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

Hey thanks for the continued development! I posted two ideas for shadows in the vanilla unity thread a while ago. I know they aren't straigthforward at all but wanted to mention them here too

 

Wait, what? Does this mean you're not working on a URP version after all? Or are you saying you'll have to write a custom version of URP to support NGSS?

 

Cannot revert my project to standard shadows. Carefully following instructions, but without results. However, a clean new test project rolls back from NGSS without any troubles. Point the way, please

 

I think what he is saying is that he will not support general SRP from which URP/HDRP are derived from, but he plans to support URP.

 

Reading that back again now, I think he's saying that it'll be a modification that can be applied to either URP or HDRP -- but any custom SRP would be up to the user to implement.

 

I cannot make the build because of this:



I also have these:



But I am not sure they are related to NGSS2... though I didn't have them until today, when I installed the addon.

Edit: SOLVED.
Well this actually solved by itself, I just tried closing and reopening Unity and it worked.

 

What Radivarig said, both URP and HDRP implementations are going to be custom modifications of those renderers but custom SRPs are up to the user to implement.
Also please head to my discord channel where you can find me any time of the day 7/7. I don't browse the forums much these days.

 

I am having a problem in DEFERRED rendering.
Everything is ok in forward, but deferred gives back standard shadows.

 

Are you using custom shaders that provides their own libraries? Vegetation Engine and UberShader does provide their own custom unity shadows libraries if I remember well. There might be other frameworks that could modify/provide their own custom core rendering files.
If not, make sure you installed all the libraries correctly and you are using StableFit projection (Quality Settings panel) instead of CloseFit.

 

AFAIK nothing I installed should be "critical", apart NGSS2.
I don't own any of those 2 package you mentioned.

What I have installed is:

• Amplify Occlusion (for what I see, there was no library touched, it's built-in pipeline)
• FastMobileBloom (just a camera shader, and if I deactivate it, things don't change)

Tried to disable both of them in Deferred but didn't solve.

Then I have the following but I don't think they would ever touch the rendering engine:

• Rainbow Folders 2
• Control Freak 2
• Monkey Commander
• Playmaker
• EasyRoads3D (again nothing that has anything to do with rendering, I don't even use their shaders)

I am NOT using Adaptive Performance, I am NOT using Cascade Shadows, because I am developing for Android, I look for maximum performance.

Maybe something in the Quality Settings?
I post the screenshot.

 

If you want to make sure cascades are entierly disabled, look for Cascaded Shadows in the Graphics Settins Hardware Tiers 1,2 and 3. From memory is disabled by default on mobile but double check it just in case.
What shader version are you targetting? Needs at least SM3.0 (ES3.0 at min).
Are you using the latest version of NGSS?
Lastly, if you are sure libraries are installed but you still see no shadows, head to my discord so we can live check it tomorrow.

 

Hello!

Bought the asset, been eyeing this one for a while. Made a test scene full of point lights and unique meshes before installing the asset and got around 168fps with standard lights.
Installed the asset and got around 122fps.
Then I keep getting this error
Restarting Unity fixes it once, then I try to build it and this keeps showing up. Regretting my purchase, anything I can do to actually have better performance and get rid of this error?

Settings on local lights and directional are all either on default values or the recommended for desktop/VR (I'm not on VR, just trying to get more performance while looking better than Unity).

With: NGSS


Without:



Thank you.

 

It's difficult to get better graphic with better performance. On an ideal world you'll get slightly better graphics with minimal performance impact. Default settings will give you better graphics with minor performance impact. You can disable the denoiser, and the sampling amount for more performance with slightly better shadows quality.
As for the error, seems to be Unity serializing the Icon of NGSS components. You can delete the icon and re-import it. It should solve the issue.

 

I understand it's difficult but it's literally what you advertise on the store page.
"The next iteration of the smoothest and fastest dynamic soft-shadows solution for Unity is here. Easier to integrate, faster to render, prettier than previous versions!"

"NGSS uses the least amount of sampling to filter out shadows while skipping fully lit or fully shadowed areas making it one of the fastest solution on the market for realistic penumbra shadows."

But okay I get it, we don't live in an ideal world, the bottom line is this performs worse but looks better?

 

Please remind me exactly where it says it's faster than Unity shadows on the store page?
I would like to offer you a full refund if that makes you happy.

 

I keep getting this error that stops the build process:



How can I remove the marking HideFlags.DontSave?

