[RELEASED] Deckard Render - Cinematographic Renderer for Unity

Now available on Assetstore:


DECKARD RENDER ON ASSETSTORE - BUY HERE
Recetly I was doing a personal challenge of remaking scenes from Blade Runner 2049 in Unity. For this task I wanted to make all shots as cinematic as possible. We have some really nice tools in Unity to do this, but those are made for realtime graphics and for performance - and, for anyone that works in video production, it can be seen that those scenes are made with hardware renderer. Mostly because of aliasing issues (temporal and spatial), DOF behaviour, motion blur behaviour. So I had an idea of translating real camera behaviour into an asset that simulates physical camera behaviour - and then renders Unity scenes into a video file.
This tech boosts Unity rendering capabilities and works in combination with Post Processing stack while augmenting it's capabilities. It is completely integrated into Unity, and doesn't require any change of a workflow or a usage of custom shaders. This means that you can take your scene, render it with Deckard Render, and it will look much better than in Unity in realtime.
Features:
-Real soft shadows. Any unity light can behave like a soft light or area light resulting in smooth shadows.
-Temporal and spatial antialiasing for perfect filmic motion. This means also that there is no more shimmering with highlights and bloom. No more moire effects in your footage.
-Physical Depth of Field that works with transparent objects and particles. It will give correct DOF even on materials that are using parallax, displacement or fake interiors shaders.It also supports anamorphic behaviour of Depth of Field. This kind of depth of Field works with any transparent, refractive, or reflective object. For example, it is known that while using small DOF, a glossy object can be in focus, but it's reflection will be out of focus. On a contrary, if a glossy object is out of focus, reflections seen on it's surface will be in focus. Deckard renderer deals with all those cases.
-Motion blur that works on interframe basis (working correctly with circular or curved motion). It can give you a correct depth of field on transparent objects, like particle systems, glass refractions, specular highlights.
-It smooths out any Unity Post Processing effect, making it's appereance seem more real.
-Deckard renderer is compatible with all Unity standard and custom shaders.
Deckard renderer isn't a real ray-tracer, but it works on principles of Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem while sampling pixels in space and time. Most antialiasing tech is done by super-sampling frame buffer (rendering at a double off a screen resolution and then resizies it down to screen resolution). This process requires a lot of video-RAM memory, and still doesn't produce perfect antialiasing. Deckard rendered goes further and uses various techniques to simulate real optics physics. The "side effect" of this procedure is that even rendering at smaller resolution results in a more natural looking image. This approach of rendering behaves much as in an analog camera systems.
Typical usages of this asset:
-Rendering high quality presentations of 3D environments, like demoes or showreels
-Using Unity instead of other Offline renderer systems
-Pre-visualisation or production for motion picture movie (and testing real Depth of field effects) and TV
-Testing what will be possible to do in a future with realtime graphics
-Tool for pre-imaging scenes and correct camera look.
This tool can export video files in JPG, PNG oer EXR sequences, or mp4 video format file. If you are a user of a VR Panorama (my first asset to hit Assetstore), you will be at home with this tool.

Deckard renderer still relies on some post processing techniques, like bloom, AO, reflection probes, and Screen Space reflections. But due to it's nature it mostly corrects issues with those effects, enhancing overall look and smoothness of those effects. Some of those effects that require temporal sampling begin to really shine (like volumetric light rays or realtime GI).

 

Another test:

 

That looks great!

 

Looks very nice, is this something that you are making available, or how would it work? Would not mind giving it a go!

 

I would love to learn more what you have going on here with this new renderer. Will it support and work well with outdoor nature scenes and all things related to outdoor nature environments. Be great to see some tests or videos on that working as well. I currently use your VR Panorama plugin for all the 5k 360 stereo videos I create so if Deckard Render could work in tandem with it would be something else.

 

So when we render out a sequence with this it will be independent of framerate? There was another great asset, Render Monster I think it was called, allowed you to render out an image sequence at really high resolution. For a while in an old project I had full 4k video clips directly out of Unity with perfect framerate - I'm not sure it will be supported any longer though as it's been made free...

 

Here you can see a little nature test. There are no limits or restrictions on what it can render (or atleast, untill now I didn't come across any). If Unity can do it, then also Deckard should do it - but better. Mostly because it handles better shadows, antialiasing, stabilizes any desired image effects (does De-noise on any of them) and because it uses color science used in motion picture industry standards - it can output familiar movie look of a 35mm film or DCI cameras like Arri Alexa.
Note that this video was done few days ago before I've implemented real motion blur, and now a rendering should be even better.

