Planets 1.4.1 Meet new PBR shaders, multiple lights, environment. Amplify Shader Editor support!

Hi, I just got back from vacation..

PLEASE tell me more about ASE support

 

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Hey folks,

The next Planets update is version 1.4 and its the biggest so far retouching all majority of its shaders. It's got all new PBR features Unity has to offer, multiple lights, environment support, and can be easily customized inside Amplify Shader Editor.

Amplify Shader Editor is an award-winning node-based shader creation tool inspired by industry leading editors. An open and tightly integrated solution, it provides a familiar and consistent development environment that seamlessly blends with Unity’s UI conventions and Shader use.​

Here's the basics of what's coming in version 1.4

• Custom lighting system will be removed in favor of Unity's lighting
• Multiple shader optimizations and improved performance
• Out of the box shader compatibility across all platforms (SM 3.0+)
• Easy customizable with the Amplify Shader Editor

Now you've seen that, let's start with what's important.

Version 1.4 Release date
1.4 will release to the Unity Asset Store 2018, February's end and to be announced shortly after the package has been submitted to the review team.

Changes in the lighting system
Its a major overhaul which will affect the way the lighting is calculated, accounting for all Unity built-in light sources in the scene with the environment effects and light probes summed up.



There's no additional setup needed, so you can just drag-and-drop the prefab to the scene and it's all set up the same way as any other Standard Unity shader you're familiar with.

Its finally moved away from relying on custom script that sends its position into a shader, thus limiting it to one light source, and more available features it could use.




PBR Specular
Planets are naturally wrapped around Specular work-flow available in Unity Editor, and will require Shader Model 3.0+ hardware to run. The update also makes Planets capable running on high-end mobile devices supporting SM 3.0.

There's still a limitation in Unity Engine that wont let you have a shadow on a transparent object, or at least an alpha that will cancel out the transparency meaning the atmosphere, and also a gas giant ring won't be able to catch any shadows from another planet. Fortunately, the ring has a built in shadow cast by the gas giant, or any other planet its attached to.



You can enable shadows for all the planets in the Amplify Editor, by checking Cast Shadows, Receive Shadow. Scroll down the node inspector, and uncheck Ignore Projector, and Force No Shadow Casting as well.





This is how its looks in the editor with 2 point lights and a directional light source, shadows on, linear color, no image effects.



Amplify Bloom, Post Processing Stack. Here's the image of what it look like with the reflection probe added to the scene in Unity 5.6



If you haven't got Planets yet, here's your $10 Discount
Huge changes across the board, the Planets pack is getting some love in 1.4, and like I mentioned in my earlier post on Unity Forums, that I lowered the price before rolling big update.

Buy Planets for $35 before version 1.4 hits the store: http://u3d.as/aKd​

Thats's all for now. Expect much more as I am in a process of development and more information about 1.4 will be posted soon.

 

DUDE....

 

Will there be Beta available??

We are ready to cut our videos, and I would love to see if we can get this asap

 

Sorry, beta begins shortly after its uploaded, when its all that good for your awesome videos!

 

End of February is too long to wait.

 

I know how you want this, and I dont mind extra testers on my side, although I wont be ruining your experience by sharing a work-in-progress pack now. All I can really do is finish this update and share it with all existing users before it hits the store. Though, the review team is quick on approving updates, so its extra 3-4 days you might save won't make much difference.

 

ok

 

Checking in, how are the changes coming along?

Still on schedule?

 

Aye doing pretty good with all the shaders now in place. This might get a bit earlier than you expecting it

 

Update 1.4 is just being polished off and should land in the next few days.
The forum post has also been updated with the most recent progressions (link)

Your last chance to get $10 discount:
Buy Planets for $35 before version 1.4 hits the store: http://u3d.as/aKd

 

Bump. Planets Update 1.4 is now available in the Unity Asset Store: http://u3d.as/aKd

 

New Planets Update 1.4.1 is now up in the review queue addressing the following:

• Fixed falloff values on triplanar nodes which caused surface textures disappear when upscaling the planet
• UV Offset parameter in the atmosphere shader is now named properly in its inspector
• Minor atmosphere material tweaks

 

I was testing v1.4.1 in a new clean project with Unity 2017.3.1. It seems that using an orthographic projection camera I see similiar issues like here in the past. I will attach a screenshot of the problem. Back then I fixed it by editing the shader files and replacing some value with a magic number that fits my camera setup (rotation x 66.67, y 0 z 0).

Additionally, in the past you told me how to improve performance by editing out functionality I don't need. In my game I have only one directional light (which is static in terms of position, rotation etc) and no point lights. I guess I need planets projecting a shadow on it's ring, but I don't need shadows from other objects on planets. Is there anything that can be done to improve performance in this regard?