 

Just remove the icon from the NGSS ressources folder. Not sure why Unity wants to include a component image in a build. New Editor bug.

 

Yes I have no use for this. I clearly misunderstood everything you wrote on the asset page

 

Really I think you should be emailing the creator for a Refund rather than bothering him on the forums. If you are buying an asset, you should thoroughly Read the Description, Watch any related Documentation or Trailer videos, and be aware of what you're buying before you do. I mean there's been times when I've requested a refund because the advertised Asset was NOTHING like it sounded like from the Description, had zero support, and was full of bugs, So yeah i got my money back!
But in this case, that just isn't the case.. The description is clear, the Asset is obvious from its title.. And to tell you the truth, He could just not issue you a refund and it wouldn't be scamming or against Unity Policies, since you were aware of what you were buying, you were never scammed or talked into buying it, You bought it on your own account with your own Money.
Also it's clear that the description says "The next iteration of the smoothest and fastest dynamic soft-shadows solution for Unity is here." Not, "Is faster and smoother than built-in and Any Unity soft-shadows", it's just more performant and better looking than most other lighting solutions in the store.

 

Try lowering the quality: the shadows still look GREAT when compared to Unity's, and they will have the same performance or very similar.

 

Hey genius, I wasn't even the one to bring up a refund. Since he offered it I will gladly accept it because I read this store description "...to skyrocket your projects shadows quality to cinematic CGI levels without any performance drawback, real time!" but there is performance drawback. If you have more to say PM me and don't derail the thread thanks.

 

Hey NGSS dev, potential buyer here. I don't have much lighting/shader experience, so my question might sound ignorant, but I've got a shader that only supports shadows for directional lighting, so if I were to use your asset would it still work, and could it allow usage of shadows for point lights?

Also, I somewhat agree with @EpicMcDude issue about how the asset represents performance. So can I get clarification on that? My situation right now is I'm developing for mobile (Android and iOS) and I'm just looking for easy ways to make it a little nicer to look at without having to worry about performance impact. Is that something the asset can address?

Sorry, last question: I've got this issue where, long story short, the scale of my objects are quite small (humanoid character is about 0.5 unit) and I don't have the time to address it. Would that have an impact on if/how I can use the asset? (Just to clarify the whole scene is essentially in small scale -- i.e. I don't have large objects, along with very small objects.)

Thanks

 

You can set the shadow blur extension so you shouldn't have any problem, if I understand your concern correctly.
That ball is 1 unit in size, shadows maximum blur (3):


Shadow blur 2:

Shadow blur 1:

Shadow blur 0:

All the screenshots have been taken at lowest settings:

 

Awesome! Thanks for the screenshots!

 

Hello @tatoforever
i have been using your screen space frustum shadows a lot, i like it a lot. has become one of my improtant go-to basics. now i just added it a prototype (i am building some content for my game, and do this in a separate project). and the NGSS frustum shadow is not visible. i feel dumb, as it always just worked out of the box. now i must be having some misconfiguration in the project...

unity 2022.3.3f1
dx11 on windows
nvidia rtx 2070

i believe i have the project configured as deferred
if i open your ShowcaseSceneFrustumShadows i see no (SS) shadows.
same if i add the C# script to my camera in other scene(s).
none of the settings make anything visible.

i was playing with the unity (cascaded) shadow settings ... so perhaps i configured something there that affects the SS frustrum shadow?

----

it is a pitty that your documentaton.pdf does not contain a single word about the frustum shadows

i still think it is a nice feature for your package.
1. NGSS shadows with nice fadeout, high quality (if one knows in which kind of scenes it worsk well). but its a bit slower than unity default.
2. SS frustum shadows with a imperfect look (when it comes to shadows), but for any open world like view distance its actually a great performance safer (but the quality is acceptably screen space okayish).

to me these two complement each other and many people complaining about shadow performance - especialy if you add 10 point lights and shadow a few million triangles in range, then the screen spaced solution would surprise people how fast it can be (when you set normal shadow to very short).

 

Hi,
Thanks for the kind words. I have big plans for a new screen space shadows (better and faster) in NGSS 3.
For the frustum shadows not being visible. Try creating a new project and see if they are visible (hit play and stop sometimes it needs that). If you see frustum shadows in the new project but no in your other one, make sure you are not overriding the shadows files with some other asset and also make sure NGSS libraries are installed correctly (with the NGSS Libraries tool).
Lastly, head to my discord if you need real-time support.
Cheers,

 

Not in a hurry, so i will ask here - maybe for the benefit of someone else - I havent installed anything via your Setup "tool", as i only want to use the frustum shadow. is that correct, or should i install the Directional Libraries? i thought these are all for the "penumbra" soft shadows?

looking forward to have a new NGSS3 frustum shadow to play with - and benefit from. wishing you success!