Well, I didn't test it with VRPanorama, but there should be no issues other than much slower rendering and somewhat different workflow. It might be that I should do some smaller modifications to enable it to work. But, due to it's nature, I personally wouldn't use this plugin to render panoramas. In 360 video you always want to be able to eliminate real optics 'problems' - as they can be real problem. Like, you don't wan't any depth of field - but any real optics has it. You don't wan't chromatic abberation, but a real optics have them. You don't want filmic colors, you don't want lense distortion or lense flares.. and so on. So, I would say that both plugins are different tybe of beasts and are optimized into doing different tasks.
But a good news for you is that Deckard Renderer will have inittial discount for any VR Panorama user.

Yes. It is independent of screen framerate as any renderer like those found in any 3d software. As for resolution, it goes up to 8k (but you would probably need much time to render it). But actually, due to it's way of working, it gives a good image even at 2K. We usually wan't to render at higher resolutions because of aliasing problems. With Deckards lense physical modelling, you simply don't have any aliasing issues ( other than issues that might happen also with real cameras, or in cases when models are badly made/textured). Real cinema lenses doesn't have much more definition than 2k. That's why most of a cinema movies are actually all projected in 2k and only a few in 4k.

 

One of the new features for Deckard is a Real Motion Blur. If works for any type of a motion. It's best seen on a circular motion, where a standard vector motion blur fails. Also, Deckards motion blur works also on shadows.

 

So when I render out 5k 360 stereo renders with VR Pano I only use a handful of image effects so the videos come out clear as possible. I only use Bloom, AO, AA and Color Grading rest of the normal image effects are not needed for 360 video. So can Deckard take the image effects I use for these videos to the next level your saying or does Deckard have its own suite of image effects like these to use then I would use VR pano on top of that to record the videos I need?

 

What is this kind of magic? All the things you have shown are quite cool! How much would the asset cost?

 

Here is small simple demo that shows difference in motion blur Post Processing Stack vs. Deckard Render.

 

It will cost 40$.
If you already own my VRPanorama it will be 30$

 

I must have this! I want to do some video shorts using Unity HDRP and this would be wonderful!

 

Unfortunately, Deckard Render won't be supporting HDRP from a start. HDRP is in constant developement by Unity, and it is simply impossible to support it across all unity and srp versions. I have managed to make it work for rendering out Book of Dead scene, but it was more of a hack to make it work. It's enough to know that Book of a Dead demo works only on 2018.2.. and it is even broken on any later versions of unity or hdrp.
But anyway, from my experience, I can say that you don't actually need HDRP to get everything that you need with deckard render.

 

Here is another test of how well Deckard Render can handle transparent surfaces and custom third party shaders.

In a meantime, I have also implemented a new feature of supporting Motion blur on shaders. Any shader can be suctomized easily to support motion blurring. This can be pretty nice when used with water surfaces or any other type of shaders that can 'scroll' textures.

 

So, it isn't anything good for realtime gaming?

 

No, unfortunately I can't do any magic about this. It could probably work in realrime on hardware in five years from now. But until then, you can use it only as offline renderer. And I can assure you that any realtime rendering tech can't match its quality in terms of depth of field or antialiasing.

 

So if I am only needing Bloom, AA, AO and Color grading for the videos I render out using unity's post processing stack does Deckard still help me out or not you think. I don't need DOF or motion blur either.

 

Well, it quite depens on what quality do you wan't from your renderings. If you strive for hi-quality animation renderings that have real life look - you actually really need DOF and Motion blur.
-Even a sharpest lense in film photography have a finite depth of field, and introduces bluring to some extent. In CG graphics we use some workarounds for simulating this kind of blur - for textures we use mip-mapping (use textures that are lower resolution, and are blurred when viewed from a distance). For meshes (mesh edges) we use antialiasing that is actually blurring of edges. Shallow DOF can be used as creative effect, but real lense DOF actually plays a big role in antialiasing - together with other capturing techniques as diffusion filters.. Even a real life digital cameras can soffer from aliasing issues, and this is a reason why some cameras can be used for professional filming, and others can't. Overall, a science behid those issues is pretty complex.

-Motion blur is essential for smooth motion. In realtime CG we are used to render at high framerates - usually a higher FPS means better. In cinematographic rendering, we are mostly targetting 24 fps. Almost every movie made in history plays at only 24fps - but you can be pretty sure that nobody will ever say that those movies stutter. And, if as you probably know, if you have realtime graphics that are rendered at 24 fps, you will probably see a horrbile image that stutters at unbearable levels. It all comes to motion blur. A perfect motion blur has to be long exactly one half of a frame. In cinema we call it 180 degree shutter. This means that each image is exposed for a half frame, and motion blur contains exact movement of a camera inside this frame. You should look at a motion blur as temporal antialiasing. Image antialiasing can be defined as sampling between adjecent pixels on image X and Y axes. Motion blur is antialiasing in time - or sampling single pixel values over Z axis. You can have a perfectly anitaliased image in 2D (as a photo) but without motion blur, it will break appart as soon as there is a motion.

