Realtime GI System - Indirect Ilumination (WIP)

I can't wait to use your solution... combined with skyshop and custom IBLs, your tools will change the way Unity looks...

 

I saw Kurt's GI solution before.
But since it's only DX11 it's completely useless for me.

Being an Indie developer and working with Unity i wanna invest my rare development time in something that works everywhere, using technologies that are available on more platforms.
I don't believe in Windows to be honest and i think at some point, other systems will take over - like Steam builds a new gamer OS on Linux etc.. Microsoft screws up more and more things and I'm super glad i didn't invest my time in technologies like XBLA or Silverlight.

I don't say that DX will disappear, but if a plugin doesn't work on all platforms, i'm not interested at all.

 

wow this looks so awesome!! i into architectural visualisation (with vray and fusion) and this is really groundbreaking news for me.. all this lightmap crap is really a problem for me and it looks like those "other" big gameengines with this.. im really looking forward for this!!!

 

Hi guys,

I decided to release my first version, it is not perfect and has still some small flickering issues and could run a bit faster, but I want to give you the opportunity to support my work. Of course, I will go down with the price for the kickoff. Later when the quality rises the price will increase too.
Here is the video and the demo, try it before you buy it. Tomorrow during the day I will upload the product on the AssetStore, I just have to write a documentation, that's why I won't release it today.

Download Demo: http://sdrv.ms/15AaR9E

Hope you like my first version!
Best Regards,
Chris

 

Downloading it now, unless it flat out doesn't work on my pc, consider you have a sale tommorow!

 

This is the voxel tech right? It looks amazing! I see some dynamic ambient occlusion from the cloth folding which is great and nice reflections! I was wondering what type of lights the balls were. Were they emissive materials or point lights? does your tech do area lights?

 

This look really good, but i have some problems, if i disable the GI, this pass get printed on top of the image, and when is active if i move the camera, the Gi pass renders late, and look like a phantom image.

here is the screen shot with the GI disable but still visible (that frame) on top of everything.




EDIT:Restarted the Demo a couple of times and now is working fine .

 

DEMO TESTED! now what we need is to fill this guy pockets folks, and with some time we will have a marvelous solution! Many thanks my friend, as soon as you release you will have here a customer! even for $200 and even with the flickering,

Many thanks!

 

Is there a Mac/OpenGL version?

 

So how much will the early access cost tomorrow?

 

I just tested the demo and once the settings are adjusted down it looks really sweet! Great job!



Now as you said the biggest problem is of course the noticeable flickering that happens whenever the camera is turning or moving; the shadows look like they crawl into slightly different places from frame to frame and it's quite distracting.

So let me ask you this question: are you absolutely confident that you're going to be able to completely eliminate this flickering problem? As for now that seems to be the only thing that makes it not useable in production yet.

And beyond that the questions I have deal with materials and effects like fog (the one in Unity's Render Settings), as well as Global Fog (the post-effect camera script) and Depth of Field. Those would still need to work flawlessly...

 

This is pretty.. ^_^... I am going to wait until it is fully ready, and is Skyshop compliant

EDIT: MY FPS is like 14 at max detail at 1920x1080. my GPU is a GTX 670m

 

Hi guys!

thank you for testing it! I really appreciate your support! (especially angelodelvecchio! thanks!)

@Loards: in your screen shot you have the prepasslighting on, that means dynamicGI is sending the gi stuff to the prepasslighting shader. I tried this method, because I don't have to combine the gi lighting with the albedo(unlit) pass later, which I do when you turn this toogle off. That means it's a post effect without prepasslighting on. However this cost extra calculation time, and is also a point where I could increase the performance, when I get rid of the extra albedo pass.
@Seith: I have the same opinion as you have, I also think it is not production ready, but I'm sure I can get rid of the flickering when I use precompute voxel grids, this would also increase the performance.

 

@CKahler, do you have a OpenGL version of the plugin too? A preview?
Or will you stick with DX11 in the end.

If there won't be a OpenGL version and this will be DX11 only, i can stop monitoring this thread.

 

hi my friend, i know its a pain to be bothered or pressed, dont take me wrong, i am just anxious

Do you have any preview date for released? you will wait to make this voxel grid computation or you think about make a release soon?


Many thanks

 

hi erana ! how are you ?

I am not the dev, but in the first post says:

"I'm working on a GI system that works with OpenGL, DX9 and DX11"

So , i guess it works

 

Hi CKahler,

I like the reflections, however they should not be visible if there is object between.



