POLM - GPU Lightmapper - NLM denoising test !

I guess it should run if the shaders are translated ok by Unity's side. There might be some specific thing that need to be written especially for Metal compute shaders though. I remember that there was something in the code which was fully supported by Metal compute shaders - i think was something about textures... I am NOT sure, was a long ago, but i do not have access to Mac Book and i couldn't give it a try !

 

It seems to be detecting GPU support, I will try to run some test

 

Nice. Let me know !
It says emulated GPU, so something might not work out of the box !

 

>3. Release date is not yet clear, even though i would like to be in a matter of days, but will probably be in a couple of >weeks, may be if i manage to do all that's currently planned !

I know some of us will cringe but I believe you should bump the price up when it includes the lightmap, in order to be around for a long time. 45-80$ will do it without any problem.

>The new interface looks very clean! good work

agree!

 

Hi, small update on the work !

The Acceleration Structure was re written and currently gives me a difference of 2:45 minutes

Old demo ( the one that is available to download here in the thread was rendered in:
11:21 minutes

With the updated BVH, the same scene is rendered in:
8:34 minutes

How much is this - around may 20-25% increase in overall speed !

 

very nice news, rendering faster is great

 

I want an interior benchmark with this

 

Yes, i would like too, but i will have to build one. Have no access to an interior scene !

 

Aliy did one recently to Test VRay.

 

Just use something free and simple like this https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/fps-building-for-mobile-69531

 

I can give it a try. I also remember that there was an interior scene where Unity showcased the Screen Space Reflections but couldn't find it. Probably it is not provided by Unity itself !

 

There's the Adamn interior scene.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/essentials/tutorial-projects/adam-interior-environment-74965

 

512x512
GTX960
4300 samples
Area Light + Emissive Materials + Spot lights + Sky

 

The interior scene is really nice.
Lightmapping looks good except the few glitches.

Meanwhile, some updates on the work !
The lights contribution in now fixed and they work as expected with intensity of 1 !
I did find an issue which makes the shading flat when lightmapping. This is when you rasterize on the GPU. Will have to fix it. Using the CPU rasterization has smooth shading but lacks the border texels which are however filled later using dilation after bake is done ! Will improve it as well !

 

please post render times and machine specs for tests, this gives a nice indication of performance improvements for each version

 

Bake time is related to a few factors:
1. Resolution
2. Sample count
3. Ambient Occlusion

1. You can use minimum resolution possible until you are reached to a desired quality

2. You must wait until noise be cleaned. So

all indirect lights has a lot more noise compare to direct lights:
Direct Light sources: Spot,Point,Directional
Indirect Lights: Area ,Emissive materials,sky light,GI

to reduce bake time you can use 180 degree spot lights (with high custom shadow radius) )out side of the windows to simulate fake indirect lighting casted into the room. This is the main solution in all UE4 indoor lightings (because UE's indirect lighting is not supported completely)

Currently only Progressive Lightmapper and Enlighten supports Shadow radius for Spot lights. So i have used same scene in 2 minutes using Progressive Lightmapper. But used only Area and sky lights in POLM and baked in 3-10 minutes. But the result is more correct and is not fake

So POLM must support shadow radius for spot lights to get fastest baking and reducing noise

3. AO is an real bake time killer (will increase the bake time) in all CG Renderers or Lightmappers.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/vray-vs-plm-vs-octane-vs-polm-vs-arnold-in-lightmapping.505099/

 

I remeber using turtle for maya ten years ago and amient occlusion was pretty fast, I wonder what techique that was

 

The AO in POLM as addition to the GI requires one additional ray to be spawned, so it shouldn't be that noticeable. I even think that i can use the first ray intersection information for AO calculations and if i manage to do it, the AO will be almost for free. Will look into this !

P.S. the free AO when doing GI actually works, jest need to test it a bit more.

I will send you guys ( to the BETA Testers ) an email with the new beta may be in an hour !
I am just preparing the package now !

 

No no no
Beast or Turtle (both are same) was about 1.5~2x slower than without AO
VRay also is slower using AO

 

Hi, just another small update on what's been happening to the tool. This is work in progress!

What's new and improved:

1. The UI is redesigned and should be improved more later - Look below !
2. A bug with the GPU rasterizer which made the objects look faceted was fixed
3. Lights now have proper color (intensity) contribution to the final image
4. The BVH structure was improved with around 20-25% increase in the speed ( it all depends on the scene of course )
5. Added additional intensity option to the IBL
6. Added option to the lights - to cast shadows or not
7. Currently, the Ambient Occlusion when baking Global Illumination is calculated for free and does not affect emissive objects

What needs to be improved yet:

1. The post processing blur algorithm, while it blurs the lightmaps pretty nice, it makes some edges darker
2. Should try to improve the rasterization algorithm eventually in order to hide better some of the seams
3. Some more work should be done on the Lights. They are yet not sampled the best way.

