[RELEASED] Candela SSRR V2 Advanced Screen Space PBS Reflections for Unity 5

Thanks, I tried all the render modes. No dice.

 

ignores normal maps by the looks of things, makes it really hard to hide the low res ugly roughness, rather glitchy looking, ignores distance with roughness, supposed accuracy of the roughness seems to be bullshit.(tried on highest settings to, didn't help) honestly kinda disappointed. maybe ill use it at some point but the flickering is awful.

 

Hi, there are a couple of things, please make sure to select your render path from the Camera not the Build settings as there was a bug in Unity which messes things up, this is important. Also the Standard shader PBS shader should not be used when in 'legacy' Deferred or forward, however all legacy shaders including our helper shaders can be used in all paths. The fresnel fade range and power are also important to tweak. Please contact us directly so we can help you further, thanks again!

Like in the post above, also if you cantact us directly we can help you further, I am sure it is not a major issue, perhaps you can send us a small project file we can take a look, thanks.

Hi, these have all been updated in V2.1 together with a few extra useful additions from suggestions by the community. V2.1 the swimming artifact is eliminated completely, distance more effectively modulates reflections, normal maps effectiveness is significantly better. Thanks again!

Cheers,
Michael

 

I gotta be totally honest - seeing how much people have problems running this out of the box and remembering how it was with V1, I am still hesitating with the 30bucks upgrade... but I can't say that I am not tempted. Let's wait and see for V2.1 ;-)

 

How much people have problems running ? Candela V2 is 100% Unity 5 Compatible, some users had wrong target platforms set such as Android in their Build settings and 'some' others (very few of our total customers) with minor issues which I'm certain we can help them to get going . You make it sound like a hit and miss It was developed with Unity 5 and tested on Unity 5 latest version. Candela V2 has the most comprehensive support for Unity 5 also V2 is very different to V1 as it is PBS based and it does take a little understanding and getting used to as it follows these principals.

To help others, some things to look out for;

• Select your Render path from the Camera setting as Unity had some issues when selecting via build player settings.
• Make sure your target platform is PC/Mac/Linux
• Legacy shaders and our helper shaders work in all render paths and platfroms
• The standard metallic or specular PBS shader should be used when in the new Deferred path
• take note of the fresnel dial as you can increase / decrease the effectiveness of grazing angle on reflections
• When you create a new material + shader take note of the default roughness / smoothness, it is too low to show effective reflections

Cheers,
Michael

 

CANDELA SSRR V2.1 Quick Industrial City scene tests.
Please Note, there is No roughness map on the textures, looks great in motion! ​

​

 

I have Mac/Linux/PC set, have tried forward/deferred in the player settings, and have everything else as it was imported from the asset store. I only get reflections in a small part of the view, and only in some cases.

Unity 5.1.2f1 on Mac.

 

This is now resolved on Mac OS in V2.1, it seems some of the required shaders were not being re-compiled (they don't need to be actually, however it seems to cause this ) and it is intermittent!. We just changed to 'pre-compiled' versions of the few related shaders and seems to have solved this, have to ask Unity about this issue. Thanks again.

Cheers,
Michael

 

Yup, I think this is it exactly. If you look at the image from the asset store:



That same door reflection is a solid white instead and it's over the white portion of the floor.

 

I've turned Fine Step Count up to the maximum value of 40 to remove the gaps as mentioned in the documentation, but I still have gaps in some of my reflections. Is there another solution to removing the gaps?

 

Is this level included with candela pack?

 

@LIVENDA,
I really would like to buy your asset, but the asset store says 125$ !!!
and in your site says "CELEBRATING THE LAUNCH OF CANDELA V2, IT IS ON SALE UNTIL END OF AUGUST AT LESS THEN HALF PRICE".

Please help!!!!

 

Hi Everyone,

Just a Heads-up to everyone, Important:

when you generate a new project, Unity is in Forward mode and 2x anti-aliasing is on by default. If you are on the Mac OS platform, turn off anti-aliasing when using forward render mode, there is a bug in Unity 5.1.2f1 which causes Candela V2 to fail if you do not do this.

Cheers,
Michael

 

I was hesitating, too! But I decided to give Livenda another chance and upgraded for 30bucks.

CandelaV2 is a reasonable product, so far I can say it:
- looks good
- is really fast
- works great in VR
- works with standard shader (deferred render mode)
- even works with advanced shaders like UBER pom advanced (deferred render mode)

I hope Livenda will not disappoint its customers again and will provide decent support!

Anyway, I have a problem with CandelaV2 and AMD R9 290. Have a look at the attached screenshot, while it looks correctly on nvidia cards (GTX 980 / 670) the results on my R9 290 are faulty (parts are missing, flickering etc)! Any idea how this could be fixed?


