NVIDIA GameWorks

I saw this post today:

https://developer.nvidia.com/conten...creases-pace-innovation-unreal-engine-4-games

It there a chance that Unity will incorporate this technology into Unity 5.x?

 

Looks fun but where is PS4 and mac support? It's good for windows pc desktop titles. This sort of thing is up to Unity to sort out I think.

 

Wow that's prety cool if Unity have those, sadly i believe everyone hands are full with other task right now :/

 

We did never get APEX so i have doubts we will get any of this.

 

I guess for UE4 having a source code on Github means a lot of people and tech companies can contribute to make it even better. Let's hope that Unity will integrate this technology in future versions.

 

Some of these GameWorks features are quite incredible. I was particularly impressed by Flex after seeing their particle demos

 

What I wanna know is, why is NVIDIA backing Unreal Engine? They are creating custom branches on their source code to implement even more eye candies to the already choke full of candies known as Unreal Engine 4.

Oh right, because Epic let anyone access their SOURCE CODE.

I think UT need to do something about this. They can probably let NVIDIA to have access to their source code for free. Let them port the PhysX, NVIDIA VXGI, NVIDIA Flex, NVIDIA WaveWorks and NVIDIA HBAO+ to Unity. That way, UT don't need to divert resources to port it over to Unity. Its Win-Win.

 

well... someone just needs to take the libraries and make a wrapper for C#.... who's gonna spend the time to do that?

 

been waiting for something like this but in Unity, guess I have to wait another +3 years for it to arrive , or someone can make the port happen like the HBAO+ one?

 

It wouldn't surprise me if this originally started as an engineering side project. Having easy access to a very capable engine's source would allow your engineers to take ideas they suddenly come up with on a whim and prototype them.

 

Maybe one of Unity engineers could chime in to this discussion and ENLIGHTEN us ;-) Is this possible to incorporate this technology in Unity? If yes, when? If no, why?

 

It's only a post effect, not sure why you couldn't do it already as a compute shader? Not saying it wouldn't be a pain in the ass with Unity and difficult to match Nvidia's implementation without some real knowledge. But still it can be done..

VXGI is cool, but I bet it causes some major performance issues and it's hardware limited. I can't see flex being introduced after what happened with Apex, even though I really want Apex.

Waveworks and Hairworks would be awesommme.

 

Hairworks is what I'm impressed with!

 

NFS3000

 

I love to speculate, but remind me to refer to this post, if or whenever this happens:

 

...which already has been ported to Unity by an NVIDIA Developer:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/nvidia-hbao-image-effect-sample-project.296591/

 

It's even worse than that, some of the stuff they mention in that post is presently only nvidia-hardware compatible. I wouldn't want to risk a mistake by confidently stating exactly which bits right now, but off the top of my head I know at least some of the UE4 FleX stuff is currently nvidia-only.

For this and the other platform reasons you mention, this nvidia stuff is not being taken by Epic and placed in the main branch of UE4 at the moment. But certainly it is an example of how open-sourcing their engine gives people more possibilities at times. The FleX stuff in particular interests me and is presently my only reason to try UE4 again in the coming months. I've tried it already and its got bags of potential, but I can't do much with it till they get the fluid rendering sorted, at which point I shall try it again.

As for what its up to Unity to sort out, it's not their fault that Apple had a real thing for OpenCL as opposed to other GPU compute options, and has often been extremely slow to update the version of OpenGL on OS X. These sorts of things really don't help matters, although I'm hoping that both the DirectX and OpenGL urgent response to AMDs Mantle will have some positive side-effects by providing extra impetus for platforms to get with the times and update their graphics and GPU compute stack.

 

Mac's fine as long as you have Nvidia hardware in there, a lot of it appears to be boggo HLSL stuff (Not breaking any EULA stuff there, it's on your main page). I have access to gameworks, so I'll see what's going on..

I keep getting the feeling Unity are up to something though, so I'm a little hesitant to go full in. Waterworks looks VERY nice though.

 

well now... there you go!

have at it

 

Come on UNITY!!! When will you guys be including NVIDIA GameWorks?? It's not like UNITY are going to develop their own core physics system to compete with FLEX tech. WITHOUT NVIDIA GAMEWORKS UNITY IS DEFINITELY SUBSTANDARD.

This is something UNITY will have to do! It's not as simple as getting the SDK from NVIDIA and putting together a package overnight. For one thing even if you have access to NVIDIA gameworks developer network, you do not get the SDK's !!!

GAMEWORKS NEEDED IN UNITY NOW!!!!!!!!!

 

Nvidia got a ton of visual Fx works (hair, face,etc) and some of them can be integrated in UE4, we ,as unity dev, can only envy about that la

 

Hairworks already ported to unity btw, but still kinda wip. . . .

 

The big ISSUE is that using Game Works and you are tied to Nvidia company and users hardware because it is mainly for Nividia 3D cards.

However Epic developpers brings manyt times things that would cost too much to implement using pure physics like Nvidia do. For example you can have thousand of particles keeping a great performance because they use Distance Fields system. https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/unreal-engine-49-released
I doubt Nvidia Flex to run as much particles and as fast as Unreal 4 particles using Distance Fields.

It's like Tress Fx it costs too much power when you can have similar result with lot of polygons and simple physics joints.
Look at last FFXV game demo and character's physic hair.

The idea to be tied to Nvidia and deliver some great effects to Nvidia cards users only or make one inferior version for AMD card users, it is something not motivating me to use Game Works at all.

 

A lot of them can be CPU bound which also can be accelerated via Nvidia GPU's.