You know the biggest downside is flickering, i am sure you solve it and you have my support and i will buy initial release even it is not complete ready.
I really want you to consider Opengl version because Windows gaming will decrease over coming years and it seems it is on a death trip. You propably need v 4.0 for your tech and you need Unity to support it, probably after OS X Mavericks will come.

 

[/QUOTE]I really want you to consider Opengl version because Windows gaming will decrease over coming years and it seems it is on a death trip. You propably need v 4.0 for your tech and you need Unity to support it, probably after OS X Mavericks will come.[/QUOTE]

Second that!

 

If you check the steam hardware survey MAC and Linux seems to have about 3% each and not gaining much so I dont see why you think Windows is on a death trip.

 

Alright death trip was bit silly word but..count PS4 running on OpenGL, count all IOS and Android devices running ES version. Count new Steam OS which is Linux based and the percentage will be reversed. Dx running only on Windows, OpenGL everywhere, so i think OpenGL support is more important than Direct X.
Source code for Voxel cone tracing is free, even for Opengl, so its is only on Unity team to have OpenGL 4 support.
http://www.geeks3d.com/20121214/voxel-cone-tracing-global-illumination-in-opengl-4-3/

 

Excpet you're not going to get this running on opengl es devices. So out of the possible targets for this tech it's still only 3% non dx

 

I am running the demo again and I am still encountering low framerates on my system... here are my specs

Windows 8 64
12 GB DDR3
nividia gtx 670m

There should be no way this should run slow on this system... and I have it set full screen and on fantastic...

 

Hello, I have read through all pages of this thread and I must say I am impressed, this will be an awesome asset if it's 100% production ready!! Wish you the best of lucks!

Btw I would be very interested to see this asset in conjunction with UniStorm.. a sweet combination of truly AAA standard visuals.. with some post effects and particle effects.. I am starting to drool!!

 

SteamOS is Linux based. And you better believe it's going to be a big market.

So yeah I agree with others in this thread. If this will only support DX11, then I no longer have any real interest in this asset. I need to be able to publish to Windows, Linux, Mac.

 

This is from the description box in the video that I think should be posted here.


" uses voxel cone tracing
- can use 3 cascaded grids
- additional screen space voxel cone tracing
- one Directional Light support
- Spot Lights support (fastest with SSVTC)
- Point Lights support (fastest with SSVTC)
- uses post effects

************************************************
ToDos
************************************************
- add voxel cone tracing shadows
- remove flickering
- add static voxel grids
- custom material options for reflections/specs
- improve performance
- support custom materials"

 

Nice find, definitely hate seeing that in current games

 

Hi,
the first version will have DX11 support only but my plan is to support all important graphics-api's (DX9 and OpenGL) and also all possible platforms (Win, Linux and Mac and maybe moblie systems if it's possible) currently, I'm only using the voxel cone tracing technique, but future releases will have different techniques and improvements of the VCT technique. See my documentation in the link below!

Here is an update of the demo version I could increase the fps (on my pc +40fps) by excluding some internal sampling methods:
http://sdrv.ms/19NJogF

 

Nice hearing about the performance boost! In the doc it says you plan on doing voxel indirect shadows, is there a problem with using voxel shadows for direct light too?

EDIT:also what is the pre-voxelization step going to achieve when added? Wouldn't objects being rendered directly into the 3d texture be better than voxelized versions?

 

Nice performance boost,

Are there any way to solve reflections being cast over all objects between reflection caster and camera view? So the dynamic 3D textures are responsible for flickering, i see, but since this product targets best looking games in the industry you must be absulute sure there will be no flickering in comming updates, otherwise you should use octrees, even though not everything will be dynamic.

I see LPV technique is abandoned? I have no problem with that if you manage to make VCT or other tech. for OpenGL.
I can not wait to see voxel cone tracing shadows!

 

Very nice speed, but I am still chugging on my system with everything in HD ... will the final version of this be capable of running in full speed on a HD system?

 

He says he can still reduce the flickering so lets just wait til he tries some more attempts at that. He definitely should stick to 3d textures though it seems Unreal engine dropped their octree implementation b/c it was too expensive for anything that wasn't high end, but the people at Sony coincidentally are working on 3d textures as the way to go for console voxel cone tracing: link(http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=656961).Except ckahler's implementation is already more advanced and running faster than theirs. 2 giant companies kinda giving credence to the fact that octrees aren't viable at least not for the majority of gaming machines and that his technique is.