 

@sirleto,
The directional library still required to be installed by the frustum shadows in order to sample the shadows internally by the renderer.
PS: NGSS3 will have a complete new Frustum shadows (took inspiration from Days Gone's screen space shadows). Basically, way cheaper to render and way prettier that before but applied to the whole Frustum view!

 

Will it support the universally despised render pipeline tho

 

Yes.

 

as long as you still support production pipeline ... erhm ... built-in pipeline ;-) i am truly happy for that feature!
if you need some beta tester (happy to purchase it early, too) sign me up ;-)

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installation: i only need to overwrite AutoLight.cginc from your "Libraries" folder or something else?

the installation process fails, but the window closes very fast so that i cant see the error.

 

Hi all, I know author doesn't promise it would work on mobile but just wondering if anyone here used the asset in their ios or android game.

I would love to see some comments and screenshots from your mobile game (if possible)

Thanks

 

Numerous games used NGSS for mobile titles. However if you want to improve the look of shadows and render them faster than default shadows, is going to be hard, specially on low end mobile devices.
I always offer full refund if you are not satisfied with your purchase.

 

Sorry for asking you this but... would it be possible with very little work from your side to reduce the resolution of the shadows to half or even 1/4?

 

Yes,
It's possible, use this API on lights you want to tweak their resolution:
https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Light-shadowCustomResolution.html

 

Correct me if I mistake, but this is the shadows resolution, not the render resolution.
I am talking here to reduce the render resolution of the shadows on screen, not reduce the resolution of the shadows themselves. Is that possible?

 

Are you referring to the directional light screen space shadows resolution? You can't change the screen space shadows resolution with a single script but you can intercept it with a command buffer and copy it into a downscaled rendertarget. That however can lead to shadows aliasing and/or shadows leaking since the screen rendertarget color and the screen shadows texel size won't match anymore. On top of that you are adding additional cost since the initial shadows got rendered and filtered at that stage.

 

Just wanted to stop by and say thanks to the developer @tatoforever We made this scene using NGSS 2

 

@tatoforever how is the port of Forgotten Memories going? I REALLY want to play it!

 

I see.
But I've seen that some particle effects or smoke etc. use this technique, so I thought it could be possible also for shadows.
This could give some gain especially for VR, as the render resolution is high, and halving the shadow rendering resolution could give some edge maybe, I'm not a professional so it might not give any gain at all, you surely know better than me.

 

How are you doing dear friend? Always a pleasure seeing those beautiful vistas rendered with NGSS!

 

We are almost done with Remastered version of our game (Remake is on hold till end of the year).
But we are also working on a new unannounced title, within the same universe!

 

I see what you mean, for particles in BIRP, people use a secondary camera with a smaller resolution and only render depth. There's a way to capture your current camera depth buffer in forward path without having to re-render your scene twice but yeah requires a bit of graphics knowledge.
For screen space shadows, there's no way to change resolution as it's tied to the camera resolution and it's how it was designed in BIRP. Again for obvious reasons, can introduce light leaking/aliasing if the full screen filter has a different resolution than the camera. And having a secondary camera render it won't work as the screen space shadows only works for the first camera.

 

I see, thank you for your time, man!

 

Doing great dude, how are things on you side? Keep doing the great job

 

In case you didn't noticed a minor update with nice fixes landed on the asset store today.
Features and Changes (v2.4.2.1):

• Fixes unwanted artifacts with directional shadows caused by some variants
• Cascades blending variant is now disabled by default (for performance reasons)
• Removed icons from NGSS components (causes issues with Unity 2021+ versions when building)

There's also an additional hidden fix about shadowmap resolution for directional light when set to FromQualitySettings that wasn't mentioned but it got sneak in that same update.

 

is there NGSS coming to URP anytime soon? shadows are awful

 

We are almost done finishing a remaster version of our game. When we are done, I'll resume URP port of NGSS.

 

New NGSS minor update available.
Features and Changes (v2.4.2.2):
- Fixed an issue with directional light resolution not being restored to Quality Settings after manually setting it through the Directional component

 

These are some shots from our game Project Nightmares Multiplayer edition.(NGSS 2)