Realtime GI System - Indirect Ilumination (WIP)

Hi,

I'm working on a GI system that works with OpenGL, DX9 and DX11 ( it's C# + shaders), as you can see here:

The system aims for making next-gen games.

The current state:
- works with deferred rendering and spherical harmonics
- renders one light per frame, could render more but that would be slower

Future work:
- improve performance
- dynamic and automatic integration into any (big or small) game level
- forward rendering support

The release of this tool depends on the interest you have in it. So please participate in the poll !

Here is and old version of it:

Edit:
Not final but getting closer to release:

Greets,
Chris

 

I'm pretty sure everyone would want this, but for 200 dollar?!
I would think more in the area of 50/75 dollars

 

hi,
impressive asset
Dev

 

@blaize: The price is not fixed yet, it depends on the demand. My aim is to have the same quality level as Geomerics Enlighten System http://www.geomerics.com/enlighten/ and that costs ~10.000 Dollars. So is it cheap or what?

 

This looks really great, well done indeed!

- Matt.

 

Looking good! What techniques are you using ?

 

The poll lacks some other option:

- Yes, I need this, but how about 100 instead 200 Dollars?

 

OMG. He did it. Very impressive. I think 200 dollars is a little much for some peoples so i think under 200 dollars, many peoples will buy it.

 

If it's going to be the same tech used in BF3, 200 VS $1000 is fine with me.

 

Actually,
I don't know if it's the same tech as BF3, but this is my aim, yes. I am using kind of dual paraboloid maps to render the environment and output the data via spherical harmonics lights (not the same that unity has). But it's not as fast as I wanted it to be. It is still work in progress and I am also working on my own game right now, so don't expect this to be finished soon, more likely to be one or two month.
Thank you all for the nice comments so far!

 

Looks very promising!

 

Absolutely worth $200.

Start testing real world application such as large outdoor environments and various levels of poly/object complexity, and if you can maintain solid framerates proportional to the hardware tested on, you'll have yourself a real winner and demonstrate clear value at that price point.

Cheers CKahler

-Steven

 

Depending on performance, your video seems a bit jerky but if it runs fast and looks good quality then I expect you'd attract the attention mostly of the higher-end developers e.g. making FPS games and such.. so could probably ask at least $70-$100 for it, more if it's really polished and has plenty of support.

 

Your tool looks great... and if it will work fine you will do a lot of money!

I am ready to pay!

 

Over $100 and I probably wouldn't buy it unless it was truly amazing

In general I see that most Unity assets do best if they're under $100 price point. The main things I'd like out of something like this is:

1) Good performance
2) Ability to handle dynamic levels (IE, break a wall, lighting dynamically changes to reflect it)
3) Ease of use

If you can provide those, you'll probably get a lot of sales from people like me who want a good lighting solution for procedural content.

 

+1 AND for that amount, the client must believe in your hotline. You are new on the forum and many promising products were abandoned after some time. Personally, I'd wait a few months before investing such a sum. The time required to see the quality of your "hot-line". The "wow factor" is important but also 200$ and it will take something other than a video (or two) to convince me.
In fact, I will never invest such a sum in something as important as this product (a GI) if it has no competition. This is paradoxical, but i would not be without solution if you decide to abandoned.

BTW...

 

I would spend 200 bucks for it. But it needs a reasonable performance. The video above looks a bit too choppy for my taste.

Otherwise really impressive work

 

It goes without saying that performance is the number one feature; we're not interested in this to make stills.

The choppiness a few of you noted appears to be his recording (Fraps?) as clearly he was getting more than acceptable framerates at 60 - 80 FPS.

Also I can't help but agree with ZJP completely. Many products have relied too much on user 'enthusiasm' derived from "polls" that don't realistically represent actually consumer interest. It merely appeals to people that like polls, with a great many others waiting to see what you bring to the table before even acknowledging you. In other words, bring something out and available to the general populace before assuming people aren't interested. Show confidence in what your'e creating.


-Steven

 

100$ is Good for us poor indie
also yeah the performance must be acceptable

 

I won't buy it if more than 100$ as well!

 

Put me down for $100 as well.

 

look amaging. Keep it up.When you release this pkg. Because we waiting.

 

Looks very nice. My max price is 100$ generally. To pay more than this it must be something oustanding, which we (at least I) can't judge yet.
Keep it up, look great indeed.

 

I'd pay however much I think is appropriate for the product. Real-time dynamic GI Solutions are very rare and I'm sure you realize that. If the product is top-notch I'd see no issue in paying $200, otherwise I'd say $100 is a reasonable amount.

 

It all depends on how well the performance and quality scales down for bigger areas and lower end PCs. However if you can get this right 200$ seems reasonable, you might actually make more money by charging less though. For now I remain cautiously optimistic as Epics GI solution looked just fine in such small areas, but didn't scale well to big outdoor areas. So I'd want to see how yours does that before spending 200$ when the time comes.

 

Still no response from the OP : I have my answer about the hotline.