 

sorry I have to correct this, direct shadows should be no problem, the last time I tested it, it looked like a improved version of ssao.

directly rendering each light source is very slow but when you render everything unlit (in one step) into voxels and than lit afterwards you get a performance boost.

this is my priority task for the next update!

Not sure, I could still "invent" a new tech that is based on LPV, that would be a workaround.

Not the release candidate, but later versions. there is still a lot of optimization potential.

Thanks for the infos blueivy, I will try every possibility to make this the best lighting solution for unity, ever!

Well it is done,... until it's in the asset store (I just uploaded it!) there will be a better version ready to update, because I just got this from unity:

Here a little test with version v0.3.1:

 

So with voxel shadows, is it possible to get accurate soft shadows that get softer the further away it is from the caster? also can this be fixed http://forum.unity3d.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=69032

 

Sorry to say but in it's current version it is completely not usable. Apart from the major flicker issue the GI solution is incorrect even for local surrounding objects. Above all else there is a Major Performance problem. I tested on multiple systems all the way up to GTX670. The target frame rate should be 5-10 times faster for this to be a viable solution. Not 30-40fps more like 160-400fps .

Can you please do a VERY simple scene such as an L-shaped tunnel.

 

I do not see any bounce light but some oversaturated ball lightsourtces and major flickering. The player should cast some bounce light to the ground as he move. There must be something wrong.

 

How about a guesstimate for a non Windows release?
I am on a Mac and would like to be able to try this
Looks very promising

 

Well, the author already said that the package is not yet useable; it's not production-ready for obvious reasons (the shadows/lights flickering to start with). But again CKahler clearly stated that this is his first priority to fix.

Beyond that, in terms of frame rate it's all a matter of refining and optimization. That's the second phase. The first one is to make it actually useable as a production-ready solution.

 

Realtime GI isn't going to be fast on all systems, if you're targeting "up to GTX670" you should drop the idea of using realtime GI. It's meant for current gen future HW

 

Should be possible. Have no time for shadows at the moment, I'm working on the flickering problem.

Turn off the gi and you will see that this is a unity render problem.

Yes I can, after I fixed the flickering... ok? ;-)

I will do so, when the system works properly.

 

Alright, well as you know I've been following this thread closely so I apologize if I either failed at reading comprehension or lack of attention span...

...but what happened to the GI solution in the very first, very gorgeous video you initially posted when you created this thread? It had proper ambient occlusion, sky lighting, correct light bounce and no flicker.

Keep up the good work Chris

-Steve

 

well for me its perfect the way it is.. im focussing on looks like "rendered with vray" so its not supposed to run on a office crap computer in the first place.. i guess optimizing it for weak computers is an option..im very interested in this and try to get out maximum realistic looks..

 

Many thanks
Looks fantastic and I am sure it is a challenge
Will wait patiently

 

yeah, in the description of the video it said he was using a spherical harmonic technique, i haven't heard any mention of that.

 

Being perfectly honest, and I do appreciate the work going into this, but that single video is what made me as enthusiastic as I was initially, while the other videos have made me a tiny bit reluctant. I'm confused why there hasn't been further mention of that technique as it clearly looks like the functioning RT GI I've always lusted after.

 

the spherical harmonic technique of the first video is too slow, the LPV technique has a patent, so the current goal is VCT (and additionally RVGI).

 

How slow was "too slow", out of interest? I'm looking at this solution for a non-games app where I can perfectly happily require users to buy specific hardware up to and including twin SLI Titans, so would potentially be interested in the spherical harmonic approach.

 

@the_nomad: It depends how many spherical harmonic light cameras get rendered per frame, if you only render one per frame and cycle through them it's fast, but then you would see the update-delay when light moves fast. So when you render 30-40 light cameras at the same time it goes down to 10 fps or even less.

 

10 fps on "what" kind of hardware? I may be more interested in this slow technique than the faster one (keep in mind many ppl waiting on realtime GI are perfectly aware it will have a huge perf cost are fine with targeting high end HW).

Currently i'm targeting titan or higher, how fast does it run on this and would you consider making an asset store package with that solution you first showcased, as slow as it is?

 

After all the bad news, good news again:

I managed to get rid of the flickering, I also could increase the performance a bit, currently sponza is running with 150 fps on 1280x720, with my GTX 770.

@ronan.thibaudau: I can include the first solution, but currently you have to set the camera lights by yourself ( the plan was to generate a grid, which places them automatically).

 

What do you mean by the camera lights? Could you make a small vid of what the workflow is like? I'm definately more interested in the first version i think