[RELEASED] MK Glow

Hey guys,
after some suggestions, i am finally posting a forum thread for the newest version of my glow shader.

Available on the Asset Store

MK Glow is an artist-friendly and feature-rich post-processing effect, which simulates bright surface scattering of light.
In addition to the bloom, some highly customizable extras, like lens surface, lens flare and glare are available. This shader is compatible with the Legacy and Lightweight Render Pipelines.

Demo: Web GL - Windows Zip (HQ)
Follow development: Trello

Features:

• Support for Legacy and Lightweight Render Pipeline
• Portable to custom Scriptable Render Pipelines
• Super-fast, command buffer based rendering
• Built-in quality settings
• Luma based color scaling
• Direct Compute & Geometry Shader & MRT based rendering
• Debug views for every single rendering step
• Artist friendly, fast and easy to set up
• Lens Surface dirt & diffraction
• Lens Flare & Halo (Shader Model 3+)
• Glare (Shader Model 4+)
• Volume blending using Post-processing Stack v2
• Anamorphic ratio scaling
• Temporal stable anti-flicker filtering
• Unified editor
• Advanced built-in shaders for UI and sprite
• Two intuitive workflows
• XR compatible

Questions, bug reports, feature requests?
Feel free to get in touch via support@michaelkremmel.de

Thanks & all the best
Michael

 

Hi,
First of all, your Asset is great and works like a charm

Both me and my partner have tried to join the shader that I attached.
But since MK Glow is so advanced, we have lost ourselves in the process
My partner has average knowledge of shaders, but has not been able to decipher the keys.

Do you have any ideas or help for some simple indie games developers?

(We use the Selective Shader)

Thank you very much!

 

I love MKGlow, is a super easy and fast way to apply emissives on materials, but i cannot achieve to make it working on iOS or Android, it's only working in the Editor window of Unity.

 

hey there,
glad you like the shader!

I guess your are using luminance workflow (recommend). I assume your colors get cut off, because by default HDR color are disabled on mobile devices (~8bit per channel only). So you have 2 options:

1. Allow HDR colors in the Graphics Settings if its a possibility for you (increases used graphics bandwidth, but produce best results in terms of quality)
2. Lower your used threshold (lower than 1)

If your issue is still not solved feel free to write me a support email.

all the best
Michael

 

This looks like exactly what I need, but since it was released using Unity 5.6, the asset store won't let me download it for 5.0.1. I assume it would work with that version, right? Is there any way I can download the shaders somewhere else?

Thank you for releasing this to the public.

 

hey, actually some of the code is based on Unity 5.6+. So if its possible (and i would really recommend), please update to a higher unity version or at least the latest 5.X build.

 

Since these are shaders, the 5.6-specific code shouldn't be necessary for the shader themselves, right? I don't have the option of upgrading in the middle of a project: I tried that previously and it didn't go very well.

 

The shader code itself also changed on some stages (internal macros, vr, ..., maybe would still work on older versions). Besides that, there are also some rendertarget specific code, which has changed over the time. This code definitely would need to be changed (just downloaded 5.0.1 and tested it). So the minimum requirement for the plugin is 5.6.0+ or above.

For Non-VR development you should use at least unity 5.6.0+
For VR development i recommend you to use unity 2018.3+

 

But doesn't the free version include the shader code, in which case I could modify the macros, etc. I've done that before to convert newer code so it would be compatible with 5.0.1.

 

hey! it worked. I just fixed by reducing the threshold. Thank you very much @Wraithes!

 

Indeed this may work, but as i already mentioned much code on the scripting side (rendertargets and some stuff a very different handled in newer unity versions) has to be changed too. To move with unity (and to not mess up the code with unnessesary defines) i decided to set the minimum requirement to 5.6.0.

 

has anyone managed to test this with oculus quest/go?

 

hey there,
You can just download the free version and test it with your device. If the free version is working, the paid on should work too. Its just recommend to use at least 2018.3 and above. The shaders should work in every VR Rendering Mode (The instanced mode is just cutting of some of the features, because of the high amount of rendertargets required).

If anything is not working correctly feel free to drop me a message via support email for further assistance,

all the best
Michael

 

nvm.. does not work as long you have FFR in play... sigh..Damn you Quest Hardware

 

How to download the free version to try it? Does it work in Oculus Quest?

 

Currently the free version isn't available anymore (sorry about that, just edited the thread).

The oculus quest is kinda tricky to handle... somehow. The shader itself is compatible downwards to shader model 2.0. However on some oculus quests the shader is running as expected and on some it doesn't work. Therefore i'm currently debugging whats breaking the shader sometimes (hopefully very soon, you can check my progress on my public trello board).

Cheers

 

hey I was testing the free version ( about 6 months ago ) on oculus quest and it worked but the performance hit was quite hard ( limitations of quest I guess), I should try it again to see if I was maybe using wrong setup.
Could you please send me the link to your trello? I would like to follow your update on this ( if you will manage to fix your shader problem) as well as I would love to add some glow to my game

Edit: I have found your second asset mk glow lite and theere is the trello link, btw when i was testing the mk glow free on the quest I was using unity camera with tracked pose not the ovr rig, and it worked fine.