 

My errors when using Per Object Baker on start (Lightmapper works fine):

Code (CSharp):

1. Kernel 'BakeGI' not found
2. UnityEngine.ComputeShader:FindKernel(String)
3. POLM.<BakeObject>c__Iterator0:MoveNext() (at Assets/POLM/API/Editor/POLMOB.cs:106)
4. EditorCoroutine:update() (at Assets/POLM/API/Editor/EditorCoroutine.cs:30)
5. UnityEditor.EditorApplication:Internal_CallUpdateFunctions()

Code (CSharp):

1. UnityException: FindKernel failed
2. POLM.POLMOB+<BakeObject>c__Iterator0.MoveNext () (at Assets/POLM/API/Editor/POLMOB.cs:106)
3. EditorCoroutine.update () (at Assets/POLM/API/Editor/EditorCoroutine.cs:30)
4. UnityEditor.EditorApplication.Internal_CallUpdateFunctions () (at C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/generated/common/editor/EditorApplicationBindings.gen.cs:249)

 

Hi, in email i noted that it will probably not work because i need to change some things. I will fix it but meanwhile will be good if i can get some feedback on the Lightmapper.

I guess in a couple of days will get "Per Object Baker" to work with the new changes !

 

Hi, I’d be very interested in testing the beta, and sharing findings and results. How can I sign up for this?

 

Latest version is much faster:

 

Have you considered switching to bluenoise for your random vectors? http://momentsingraphics.de/?p=127
Slapping a different 64x64 of those in your RGB slots might significantly improve the visible sampling, and decrease the needed bake times for a reasonable result.

 

That blue noise is very cool!
thanks for sharing

 

I now about this and that it is currently very modern to use, but have to look if it is possible to integrate into a path tracer !

 

Feedback about the GUI:

Polmbase.cs
Please change line 267
mainLabelStyle.fontStyle = FontStyle.BoldAndItalic;
into :
mainLabelStyle.fontStyle = FontStyle.Bold;

 

Hi, may just ask what is the reason you suggest changing the style ?
It is something that is not working for you or you just do not like the italic style ?

In general i will think of even improve the label a bit mode !

 

Italic. It's not used anywhere in the unity interface and it sticks out in a way I don't like

 

ok i will keep this in mind !

 

All you should have to do is change your random vectors texture, I'd bet. ..Right?

 

Not really, i gave it a try and seems the r and b values are the same. In POLM random vectors are generated using a Uniform Point on Sphere generation method. Blue noise is used for some other things but i do not think you can generate random 3D direction vectors !

 

I just tested the beta for the first time, and used it on some architectural models. Vagabond, you have created a game changer. I will tell all my students to purchase your asset once it has the Lightmapper. They are all Unity beginners. I am an intermediate user at best. Lightmapping has been a complicated issue to explain them, and with CPU only, also very time consuming. This is finally a simple to use solution that creates excellent results for what we do. Thank you!

 

Just ordered a 1080Ti, because of this tool

 

Is there a way to bake to 2k with a 16 GB Ram system?
I'm getting out of memory errors with the example scene

 

Hi, i am glad to hear that you like the tool : ))) Hopefully will serve you well in teaching and not only : ))) !

 

I am having this error after some time of baking light maps. Did not try 2K because the data could not fit in the memory of the GPU i am using. Optimizing memory usage is in the list !

 

hello,I want to test the new test beta version,can I ?
my email sonygodx@gmail.com ,I just send a email to you @Vagabond_

 

Hi, I have two questions about the beta Lightmapper:
This one is likely because I am missing something. Baked geometry seems to respond differently to dynamic lights, e.g. one I use as the sun. Dark areas, those opposite the direct light, never get really dark, as they would with non lightmapped objects. Even if I turn the direct light off, make the scene totally dark, the lightmapped object seems to be lit. What could that be? Is there any way around it?
Will a new version allow the atlasses be saved in a custom folder? Right now they get saved in the Assets root folder, which when baking many objects creates a bit of a mess there.
Thanks in advance for any help!

 

Hi, contacted you in PM for more information !

Sure, this should be available in the next beta !

 

Is there a way to choose GPUs ?

I have a nvida and an ati card in my Mac and don't know which one unity is using

 

I don't think Unity gives you such option ! I thinks this should be set from the driver settings if not mistaken !

 

Also it says emulated using metal and not showing the GPU name.
and because its Mac there is only one way I can think of and that is to connect the monitor to the card thats fastest.

 

Looking forward

 

Hi @Vagabond_! My team and I would love to test the experimental GPU GI baker in our late-in-production game, hopefully as soon as possible. We are currently assessing all options, as the Progressive Lightmapper takes way too much RAM usage.

 

Hi, POLM is yet in early stage of development and it is currently unreliable in production projects. It will require some more time. Depending on how the work on it goes i may consider release it as an "experimental" update to the previous version!

 

I'm aware that it is still highly experimental, but would still love to test it on actual production scenes of varying size and complexity. If the results are good and we decide to use POLM for all our lightbaking, you can of course list us under your customers/games that use POLM. I'm getting a little desperate to find any kind of solution