-Aliasing issues (temporal and spatial) are pretty hard to handle. Now we are used to render into 4k and 60 fps, as higher sampling rate gives US better perception on motion and better antialiasing. But, strangely enough, when rendering with Deckard, you can get better motion and more definition while rendering 1080p at 24 fps, than rendering 4k at 60 fps on screen in realtime.

-one of the examples of major problems with temporal aliasing is how Bloom behaves. If you ever rendered high frequency glossy surfaces with camera movement, you are probably noticing that small highlight areas can usually have bloom shimmer - flickering. In post processing stack you can use Anti Flicker option, but it removes only some of that highlight flicker. And most of high reflective surfaces will look somewhat odd. This can be fixed for some points of view by changing reflection probe resolutions, materialy glossyness, and bloom thresholds.. but it is always a hit and miss work. With Deckard, you can fix those issues without having to tune your scene too much. (I might make a small demo on how it looks).

-also, Deckard lets you use realtime lights with soft shadows.

 

Ok, as promised:
Here you can see a difference between Post Processing Bloom used with Deckard, and a video with a same Bloom used without Deckard.

Deckard + bloom

only Bloom without Deckard

You will notice how when rendering with deckard, bloom becomes completely stable - as it should be.

 

One of a cool thing in deckard renderer is that it's quite easy to create specific shaders for various volumetric effects like hair/fur. This hair shader was created in 10 minutes with Amplify Shader.

 

Ok, yeah, definitely gonna need a tutorial on this one.

(resists urge to stick $40 into computer to speed up accessibility of new thing that makes Unity look better)

 

Also this bokah…

Is there any way to get these bokah effects to be brighter? Something I noticed on the fire/flame clip, when the iris of a lens is wide open creating bokah, bright objects should bloom more… I suppose it's all just shader tweaking, but maybe there is a way Deckard could "know" and boost emissive objects?

 

This is an incorrect opinion that I've came across in many discussions on internet. No, bokeh shouldn't never be brighter. On contrary, a bokeh (circle of confusion) in real optics has always less brightness than a point of a same emissive object. Larger the sircle of confusion, lesser the brightness.
This mythy was probably propagated by older rendering software that couldn't use HDR color space so they were adding this 'brighten' value for bokeh. It was also there in older DOF effects for Unity. This myth is also probably propagated by movies that used CG graphics on greenscreen.

Physicist explanation:
Each pixel on a sensor gets hit by certain number of photons - and a sensor in base of that number of photons knows how much light entered. Letc imagine that this point is a star on a sky that we are filming - and lets say that if one point gets hit by 100 fotons and that this value equals to a brightness of of white. If we unfocus the same area so that circle of confusion becomes 10 pixels large - those 10 x 10 pixels will be hit each by 1 photon. So the brightness should be less than 1% of white that we had before. This is why, if you photograph a stary sky, and you arent perfectly in focus - you will see only black sky and not brightened unfocused stars.
*for simplicity of explanation, I have assumed that a blur has quadratic shape - but it actually has a circular shape, so acalculus is somewhat approximate. To get it right you should calculate circle radius surface in pixels.

Said that, if a brightness range exceeds image dynamics range - a circle of confusion will be still white.

From that standpoint, if you want that your objects cast a brighter circle of confusion, you should act on material emissivity. In case of my example, that brightness is perfectly correct as those console lights arent too bright in real world.

Deckard simulates this behaviour in a completely natural way - it uses physical modelling and not an artistic simulation.

 

Here you can see an example that I've made of how real bokeh works on a real camera. As I'm unfocusing, I'm loosing brightness.

 

Thank you!

I have learned something on the internet today!

 

Good to know and I'm happy about that
I too learned so much by working on Deckard. Because, even if I have filming and photography background, you usually don't have all the tools or time to try different settings, lenses, cameras and film looks. This is where I see Deckard coming really handy - in tuning photorealism and using deckard render as a reference.

 

Here is a small test of default Unity Speedtree rendered with Deckard and without it - for comparsion.
Deckard render:

Unity:

 

New test rendered in Deckard:

 

Now available on Assetstore:


DECKARD RENDER ON ASSETSTORE - BUY HERE

 

any preview copy available ?

 

This link does not work for me. But this does: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/video/deckard-render-137778

Is there a tutorial video?

 

Thanks for you info.
There aren't still any video tutorials, but I will be doing them during this WE.
I was in hurry to submit this as soon as possible as many users were requesting it.
Theer are probably some things to polish and to add - so this release is actually more like a beta release.
Here you can see a help file that is included in Deckard - usage is quite simple.

 

Congratulations on getting your 'beta' out. I saw this at lunch time today and immediately bought it. I really like the way your coloring of the scene works. I have been playing, in of course the meadow scene with vegetation pro and as usual I have problems with blurriness. The blur on the outside looks good, but I do not know what the strip down the middle is from.