If it doesn't have a major impact on performance, why not? There's no reason not to have Apex in Unity, but some things like VXGI (which requires a lot of core engine changes) and is really heavy for anything but GTX 9XX series cards will not see the light of day in UE4 or Unity, of course there is the Nvidia Branch in UE4 but still it's not part of their core components.

 

About GI it is another subject.

But it has an impact and the effects can be more pushed and will look more complex while running faster on Nvidia 3D cards. I mean about smokes,particles , hair and particles with Game Works.

 

If PhysX is CPU-only in Unity then I wouldn't be surprised if all of these would be CPU-only too. If they get added.

 

It's CPU only in Unity but that does not mean it always will be or needs to change. For example GPU particles. What does GPU even mean here? Storing data in textures? Compute?

I guess ultimately what people are asking for are more specific solutions, so IMHO what Unity needs to focus on is empowering us all to easier be able to access the engine to extend it, rather than the actual effect.

Because otherwise all people are doing here is asking Unity to support one specific effect for a narrow set of people who might use it instead of asking Unity to make it possible for any 3rd party to better provide the same level of quality and performance.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't have it's own baseline effects.

So really I would be asking Unity to develop more tools to empower us, and open up the engine more to enable us.

 

GI isn't another subject, as Hippocoder says it'd be better if we can implement certain features and functionality. Even if it is based upon Nvidia's research.. Were not trying to re-invent the wheel here, there's plenty of tech five years old that'd be useful in Unity and plenty of people who know how to do it.

Even if Unity implement certain features, it might not work how you want or be very good. Rather approach it myself..

 

You mean Asset Store, perhaps someone will make some Game Works integration and better than Unity like many times

 

Spot on. Adding this is not really a job for Unity; Unity's job is to allow us to add it, and then we can share it / put it on the asset store. As a bonus, there would be the ability to add many more things than Nvidia-specific options.

 

Or better yet this would allow third parties to create the integration assets themselves. Similar to how some companies are already providing plugins for Unreal 4.

 

Only issue I have with this is where's the line? If you know how to integrate complex middleware into an engine, then there's not a chance on Earth or the Moon you don't understand to make your own engine framework based off other libraries. There's tons of open source engines and frameworks, some even have multi-platform support and advanced rendering features like Paradox..

If you really want features for specific integrations and have the skill, Unity would probably be my last choice. Rather build a framework myself...

 

Where is a link to this NVidia Hair Style thing?

 

Nvidia, reportedly, is working on a DirectCompute implementation besides CUDA and possibly even OpenCL for Flex, if this is happening it should GPU accelerated or what's the point. When Flex is part of Physx SDK 3.4 (seperate solver but interoperable with legacy rigidbody solver) and supports all platforms it could be added in Unity 6 or so like they did with SDK 3.3.
Just give it time
Other Gameworks and HBAO and VXGI are useless and indispensable I think.

 

But it will take years and when you have done it , technology has progressed and you are behind until you work in a team that works all days on it.
Paradox exists from some years already :

And they are far from having a complete 3D engine and tools, really far
While complete enought 3D engine like Unity have a strong base that you can extend for your needs , and still Unity is progressing and improving on their side ( waiting for the new terrain system).

 

If you're a beginner I'm pretty sure it would take years, but it'd also take you years to learn how to integrate middleware. So it's of no real relevance.. Paradox started from scratch, nobody in their sane mind would do that if they're an indie..

Paradox has an Editor, UI system, Shader system, Asset pipeline, Sound, Physics, Animation and Input.. Which is all you really need, everything else is extensible.. Plus it's come a long way since the video you showed.

Again, it pretty much comes down to what type of game you're looking to achieve. But if were talking Nvidia Middleware integration Unity is not the one for you.. There's a number of better options and Paradox is one of many.!

Personally there's nothing in Nvidia Gameworks I must have, so not an issue.

 

The physics are here but the editor lacks lot of things, for example you can't choose a default physic box or capsule in the editor to attribute it to your model. About collision filter you have to choose in a list instead of a grid table like Unity etc .. At least they have a trello now.

I only code the game , not tools or middleware and i don't need Game Works right now.but if Unity would integrate it , this would add more features to Unity for some people.

The main usefull ones i see :
HBAO +
HairWorks
VXGI if it could run on medium hardware with good results

 

HBAO you could do yourself, Hairworks / I've used Apex (PhysX) cloth to some success although yeah it wouldn't be an awful Idea.. VXGI is wayyy too heavy, you can offset certain variable but then it looses it's charm..

AFAIK CryEngine switched to some sort of SVOGI type GI solution.. Problem with SVOGI etc. is it's deeply routed, personally I'd prefer it over Enlighten any day with how it ran in Unity the last time I used it. But it's not mobile friendly so it'll probably never happen.

Given up on Unity being an all around solution for PC / Console a long time ago.

 

Who knows ? i think Unity will make some realtime GI perhaps similar for PC and big consoles.

 

Is this the one you are referring to:?
https://github.com/unity3d-jp/NVIDIAHairWorksIntegration

 

That's the WIP yeah....

 

So Unity Japan is working on it ?

 

Yes, thanks. I searched and found the NVidia site for videos of it. It's better looking hair then I'd ever scene but it does at times look like feathers.

 

it seems that unityJP are mostly RND. Even they have Temporal SSR like the one in UE4 still lacking the roughness feature last time i check.
Also the Deffered Raymarching, Particle RigidBody, GPU particles and batched renderers experiment are pretty cool

 

So what Unity Japan develop will land on Unity official package, that's good.

 

Incase people interested. . .
Link
Link
Link

 

These people are making some great things. I hope they'll get some of their tech stuff on Unity official updates.

 

Hey guys, if any of you want to try hairworks but don't have max or maya I've made an experimental exporter for Blender hair. Details in this thread:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/hairworks-port-for-unity.366634/