(camera rendering path: deferred, standard shader, win7 64bit, Unity 5.1.2)

This issue looks similar to what shelshok reported...

 

So, I just bought this (for 125$), and I imported it into my project. It doesn't work. Your example scenes render black, with no reflections visible. I get no console import warnings, errors or debug messages. Here's the kicker...It completely breaks all realtime GI. With Candela in the project folder, no lighting will bake or display. I should note - this is just with Candela imported into the project. the script is NOT in the scene or on the main camera.

However, if I import it into a brand new project, it works fine.
I know I shouldn't be surprised given other problems that people are running into, but to have it not only not work, but break something completely different... it's mindblowing. I'm on 5.1.0f, 64bit.
Do you have any clue what might be happening here?

[EDIT] Turns out, I'm a moron. Well, not really, but there are some issues people should be aware of. If you have asset postprocessors, like I do - if they set import file scales, like mine did, the example scenes will be toast. Also, if you have your texture postprocessor set to disable mipmaps... it will break the whole shebang. still no idea why the GI was broken, but removing those two conditions on import, fixed the issue.

 

having similar problems on my nvidia GTX660. kinda feel i wasted 60 bucks here to be honest.

 

Can you both please contact our support directly so we can figure what is happening in your individual cases as it certainly looks like a Unity or your GPU driver version/settings issue. Can you please include your Unity version/s , OS version and hardware specs. Cynicat : Out of thousands of PC users together with GTX660 (and our own internal testing), looks like there must be something simple being overlooked as it does not make much sense. You also mentioned in your previous post that you had it working (V2) , did you change you graphics card since then? Anyway, perhaps if you can contact us directly I'm sure we will get this sorted out, thanks again!

Also V2.1 should be on the Asset store any day now, which is much less prone to some Unity issues in different final release versions, specially on the Mac OS. PLEASE note, we only officially support final Unity versions, not Beta releases.

Cheers!
Michael

 

FWIW, Unity has pushed back their own SSRR solution to appear with Unity 5.3 on Dec 8, 2015.

 

ok let me clarify, when i use my rig (unity 5.1, windows 7) i get crappy roughness blending(even with max settings) while the screenshot in the post above shows much better results. also despite all my tweaking i can't get rid of this horrible flickering even with everything cranked up(samples help but don't fix). it looks like the same problem i see in the above screenshot. i didn't realize it could be a platform specific bug. which it may be.

 

@LIVENDA,
I really would like to buy your asset, but the asset store says 125$ !!!
and in your site says "CELEBRATING THE LAUNCH OF CANDELA V2, IT IS ON SALE UNTIL END OF AUGUST AT LESS THEN HALF PRICE".

Could you fix it?

Are you reading this post/request?

 

Thank you Livenda for making such a robust, fun and easy to use tool. I wanted to share my own test results. I've been playing non-stop with Unity 5 and Candela for the last few days.

Inspired by Koola's creation with UE4 tools. I wanted to see how closely Unity 5 could match.











Still testing real-time GI in Unity 5. There are some slight glitches here and there with Candela but it could be to do with my settings.

Livenda I have a Project uploaded I would like to share with you.

 

WOW, that looks fantastic!

I am sure you and everyone else are going to be immensely happy with the new upcoming update 2.1, it is significantly more accurate, better overall quality, linear performance, much much less shimmer (VERY important with PBS as PBS exhibits very high-frequency specular highlights, other SSR systems become unusable because of this), the slight 'swimming' is also completely eliminated (This has nothing to do with specular shimmer BTW. it was the convolution method being used in V2), better normal response and more. Thanks for sharing your project! it is very helpful.

Keep in mind the Koola's examples are all UE4 pre-computed GI and you cannot change a thing without re-computing, so no time of day adjustments, unlike the Unity5 version you are demonstrating.

Cheers,
Michael
Livenda Labs

 

Care to share a video? This looks great. Can't wait for v2.1 livenda.

 

Should be available on the Asset Store very soon, stay tuned.

Cheers,
Michael

 

I will try and share a video soon. Waiting on v2.1

It's a shame the asset store process takes so long. Have you thought about hosting your own download on your site before Unity approval? You could integrate your own store on your website.

Also, Michael I asked by email but never got a response:

Have you thought about mixing SSRR with the reflection probes? Sometimes we require the SSRR to override the reflection probe and also sometimes we require the reflection probe to over ride or kick in where the SSRR fails.

https://unity3d.com/unity/roadmap

"Graphics: SSRR (Screen Space Raytraced Reflections)

Screen space raytraced reflections (SSRR) image effect is in development, that would provide more accurate reflections where possible, and fallback to reflection probes where screenspace information is missing."

