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

@Flurgle Thanks for replying. Yes, I did. I followed the instructions in the PDF.

 

This is a semi-rhetorical question, but is it really the case that the system falls back to Unity default shadows when the custom shader is not set in the graphics settings? I'm toggling back and forth between NGSS and default shadows and I'm just blown away.

Even with No Cascades, NGSS looks better than Unity default shadows with four cascades.

 

@canek
iOS directional shadows got fixed in v1.3. I'll start replying back very soon to pre-release users, we fixing our email server right now or just wait few days more till it hit the store (already submitted).

 

@buttmatrix
Hi,
Yes it was done on purpose so people can compare between default shadows and NGSS shadows without the need to do anything else. Also for very low end devices, you can still switch back at runtime to default shadows if you want. Thought, not the case with Point Light shadows as both Hard and Soft mode provides two filters (PCF and PCSS).
With version 2.0 you will have more than two shadow filters (4 modes: Hard, PCF, PCSS and RayTraced).
Regards,

 

Hi, I've been sending you messges with request for the new version but you're not responding. What's wrong?

 

I am interested with this asset. But I was wondering if this asset can be used with the shadow that is casted by the transparent polygons. At the moment, the unity default one just dithers the shadow with patterns to make it look like some light is passing through , but this honestly is very ugly.

Also does it work with the deferred path lighting?

 

@Kolyasisan
Hey,
We are solving an issue with our email server, some of the emails you sent probably never reached destination. :\
For v1.3 would be better to wait few day mores till the update hit the store.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

Hi,
Shadows from semi-transparent materials are natively supported by NGSS and they will naturally look a bit better. This is done with the shadow collector pass (not really inside NGSS), you will write to light depth the pixels you believe occlude enough light to cast shadows.
PS: NGSS works anywhere default Unity shadows works (including all supported platforms Unity already supports).

 

Hi, I sent an email but didn't get any response. Do we have any updates related to the 1.3 version? It would be great to see how it works on android/iOS platforms becouse for now version 1.1 is not working on mobile platforms.

 

@tatoforever Will contact shadows work in Forward? I haven't seen any indication otherwise, but the only other contact shadows asset I've seen is deferred only.

Also, there was mention of Forward+ rendering for v2.0. Are there any details regarding that implementation at this time?

 

Ok, here is my piece after experimenting the asset in various platforms excluding mobiles.

PC - Performance difference is great and it doesn't take much from the gpu running on GTX 660 so no brainer here.
PS4 - Performance hit is a lot more than PC. If the game doesn't require 60fps, this asset can possibly used on selective cases.
XboxOne - I will report this later.

 

@castor76
Upcoming version 1.4 will provide various quality/visual sets. It should allow you to selectively get what you need depending on your target platform.

 

@buttmatrix
Yes, contact shadows works with Forward and it's basically free as Directional shadows requires depth.
[EDIT] Also it works on Editor scene, you don't have to hit play to preview it. Setup is as simple as drag the component to the camera.

 

Folks,
We got everything back, I've already started replying emails with v1.3 package. If you haven't yet emailed us about v1.3, it's a good time to do it. If you've already emailed us, stay there, you should receive an email from us in the coming minutes.
If you don't get any email in the coming two hour from us it means your pre-release request got lost with our Email server crash last week. But it's ok, just write support again with your invoice number.
Regards,

 

Close up details of NGSS Contact Shadows:

 

Do they work in single pass VR, do you know?

 

I still have a lot of experimenting to do, but my first reaction to v1.3 is that this is a game changer. Excellent work @tatoforever

 

How can I get access to the early 1.3 build?

 

email support (see asset store home page link)

 

One question, will this work with my weapon model? Rendering by single camera, deferred mode, cast shadows off.

 

Yes, it works with anything that writes to depth, Forward or Deferred and any platform that supports SM3. You however need to enable shadows on your light, otherwise it wont work.
Regards,

 

TBH, I haven't tried yet with v1.3, I'll report about it asap.

 

Email support AT psychozinteractive DOT com with your invoice number and we'll provide v1.3.
Regards,

 

What technique was implemented to achieve the contact shadows, and are their plans to implement additional methods to adjust penumbra size / fade?

 

Yes, technique is similar to Unreal Engine one plus you can tweak 4 options: shadow softness, shadow distance, ray width and ray traces (samplers per fragment). Default options should give you correct results but you can tweak it to your needs. Works in Editor View and works with Deferred and Forward rendering paths.

 

Excellent! Just to be clear, I was referring to methods like reverse zdepth, increase shadowmap size, etc., or is this already occurring under the hood in NGSS?

 

Folks,
Seems like Unity overrides any custom directional shadows on mobile platforms if Forward rendering path is set. I'm hacking through the rendering files to see if I can find a workaround while I check with Unity devs about that issue.

 

This is already being taken care of in all shadowing techniques provided by NGSS.
Btw, NGSS re-uses Unity native shadow & depth textures without duplicating or creating any extra texture.

