[Next-Gen Soft-Shadows 2] Sophisticated dynamic penumbra Shadows for Unity

@sacb0y,
HDRP has decent shadows but NGSS provides more ways to improve the look and quality of shadows while being relatively faster in most cases.

 

Thank you for the Feedback. We tried setting the test sampling to 32 and it removes a lot of the noise, but not all. So if there are some tiny objects in the scene, these noise is always there?

We have copied the following files like mentioned in the documentation: "AutoLight.cginc", "UnityDeferredLibrary.cginc", "UnityShadowLibrary.cginc". When playing around with the denoise values, the noise is not changed, but the shadows get blurred.

Thank you for the tip with the asset for cad files, we will give it a try

 

Hi,
If you rise the SHADOW_SOFTNESS while keeping PCSS_SOFTNESS intact it will spread the blockersearch sampling and create white noise, the problem you are having. What you want to do is reduce SHADOW_SOFTNES and play with PCSS_SOFTNESS (reduce NEAR and rise FAR values).
PS: You can use the libraries setup installer to one click install/uninstall any NGSS library. Look for it in the top TOOLS menu.

 

Ok thanks. Then I will use it only for far distance.

I use SE Screen-Space Shadows plugin too for close distance but when I enable Frustum Shadows it disables SE Screen Space Shadows. Can you please find a way to use both assets? I also use two directional lights

 

@ksam2,
You don't need any other screen space shadows, FrustumShadows can do both (far and close), reduce the Start distance to also get close up detailed shadows.

 

I know but SE screen space shadows looks better for close distance (Specially the faces) I also need FrustumShadows for far distance

 

If you can afford sampling the depth buffer twice ok.

 

Hi @tatoforever I'm a bit late to the game here, is there a description somewhere of the benefits/improvements to NGSS2, compared to the original version?

 

Hi,
- Overall improvements to quality and performance
- Screen space blue noise and dithering algorithms
- Denoiser
- Frustum Shadows (covers both far away shadows and upclose contact shadows)
- One click install/uninstall
- Cloud build support
- Compatible with all libraries that changes Unity internal rendering files

And obviously that comes with real-time support on discord and free custom integration.

 

Blue noise... oh I might have to upgrade just for that alone! Thanks!

 

when support hdrp and urp?

 

Eagerly waiting, hell I'll try a beta if you have it! XD

 

Hey guys,
I still don't know why I don't get notifications when I get messages on the forums. Hence why i prefer discord. :|
SRP is coming later this year early in 2021, I'm currently finishing our game port for consoles and only doing support until we finish the port but please go to my discord, I'm always there for any problem, question or tips you need, even non NGSS related.
Happy Halloween everyone!

 

Disregard this; it turns out openvr (unlike oculus sdk) needs also additional steamvr sdk to works properly.

 

Just finished my latest project, a classical music video called "By the Brook".
Thought I'd share it with everyone. This was developed throughout the pandemic as a form of relaxation.The music and scene were started in February when everything was getting shut down. The music (composed by my wife) was finalized in late September and the scene was finally completed this week.
The goal was to take a few minutes and relax and let all of the world's trouble pass you by and just have a few minutes of peace before you have to get back to reality. I hope you enjoy the escape.

 

@dsilverthorn,
Beautiful and Inspiring! Would you mind also posting the video to our discord Showcase channel?
NGSS Discord: https://discord.gg/JNgZx57x

 

Thank you and we would love to add it to your Discord!

 

Hi @tatoforever, I'm really in need of Cached Shadows. If they work the way that I expect. Does it mean that you can render a shadow map on demand, and then use the same map for several frames, instead of calculating shadows every frame? In that case, please tell me when you think it will be released. Or if I can beta test it somehow. Thanks!

 

@tatoforever
Heyo, recently bought this amazing asset!

Sorry if this has been asked but I'm genuinely curious what NGSS will add on top of what HDRP already provides. I know HDRP provides better shadows then Standard as well as Hard Contact Shadows.

I'm curious if this will be a complete replacement or just build on top of what HDRP has to improve performance. I assume NGSS is faster overall so it'd probably replace it entirely?