 

Hey there!

I have a problem with some shaders that are probably rendered in forward mode, while I use the deferred rendering path.
The reflection goes straight through them, as seen in the attached image on her legs.

Does anyone have an idea how to avoid this?

Best Regards,
KW

 

Hi 8Infinite8, in regards to your question about reflection probes, we are almost ready with our Unreal Reflections product and it's pretty much a total reflection probe solution for Unity 5. With features way beyond what is found even in the latest UE4 engine and it works beautifully with Candela (as it is designed to do so with great performance). We are well aware of the Unity Deferred Probes however there are a multitude of required and missing features at significantly lower performance compared with Unreal Reflections.

We have thought of selling via our website however the Unity Asset store is a great solution which everyone is used to. What we like to offer is a registration system for all customer who purchased our products (Unity if you are reading this, PLEASE provide a method for this) to go to our website register with their invoice/ID etc. and get access to the latest beta and updates/ upgrades including future products.

Hi, if possible it would be great to contact our support so we can look in to your issue directly. Also it would be great help if you can please provide us with a test/demo project file including details of your Unity version/ OS and hardware, thanks.

Happy Reflections!
Michael

 

Candela V2.1 update is almost here & it rocks! screenshots of the New Toksvig attenuation & Contact Distance based Convolution

Contact Distance based Convolution


Candela SSRR V2.1 significantly improved normalmap response


Candela SSRR V2

These are just a couple of the new features in V2.1

Cheers,
Livenda Labs

 

Looks quite nice! I've always loved Candela. I'm happy it's back on track.

 

Gotta admit, the newest screenshots suddenly made me upgrade to V2 kinda against my better judgement

 

I'm thinking on upgrading as well but I bought though the Livenda website... and all I see are asset store links, how can I upgrade?

 

Hi,

Please contact us and we can provide a link for the upgrade option, thanks.

Cheers,
Michael

 

It sounds great. Hope to see it some time soon.

I think it would be wise because the submission process for new releases takes way too long. I've checked the update section in the Asset Store. Still no update for Candela V2.1

 

I don't see these sorts of delays from Unity for updates to other assets. Frankly because in the past Livenda claimed to have submitted updates to Unity before they had actually done so, it's impossible to be certain that any further delays are actually down to Unity when it comes to this asset.

 

Pretty much of a rip-off that you are selling the Unity 5 update at an additional price... Also considering that kode80 has a free implementation that is better. Now I have this annoying red font "DEPRECATED" in my download history. Thanks for that...

https://github.com/kode80/kode80SSR

 

We contacted Unity yesterday and they said it could be another week, what you are referring to happened because we specifically asked them to not to publish as we had V2 ready which also coincided with the version of Unity which was stable.

ahh.. Ok, That's like comparing apples to oranges, Candela V2 for Unity 5 is an unprecedented implementation of SSR for any engine period. What you mention is plain deficient in all respects and not production ready in quality, performance and compatibility with all render paths and platforms.

Cheers!
Michael

 

Hi Everyone!

Just like to let everyone know that Candela V2 is now 72% OFF (best in two years!) on the current Unity Madness Sale for a limited time. Save almost $100 off the original price until the end of this sale.
.


Happy Reflections!
Michael
www.livenda.com

​

 

I have to disagree here... kode80's implementation is very good and has an excellent integration with the unity standard shader. The code is very short, fast and elegant, which allows easy modifications. I suggest that everyone tries it before buying any SSR on the Asset Store. I was largely disappointed with Candela v1. Maybe v2 is better, but I dont see a reason to spend 35 bucks to find out, because the kode80 SSR is free and excellent.

In addition, Unity will add their own SSR in September or October. Sounds like a safe bet to me that it will beat any current SSR implementation. I'd say you just want to make the most money before being irrelevant - I guess you have the right to do that Not with me though^^

 

I believe Unity's SSRR implementation is being delayed until December for 5.3, according to their roadmap. Regardless, Unity's own SSRR solution is coming. Whether or not it's better than this or other SSRR implementations remains to be seen.

I have no experience with Candela (including the legacy v1.x asset), and I am very tempted by the sale price. I would love to see more reviews of v2.0 before I take the plunge, so I would appreciate any other customers who have it already to post honest, objective reviews on the asset store page.

 

+1

 

If you're on the fence about buying Candela, I'd point out that there's no future in the product, so don't buy it with the future in mind. It's like buying Marmoset Skyshop just prior to Unity 5 coming out, or DF-GUI / NGUI right before 4.6 came out. It's not coincidental that the store's two paid-for SSR solutions (Candela and the one by plawius) are in this madness sale. This is like a clearance sale.