 

Thank you all for the great feedback!
About the price: My plan is to release a free version first, with watermark and non-commerical licence, but full features, so you can make your own opinion, before buying. And there might be a less expensive version, for the first month, so the earlier you buy the cheaper it will be.
I know that kurt loeffler made something similar, but he said about releasing: " I'm not sure. It would need a lot more work before its really usable in a game." and that's true!
It takes a lot of time to make a good working product!
I have been working on this for a few months now and there will be some more... however I am planning to release a beta version soon!
Greets
Chris

 

Really eager to see how this turns out. Looks promising at least

 

My jaw is literally dropped... And I have been looking for a very good real time GI solution... now, how will this affect things like skinned meshes? Will I have any performance hits with animated characters.Will I still have to use light probes? And if I do, will they be the same intensity as if they were lit with static lighting...

And can we bake down the results if we choose, such as with Marmoset Skyshop? I would be MORE THAN GLAD to pay for a Realtime GI... and the most important question, will you support Unity 3.5 and up? (I am still on 3.5.7) Thanks dude... great tools...

 

$200 seems a bit steep for this, I think around $75~100 would be good price range.
Also the performance seems a bit choppy for some reason, even though it says 75 fps in the video, the impression I get from the video is around 15 fps. It also doesn't look as good compare to Kurt Loeffler's Voxel Cone Traced Lighting - your version doesn't seem to transfer color information or lighting as much as Kurt's solution:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/166827-Voxel-Cone-Traced-Lighting-DX11-Contest

 

I think the choppiness was already pointed out more than enough And as someone said, the choppiness might come from the screen recording.

As for the quality. Kurt's version seems to use more vibrant colors and some bloom effect which makes it pop out more. I think both are quite equal in quality as far as I can judge that. And the TO is aware of his version. Besides that it doesn't really matter because Kurt abandoned it obviously. We should be grateful that someone actually working on a realtime GI solution

And keep in account that this still in development.

 

Agree it would be nice to have some solution ready on table and not just on videos. As for price i would pay 100 bucks not sure about more.

Please keep us posted, more videos are also wellcome!

 

I'm rather obsessed with GI in all of my animation and game development, so count me in on the Beta

 

I would have use for this, not for free but would not also pay as much as 200.
If rendering update could be in real-time I think would be pretty impressive though.

 

Wow

 

It's look awesome. When you release this tool.we waiting. Make it hurry.

 

@I am da bawss: the choppiness comes from the screen recording software. kurt's dx11 version also has reflections in it that enhances the lighting. I allready tried reflections with the screenspace reflection technique, but the grabtexture gives me only forward rendering, so i have to fix this first. At the moment I am working on a system that run with dx9 and opengl, in the future I like to add the voxel cone technique as an option, but it has some disadvantages e.g. eats up a lot of memory because of voxel generation and this is only the "small" sponza level so it might be more with larger levels. I think, there are some more reasons why UE4 developers abandoned this technique.

 

I'm most certainly interested, and a $200 price tag doesn't put me off. I wouldn't be an immediate buyer though as the application I have in mind for this hasn't yet reached the stage where it would be useful.

 

Missing reflections was thing i wanted to point out. I also want to question you if your system requires custom shaders because i am currently working on integrating skin shader into Marmoset skyshop shaders. If your system requieres heavy custom shaders it would be bad for me

Voxel cone does require about 1GB of memory dependent on scale of scene and resolution of voxel grid, it doesn't seems to be much for me. But for start of your product you should focus on adding reflections right now.

But overall i am amazed, i would gladly pay 200 if you do things right.

 

@Seikan1: You don't need any custom shaders, maybe the reflection shader if you want it ;-). And you might not need skyshop anymore because you get the skylighting from the system, but maybe it will look better with both... can't say right now.

 

+1

 

At least someone trying to get the UNITY from the darkness to LIGHT!!!

Don't think about the price for now,
just concentrate developing a great GI solution that unity always need it, and no one was able to do it properly

I think you should forget the voxel cone technic, as others have tried and fail, including Epic games on their next gen Unreal Engine 4
go with Cryengine 3 and or Frostbite 3 technic, they are the best in Global illumination we have on this generation
take your time, remember good things takes time, greatest things takes forever

Bring it! we believe in you

 

its a sin to have this: "Yes, but only for free !" as an option in the Pool! unity tech should hire developers like you ! please do it !

 

Any word on when you think the Beta may be released? We really want to try this amazing piece of technical wizardry out! This is definitely an exciting asset... release something soon!

 

@PISCES: Can't say right now, maybe 1 or 2 weeks. I am working on the dx9/openGL version at the moment.
I intend to include two dx11 techniques as alternative. However,you know, that many users don't have dx11 cards, so the dx9/openGL version has a higher priority.

 

Great!
Are you mimic the Cryengine technic? i must say that cryengine have the best GI (i know, it's fake GI) but it works great
are you will using voxel cone tracing technic?
and today's most people specially Gamers, have DX11

tanks for your effort.

 

most of those who don't have DX11, are certainly not expecting GI to come up in DX9 games anyway !-_-!

 

Please don't forget to make it work in deffered and linear mode as well, if it doesn't allready
Thanks

-EDIT-

And I agree with the DX11 stuff said above, but I can understand your reasons willing to make it work in dx9 and they are fair enough.

 

Yeah, i agree, remember that cryengine GI's works on DX9 as well, but you really should focus first on DX11,
as ronan.thibaudau said: "most of those who don't have DX11, are certainly not expecting GI to come up in DX9 games anyway" very true!
i bet everyone here that voted the poll already have DX11, and they don't care too much about DX9.