), and materials are associated with AT shaders so that all the textures associated with the materials are combined into one unique virtual texture for the whole level (at least in AT1).

So, VTs do not have specific resolutions, it can be changed according to one's needs as long as it has to be a power of two resolution, and AT1 only accepts one VT per scene, whereas in AT2 one can bind different materials to different VTs per scene (but is it unlimited ? Are there use cases limitations ?).

Then, another question I have is: does virtual texturing means that the textures are loaded according to what is effectively on-screen ? (AT only streams textures that are visible on-screen ?).

But in that case, if a mesh is distant, will its virtual texture have less resolution than if the camera makes a close-up of the mesh, that is: is there any kind of dynamic adaptation of the texture according to the distance of the mesh to the camera ? For example, if one has a large view of a landscape, with many objects, or if I have a close-up of the object, those are two different display use-cases, how AT deals with it ?

Thanks for your precisions

 

uv channel = uv set

Are you talking about tiled texture grids? UDIM? If not, can you point me to some reference material or tutorials explaining how this works.

Initially, in AT2, we will support tiling texture grids (e.g. UDIM) from Modo/Mari and Mudbox. A deeper integration with Mari will follow in later versions.

Unity only supports 2 texture coordinate layouts because that's all you should need for real-time. One of the channels, used for diffuse, normal etc.. can have texture space reuse like mirroring, tiling, rotating; the second channel is a completely unfolded, unique layout.

Both UV sets are normalized (0..1), so they are decoupled from resolution or density.

Not exactly, no. Both AT1 and 2 can accept multiple materials. Each material will have its own space allocated in the global VT and the UV set(s) are modified accordingly. The materials can different densities. The UV sets for each material will be packed into a global VT with a maximum size of 512K x 512K (AT1).

Yes, only the pieces of the VT that are visible end up streamed in. The virtual texture is always full resolution on disk. What is loaded when the mesh is far away is a low res version of the portion of the VT that the mesh uses. So what really happens is that AT only stream as close to as many visible pixels as possible; E.g. imagine your mesh using a 16K x 16K texture occupies only an area of 100 x 100 pixels. AT will do its best to stream as close to 100 x 100 texels as possible, from the VT, because streaming and displaying more than that would be a waste.

I hope I'm making sense.

 

Yes, I was indeed refering to "tiled texture grids", or to "multiple uv tiles". I guess UDIM is the mari notation for it . But if unity only supports two texture coordinate layouts, how can AT2 support multiple UV tiles ? Does it mean that all the tiles are normalized to be contained into one uv texture coordinates ?

Because out-of-the box, I don't think unity support multiple uv tiles or UDIM, is it right ?

Otherwise, many thanks for the rest of the explanation, it clears up nicely what are virtual textures, so I will look further to AT2 release.

 

Ahh, great. In that case we're talking about the same thing.

Thats correct. The UVs exported from Mari will be 1..NxM. The absolute part maps to a different texture and the fractional part represents the normalized UV coords for each tile/texture.

That's correct. It could support them, in theory, using specific hardware features. But AT2 will support it on all hardware right off the bat. Plus all the other features. We already have this feature working, we should be releasing a video soon showing our progress.

No problem! We're be happy to clarify anything regarding AT and are always open to suggestions.

Cheers