It makes sense, though, if you want to add it to a project you're going to ship before the end of this year.

 

I don't know how good or bad Unity's Implementation will be... but I do know that Some times having a developer focused on one asset can have better results than what comes with Unity.

For example just of assets I also own
Unity have their own Motion Blur, but I use Amplify Motion.
Unity have two Ambient Occlusion Effects, but I use SSAO Pro
They have some Color correction Effects, but I use Colorful, Aplify Color and Camera Filter Pack
Unity have their Toon Shaders, but I use Toony Shader Pro 2
And so with their Antialiasing... or their Navigation Mesh... or Character Controller.

I think Unity's SSR will be a great addition in next releases, specially for those users that are not used to spend $$ on assets, and to better compete with Unreal.... But I also guess that a purchased Asset could be better at the end, just for my experience with other assets.

Now wich one is better?, I honestly don't know... I had Candela V1, and I upgrated to V2, I'm holding my review of Candela until I can use V2.1, and really make a proper test with it.

But I have to accept that I'm very tempted to give Plawius SSR a try Someone on their Forum Post asked about a comparison between Candela and SSR... I would really like to see a benchmark or a comparison of features offered by Candela / SSR / Kode80

 

Sure, that's the story of a lot of assets in the store. However, there are always customers who feel burned when they buy a plugin and then it is discontinued or abandoned because Unity upgraded and is now offering the same thing for free. DF-GUI, for example, pulled their product even before 4.6 was released, IIRC.

So I'm not saying "don't buy this." I'm saying buy carefully, knowing the risks.

 

Yes, I have similar thoughts to @daville. A lot of Unity's post effects tend to be adequate, but not optimal, both in performance and quality. So their SSR may or may not follow that trend.

Point taken on Marmoset Skyshop vs Unity's U5 reflection probe implementation.

The Plawius SSR asset also has my eye. I would love to see a comparison, too. I did read in that asset page's reviews that anecdotally, Plawius performs better and looks better than the open source Kode SSR.

 

With the future aspect in mind, you could apply this to nearly any Asset in the Asset Store. The best thing about Unity is that you can extend the Editor as you like Even if Unity will release their SSR solution in October (looking at the roadmap, they slated it for the 5.3 release), there's a chance that it might be insufficient for some people. NGUI is still the most sold GUI product, although the new Unity GUI is out since 4.6, because it offers more features to play with. And it's still getting updates from time to time (last update was on Jul 24, 2015).

 

Yup, there are survivors. NGUI is still out there, and so is Alloy. UBER has started, in the wake of U5, providing some PBR shading solutions which U5 does not.

But ... also sometimes the dev doesn't want to continue slugging it out against Unity, and decides to pocket the money and fold up the tents, as providing support can be a bore. It's your call on which this will be.

I don't want to keep going on with this; it begins to look bad. And I think you guys get the idea. If you'd really like to have a SSRR solution for a project that's shipping before the end of the year, definitely think about this one.

Good luck!

 

I thought I'd take a quick look at the new version and while the performance seems pretty good, I'm having an issue which might be a limitation of the implementation, but if so the asset is unusable for me. See below shots:

Candela v2


This is out of the box how it works for me (I believe Candela v1 was the same). As you can see the issue I'm having is that it fails to "look past" the sphere in the screen space reflection direction. It seems it's breaking out of the ray marching loop when hitting something with a depth less than that of the current ray test point, but surely it should ignore depth values that much less than the ray point.

Here is the same thing using an early version of Unity's upcoming SSRR effect using the 5.2 Beta


This works as expected. The sphere on the left only occludes the reflection where it has to.

This effect is particularly bad when you have anything close to the camera (e.g. first person weapon) as it will completely ruin the effect. Hopefully I'm missing something and there's a solution to this that I have not seen.

EDIT: Also it sucks that you obfuscate the shader code by only including the compiled versions. I could fix this myself quite easily otherwise. I could pretty quickly make a new version by using the OpenGL version in the compiled shader which is easily convertible back to CG, but the variable names are obfuscated from the compilation process so I can't be bothered dealing with that.
Consider shipping the actual shader code in future versions so people (like me) can fix issues without waiting for new versions, especially when this is $125 normally.

 

@MattCarr, thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience and insight. Very helpful for a potential customer like me.

 

would you mind post the stats difference (ms) between both ?

 

Actually I get that same thing on my Tests... I tought it was a limitation of SSR... but now I see that Unity's SSR doesn't have that problem.

The reflection itself it does look prettier in Candela, except for that occluded thingy... and also candela is kinda reflecting the colors on a different gamma or something.. it seems to be reflecting colors that are not exactly there, or at least not in the same intensity... like that Green segment