 

I just encounter the same problem. Recreating the light solved the problem. Thank you very much.

 

Hello I have a question is Your shadow system more performant than standard unity sshadows? We have esspecially problem with realtime directional light shadows when light is low angle(like sunset) Will Your system help here ?

 

I have encounter the same problem, which got solved by set player settings from 'Fastest' to 'Fantastic'.
Donno why.
Maybe you can start investigate from there.

 

Video is now live!

I hope everyone enjoys it!
Music by Teresa Silverthorn

Thanks to all the Great Devs whose Assets used in this creation:

Editor
Unity 2018
Hierarchy PRO by emx
Playmaker by Hutong Games LLC
Inspector Gadgets Pro by Kybernetik
Easy Scatter by Hedgehog Team

Camera and animal control
Pegasus by Procedural Worlds

Terrain
Landscape Builder 2 by SCSM
Vegetation

Vegetations Studio Pro by Awesome Technologies
Meadow Environment by NatureManufacture
Forest Environment by NatureManufacture
Real Ivy by 3Dynamite

Environment
Aura 2 by Raphael Ernaelsten
Enviro - Sky and Weather by Hendrik Haupt
R.A.M by NatureManufacture
MegaSplat by Jason Booth

AI
Emerald AI 2.0 by Black Horizon Studios
Crux by Black Horizon Studios

Lifeforms
ANIMALS FULL PACK by PROTOFACTOR, INC
Bird Flock Bundle by Unluck Software
Animal pack deluxe v2 by janpec
Horse Animset Pro by Malbers Animations
Animal pack deluxe by janpec
Insect Firefly by Unluck Software
WoodLand Animals Pack by VintageSoft
Flying insects by GTox models

FX
1000+ Fast Post Processing 1K Styles Mobile and PC + LUT Export by emx
Next-Gen Soft-Shadows by Psychose Interactive Inc.
Look Animator by FImpossible Creations
Tail Animator by FImpossible Creations
Spine Animator by FImpossible Creations
CTAA by Lavinda Labs

Props
Magic Mirror Lite by Digital Ruby (Jeff Johnson)
Flooded Grounds by Sandro T

Recorder
Unity Recorder by Unity Technologies

 

Fantastic work!
At 2:00 the horse's feet slide a little bit over the ground.
Really beatiful work

 

Thanks.
Must have been the rain and mud that caused the horse to slip in the mud

 

Any update on URP support?

 

Hi , any plans for webgl platform ?

 

Sup Tato. I saw this video of yours a while back about SDF shadows. Did you make any products with this?

 

Are there any consideration you need to keep in mind when integrating your asset with MapMagic and Enviro Sky?

 

@tatoforever

Hi, are there any issues with using this with VR?

 

None.

 

Hi! Your asset looks fantastic, but I'm waiting for the URP version!
I hope it is gonna come soon

 

is there any speed comparison of this asset on mobile vs the unity default system? i'm looking for the fastest shadows possible since all my work is on mobile

 

New Video coming tomorrow. "Apollo's Dream II" Using tons of assets, as usual.
Hope everyone enjoys it, the scene and music has been in the works for a long time. We are glad we are finally coming to a final product.

Keep an eye on our YouTube for the new video.
https://www.youtube.com/user/silverthorndavid/videos
View attachment 829055

 

Apollo's Dream II is now live!
A ton of work went into this one, I hope everyone will enjoy it.
Creating beauty with Unity for a Virtual Experience with an original soundtrack is a lot of fun and I hope it shows in the video.

NGSS is on all my projects now and everything runs so much smoother!
@tatoforever , you made me an offer to try it, I did, and now I can't live without it! Thank you!!
It is amazing how much proper shadows change a scene.

 

Hello @tatoforever , We're working on a a 2.5D project and it has Time of Day + Weather.
I was thinking since we're 2.5D we should be able to get away with fast shadow calculations.
Any recommendations on NGSS settings for a 2.5D project?

 

Guys,
I have problems with Unity Forums email notifications, if you don't mind to reach me through discord: https://discord.gg/jWEUXYw
I'm on Discord the whole day, and provide real-time support.