 

Here's a funny looking bug with the contact shadows. Unity 5.6, Windows 10.

The scene view seems to be using the game camera's contact shadows while the game is playing.


When the game isn't playing then the directional light doesn't show at all in the scene view. Or perhaps the entire scene is actually covered in shadow so it looks like it's been turned off?

Doesn't seem to be caused by any other components on my camera or light. Forward/Deferred both look the same.

 

@Teh_Lemon
Hi,
Blind shot, did you attached the ContactShadow component to your main camera? If you attach it to another gameObject you will have such results. It have to be attached to your main camera so properties are copied into SceneView camera (to properly work in Editor).
If by any means you still have this gitch, edit the ContactShadows file and comment the line above ExecuteInEditMode while we look at the problem and would be nice if you can send us a small repro projet but try first the suggestion I've made.
Regards,

 

I manage several different projects in Unity. Reading that this asset needs a modification of the Unity installation, if I only wish to test Next Gen Shadows on one project, will these modifications still affect my other projects?

Also, any ETA on the scriptable rendering pipeline implementation for 2017.1 which I'm guessing won't need any modifications?

 

Here's a pic of Brides Of Vampira using using the latest NGSS - no contact shadows

1.31 looks really good, the only downside I noticed was that the contact shadows are pretty slow, with out contact shadows my scenes run at 100 fps, with contact shadows on they run at 60 and on a close character shot like the one below it drops to 20 fps, that's with the default settings tho 64 samples and it could be something to do with my project

Its impossible to go back to stock shadows after using NGSS

 

@punk,
Reduce the contact shadow distance and samplers. See how it goes.

 

Hi,
For Point and Spot lights shadows yes cause you are modifying source install (CGInclude) files. But you can always switch back to your default point/spot shadows as it's a simple two steps setup.

 

Do the contact shadows only work with directional lights right now? I couldn't see any effect with point lights after adding the script to my main camera

 

For now only directional lights yes, NGSS v2 will support all lights.

 

still quite a hit, I'm using unity's post processing stack, Ambient Occlusion/SSR/Motion Blur/Bloom/etc and enabling the contact shadows takes up more juice than the entire stack, I'm assuming it's not that expensive an effect and you don't notice that on your machine? I don't really need it at the moment, so I'll just leave it off for now - just seems odd

 

@punk,
Have you triend disabling other effects and leave the ContactShadows alone, see if you are GPU bound on it?

 

If disable every other effect and just have contact shadows on I get about 70fps and i'm not GPU bound, contact shadows off and everything else on I get over 100fps

I am GPU bound if I have both on, I've got a 980ti, is it quite GPU intensive? Tommorow I'll do some better tests and some profiling

 

It's a great product anyway I'm probably just throwing to much at the GPU

 

You should not have such hit, looks like a bug. I'm investigating.
[EDIT]
Got it fixed, posting the fix right now.

 

User @punk discovered a small issue when the camera is really close to surfaces casting contact shadows. Found the issue and fixed it, here's the solution.
On NGSS_ContactShadows.shader, at the end of line 92 you, will see 0.1); Simply add 0.1 to 0.1 like so:
0.1 + 0.1
This simply add a small offset (0.1) to avoid having too much samplers on surfaces close to camera near plane.
PS: You don't have to redo setup in order to have the fix, just add the fix and get back to Editor. I'm going to reply everyone who sent an email for v1.3 with the new version fixed.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

Hi thanks for the reply. I've emailed you the repro project.

Regarding commenting out the lines:
Commenting out [ImageEffectAllowedInSceneView] does nothing.

Commenting out [ExecuteInEditMode()] fixes the light not showing in scene view when the game is not playing.
While the game is playing the bug is still present.

 

@Teh_Lemon
This is strange, just opened your provided repro-project and there was no issue, SceneView:

GameView:

I'll keep looking at see if I can trigger it.

 

I booted up an old backup of Unity 5.5 and updated my drivers while I'm at it (Nvidia 1070).
Again, new empty project, imported NGSS and opened your grass showcase scene. Bug is present here too.
Strange indeed.

 

@Teh_Lemon
That could be the problem (Unity 5.5). Have you tried with Unity5.6?

 

Yes. My main project is in 5.60f3.

 

Folks,
Found a small typo on Documentation for Mac install of UnityShadowsLibrary.cginc:
The correct path is: /Applications/Unity/Unity.app/Contents/CGIncludes/
That's where you have to drop NGSS UnityShadowsLibrary.cginc file.
Fixing the documentation to reflect that change.

 

For now comment the line [ImageEffectAllowedInSceneView] at the top of the class name till I found a way to repro it, till now I was unable to re-pro it on 5.6f3.

 

That 1.3.2 fix you sent through fixed the performance issues, barely any impact at all now, I tested it with single pass VR, currently not working, but great work as usual