 

Thanks for reporting this. Just wondering why its happening in a surface shader, and what may be causing the issue with an atmosphere shifted away from a planet surface. Can I ask you what you did exactly to fix it for the orthographic camera back at the day with the custom shaders?

You can help the performance by disabling all the features of that particular shader in the ASE:



Just play around with check boxes, and recompile.

The ring will remain shadowed no matter what.

So, I'm looking into the orthographic camera issue. Anything comes up I will let you all know asap.

 

I have found a quick fix. Open the atmosphere shader in ASE and plug the view dir node instead, either adjust the view dir vector manually:



Thing is, the distance from the center of the atmosphere to the camera will rotate the atmosphere if camera placed too close. Although, you can manually input the view vector value like you did last time with in the custom shader.

You should also keep the scale low (at 1-2 units) for that to work.

Also, custom viewing vector value of (0, 0.5, -0.5) works for (45, 0, 0) camera rotation.

Setting sun coronas require you to play with the Depth Fade value, and the coronas transform scale. I was able to tune it so that no intersections are visible.

 

Well the Amplify Shader Editor is a commercial product that I don't own and you can't expect your customers to do. So it would be nice if there was a different solution. With older versions you gave me a line in the shaders to comment out.

I also looked what I changed in the shaders in the past to "fix" my view angle problem. I changed this in Atmosphere.shader:

Code (csharp):

1. //      float3 viewDirection = normalize(_WorldSpaceCameraPos.xyz - i.posWorld.xyz);
2.                    float3 viewDirection = float3( 0, 1.0, -0.425 );

... a magic number that I came to via trial and error.

 

True, but its not even a requirement to the pack. Though, Amplify Shader Editor is worth investing into, and I highly recommend buying it.

Now, when you want customization without ASE, you're on your own. Personally, I don't feel like I have much time fixing shaders each time Unity updates to a newer version etc. Besides, Unity announced they will dump custom vertex/fragment shaders so theres not that many options available to keep the package alive over the course of the upcoming engine updates.

There's a way to help the situation, and I have already included the modified version of the shader with my PM. It should be identical to what you used to with the previous version atmosphere, but this time you can simply put the values in the inspector.

 

OK, I made it work with my setup. You don't have to edit the shaders on the code level. I just have to enter my "magic value" under Vector0 in the Inspector of the Atmosphere shader/material. Then set the Depth Fade of the Sun Corona shader to 1. Delete all but one of the corona plates, since I have only one camera viewing angle anyway.

 

I have an odd issue, I assume its the scale.
the planet is scaled 1,000x - when I zoom in and out on the ship, the city lights are in a square

What do I need to modify?

Most of the time its invisible

 

Thanks for reporting this. Is this Amplify Shader Planets 1.4.1 or its older version you have?

-Whats your camera setup?
-Deferred/Forward?
-Perspective/Orthographic?
-Do you change fov while zooming?
-Whats your clipping setting?
-You're on 2018.2.6f1 so I'm wondering whether it was fine until you did upgrade from Unity 2017 or like 5.6?

This should help me narrow it down as I'm about to reproduce this bug. Thanks

Update:

I've just installed 2018.2.6f1 and loaded the example scene. The planet is scaled 1000 units. Zooming in and out does not trigger the bug on my end. Idk... maybe I'm doing it wrong

 

I will get some screen shots to answer your questions, you maybe able to see something I don't.

The position of the planet:


The main camera:

 

The player settings:


Quality settings:

 

I tried your settings yearlier today but it makes no difference. I can look at your project if you want me to. https://discord.gg/c9JQuDC or email me support@forge3d.com

 

Hi.

I'm using URP. Is this an issue with this package. I already downloaded your package and all of the shaders, materials and prefabs look pink. Upgrading the existing materials to URP materials does not work. Is there something I can do? I have another shader in game which seems to need URP to work. Are these 2 packages incompatible?

 

Thanks for your question. I will consider this sorted as we discussed in my Discord a moment ago

 

Help! I just got the package, imported it into 2020.3LTS, and with just a simple directional light, every planet looks completely overblown:


On the left is Terrestrial 1, on the right is lava 1.

With NO lighting, terrestrial is black and lava is pretty much the same. I'm assuming this is because lava has some self-illumination components (?).

I'm using the legacy pipeline (Forward/deferred doesn't change anything) and have not purchased amplify.

Thank you for any assistance!

 

Hi, just switch to linear color space and that will fix it.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/LinearRendering-LinearOrGammaWorkflow.html

 

GORGEOUS! Thank you for the quick response!!!

 

I'm trying to use this asset with an orthographic camera. When I open the demo scene and change the camera from perspective to orthographic, the atmosphere layers of the planets are out of place. Is there a quick fix?

 

I think I found a solution, I just have to place the planets really far away from the camera.

 

Thats

Nice! I was about to suggest you the same solution before I got stuck in exploring the shader in the orthographic mode. Looking into getting it work in orthographic mode.