 

Hello,

What exactly does NGSS_NO_UPDATE_ON_PLAY do? Does that render the shadows to something internally once, then not actually shadow cast anymore? Meaning, if I have a scene with a bunch of lights and that's turned on, would that effectively bake the lighting at runtime, taking away the performance hit from shadows?

I'm looking to create something to go into schools which use very out-dated hardware. I wanted to bake the lighting, but I realized the shadow maps are simply too big (even a couple of megs for one scene is too big to have classrooms of students all pulling that much bandwidth ... I already deal with this on other projects), and decided I'll need to go with pre-computed realtime GI to keep the file size small, and make sure I don't blow up performance.

Outdoor scenes work fine for me now, I can basically use a single directional light. I'm going to need to figure out how to handle indoor scenes ... if that actually does what I hope it does, then it would solve this. For my use case, everything can be static until the user does X and requires me to re-update the shadowmaps, so that would fit my use-case perfectly.

Now ... are my wishes actually reality?

 

Hi,
No, NGSS_NO_UPDATE_ON_PLAY simply early out the Update call by Unity to update shadowmaps data. The functionality you are looking for is cached shadows which is a planned feature (later this year after NGSS port to SRPs).
For your current situation/setup you can have as many light with shadows as you want, as long as not too many of them are visible at once, lets say maximum of 5-6 visible at any time for school rooms but you can have ~200s of those. Some people have even more than 200 lights with shadows but they are not all visible at once.
Keep in mind that shadowcaching has the downside of requiring twice the amount of GPU memory as it requires two shadowmaps, one for static and one for dynamic (per light). Its a tradeoff, less shadowdraw calls but twice GPU memory usage for shadows.
Cheers,

 

Wow okay, so later this year that will come out? That would be amazing. I really just have one or two rooms in a scene at once, so there won't be a million lights.

I guess I do have a question though: what if there are small candles that have a _really_ small radius. Is that still a limitation to 5 or 6 lights, or you meant with a decent radius? It would just increase fidelity if I could have smaller candles where they would naturally belong (historical stuff, so would aim for logical placement of stuff within the confines of technicals ....). I could still have small lights without shadows, Im just curious .

 

Yes,
If the light is visible and something is being rendered on it, it will count towards your light limits. Small candles usually dont need shadows, so you can put as many as you want. Just make sure you dont abuse them, hardware and ressources aren't infinite!
Cheers,

 

Sounds awesome. I assume this is something like what I read about for HDRP.

I assume this is caching everything, and you can't have static objects cached and dynamic objects still per-frame shadows, right? IE: If we have a static scene + a character thats animating, will the character be able to have shadows updating without breaking the shadow cache, or will we need to have him basically still and just blink / not cast shadows?

Thanks for the info. This is directly influencing how I plan out what Im building now, so I really appreciate it.

 

Static objects will render to the static shadowmaps once. Dynamic objects will render as normal to the shadowmaps (if they are visible to a given light with shadows) and both sampled together when decoding in shaders.

 

Yay!! I was hoping, but I didnt wan't to get my hopes up.

This is a major game changer. I can actually get something that looks halfway decent into schools if you really get us that update. We have stuff launched nationally for ... close to a decade now? And its always about what can run on the school hardware, or not kill their internet (lightmap file size is too big to use for our use-cases even though it would otherwise make the most sense), etc. This will really open up 3d for us.

Thanks so much.

 

That would be a game changer for mobile, Switch and Oculus Quest!
Are you already working on it or is it just an idea?

 

How far along is the URP/HDRP version progress?

 

URP really needs this.

 

Folks,
I don't check Unity forums quite often because user interaction is really slow, I also have problems with getting posts notifications but Im 24/24 7/7 on discord for any rendering question you have. Whenever is NGSS related or not. Discord: https://discord.gg/AXJGzsm

 

Cannot install the library file and display "%1 is not a valid Win32 application".

 

Hi @tatoforever,

Hopefully a simple one to answer.

Does NGSS allow dynamic shadows to be easily cast onto static objects with baked lightmaps?

After working through numerous threads and tutorials, I just can't get it work in Unity...

https://forum.unity.com/threads/baked-spot-light-intensity-shadow-issues.1141525/

Many thanks!