This is in 2018.3.7f1 with PP v2, I got too many errors using V1. And I have no DOF or motion blur in the PP.

Thanks
Tyra

 

Hi,
Pretty strange. I would turn off other effecs and see if this problem persists.
-also, be sure to place all image effects between deckard pre process and deckard render sctipt. This way we can be sure that they work in correct order.
-never use temporal antialiasing - use only other two modes.
Do you have some other scripts that move camera?

 

Can this be used for high resolution 4k or above screenshots?

 

I had those effects in there and I started trying to find the problem by Nocking down dominoes. I think this is where I changed the camera and things got reordered. But I know they were in the middle at one time. The original camera was driven by Pegasus but that was turned off when I imported this. So this camera is static. I will continue playing and see what else happens then post what I find is the cause. Probably just me and my Blurry luck, I usually turn it off. But hey I haven’t found that button yet. Great asset so far just like your vr pano and CScape of which I have both. Thanks

 

Not sure if it's your luck or some kind of bug. One thing that could be potentialy wrong is if Meadow uses some custom shader tricks for rendering grass. As it seems to me - this blurring happens only on a grass (a stone on a same line looks correctly to me). Is this grass a billboard grass? I can see that a billboards facing camera evetually could produce problems as they aren't real 3d depth objects.
I will probably buy Meadow pack today, and see how it works on my side and eventually come back with tips and tricks.

 

Hi,
Yes, you can render out 4k or 8k (I didn't test if it can do even more). Right now, there is no any 'screenshot' tool, in means that you don't have any button for capturing only one image. But you can capture multiple images in sequence, and use any rendered image. Of course, as Deckard is only Editor extension, this functionality doesn't work on builds - so you have to use it in editor.

 

It would be possible to have some tips on that kind of Amplify shader?

 

I will try to make a small demo shader..

 

Just purchased it and was gonna mess around with it but wondering why are you using the older post processing image effects. Is there some benefit using the older ones with deckard then current new post processing being installed from the package manager in unity 2018.3?

 

Yes, there is actually one benefit - V1 has a much better Screen Space Reflection quality and this is what you probably mostly need with Deckard for good quality rendering.
Any other improvements in V2 you won't actually need - things like ambient occlusion or antialiasing.. as those are all managed by deckard.

 

I have examined Meadow pack, and I think that I've understand what happens - and this is pretty silly.
It looks like there is a bug in Unity (or inconsistently implemented feature) for any grass objects controlled by Wind Settings for Grass in Unity terrain system.
The thing is that everything in unity is based on scaled time (time that can be slowed down or up based on settings in project - time scale). This is essential for any rendering that happens slowly.
But actually, what happens is that for a bug - this value doesn't follow "time.scale" value and works only in realtime. As Deckard takes up to few seconds to render one frame, grass is continuing to move in that time as normal, and this adds this strange kind of a blur.
Solution: unfortunately I don'0t have any consistent solution because we can't get our hands on Unity code to change this behaviour.
-In unity Terrain set Wind Sewttings for Grass - Speed value to something really small. Or just set it to 0.
-Real solution would be to set this value to 0, and make a shader that animates grass based on unity "_time" value. But this on the other side requires you to change shaders that might be pretty complex.
Hopefully, unity is leaving it's outdated terrain system.
But I will wrtite to Unity and submit a bug for this issue on terrain system and grass.

Other than that, I can confirm that Temporal Antialiasing is to be avoided when using Deckard Render with PPS V2. Just use Subpixel or Fast Approximate AA.

For the end, here is a test render that I've did for a Meadow Pack.

 

Here is one example shader. It is a sort of a pearl shader. It uses hundreds of multiple passes that are driven with a global shader float value from Deckard "_deckardInterpolator". It actually interpolates between two specular colors on each pass resulting in a pearl-like surface. This is a most basic amplify shader that can probably help you to understand how it works.
But you can use this value to modify any shader property so that each pass renders different properties.
Then all passes get mixed by a simple adittive blend formula that is then divided by a number of passes.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4amrljeya75hdsn/multipassExample_Pearl.unitypackage?dl=0

 

Well this has been amazing. Congrat Oliver!!!
Second render Test.
Been waiting for this approach in Unity for along time!

 

Deckard is causing my Amplify skin shader to turn transparent.
One test oscillated between opaque and transparent every few frames, then settled on opaque… Looks like I'll need to update ASE and rebuild the shader.

The PNG export is saving empty (transparent) images on Mac.... JPG is fine.

I really like these soft area lights though. Light cookies look good too.


A runtime "snapshot" button would be really useful – maybe with an option to toggle the renderer? I think it's easier to set up shots in a live scene sometimes, rather than stopping and starting. Deckard is pretty slow, so it could turn on with the snapshot.

The interface is nice too.