 

Hey,
thats quite interesting that the free version was actually working.
You can follow the current state of development here: Trello

Currently the issue seems to appear completely random. On some Quests its working and on some not... super weird!

Yeah the oculus rig is separated each eye. However thats something i already handle internally (and should work).

 

Hey. Great HDRP integration. Congratulation.

Some questions:

• Would it be possible to avoid that TAA "changes the visual apperance of the glares so much.
  They also look nice with TAA but the visual difference in apperance in game for user selection with TAA and without TAA should be less strong.
  Otherwise you would need to create more volume post overiddes for different aa settings what s kind of impractical

with TAA

• would it be possible to introduce further "quality" steps to stretch/filter the glare even more.e.g Yebis has 8 qualtiy parameters. You can stretch them around 3 times the length from the crosses on the HDRP screenshot. (only made an pure chrome out of the metal thing)
• could you allow to optionally modify the glare color with an spectral color lookup

example for glare length and spectral color variation in the glare streak

• would it be possibles to stabilize the glares when the enter and leave the screen.
  There is a tronger flicker who little destroys immersion and binds the viewer. This is also stabil in Yebis but i dont have an idea how they do this. It seems the glares get some lower intensities when the reach frame border but i am not sure.

For now thanks for this great piece of work.

 

Hey there & thanks for the feedback!

TAA:
Guess i messed something up while packing the final package (just tested it and was able to reproduce your issue)... Damn its really hard to keep up with all that preview stuff and pipelines!... Seems like there is something going wrong with the texture filtering / multisampling. Will check that out over the next few days for sure!

Glare stretch:
I maybe could extent the glare filter to get stretched even more, but i'm not sure. Internally i'm using multiple render targets for rendering and try to squeeze all the rendering in as less as possible passes to maintain a good performance. Its required to blur & filter the glare over and over again to make it possible to stretch it very large (hit the performance very hard).

Glare Color:
Never thought about something like that. Sounds like a nice idea. Just added it to my trello.

Glare on borders:
Hmmm that could be tricky. Basically you can only render the glare streaks once the bright pixels are on the screen. So i guess the other postprocessing effect you mentioned is doing something like a vignette filtering and fade the glare in once the bright pixels appear.

Would be super helpful if you could drop me a message on my support email (support@michaelkremmel.de). Then i could send you also a test package after i finished the AA issue! Of course i'll take a good look @ all the other points you mentioned too.

all the best
Michael

 

Hi. I know. Preview buisness is hard. I was very impressed from the quality MKGlow already delivers.

to
"Glare stretch:
I maybe could extent the glare filter to get stretched even more, but i'm not sure. Internally i'm using multiple render targets for rendering and try to squeeze all the rendering in as less as possible passes to maintain a good performance. Its required to blur & filter the glare over and over again to make it possible to stretch it very large (hit the performance very hard)."

I will make you some screenshots from the Yebis quality steps tomorrow.
Meantime you could have a look here
https://github.com/keijiro/Kino
Keijiro Streak is very flexibel in size adjust by nearly same performance.


to
Glare on borders:

I will send you an deep dive for an solution.

to
"Glare Color:
Never thought about something like that. Sounds like a nice idea. Just added it to my trello."

I have the code somewhere. I will have a look. Did it 10 years before. I was a simple modulation with 6 spectral colors. It s possible with an spectral texture lookup to.
Meantime. Old but gold.... from 2003.)

http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/archives/GDC2003_DSTEAL.ppt
see the 64px screenshot

 

In case you not know. The Quenn of Glare Demos.)
It became really fast 16 years later. I had have 20fps in the beginning.
Now over 400.

http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/archives/rthdribl_1_2.zip

g/G to cycle through the glares
Options/Depth of Field/ set Focus Center

lots of inspirations

 

In addition. Here is also an probable doable assembling for an hyperrealistic one.
Fire some noise in between with fancy kernels?
So the ones above are nice for everyday photorealistic cinematique styles.

This one is more an hyperealistic approach in the eye. But we have 2020 now.)
And thats some High Definition.
And you should have the choice.


https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Temporal-Glare:-Real-Time-Dynamic-Simulation-of-the-Ritschel-Ihrke/0a4f533f8d54aefaaae99b25a62bde9cd6c856a6






and nice to see whats the cause

 

Thanks for all the resources, i'll take a good look through them! May i find something i can improve very soon.

Regarding the hyperrealistic implementation:
I actually have something like that as a prototype, its already working but nothing optimized (super math heavy). Hope i can make it someday production ready...

 

Nice. Can t wait. First quality. Then optimize.)
Unoptimized ones are also great to activate per override when you do high res screenshots or realtime movie rendering from an HDRP scene.

 

already some good news here. I was able to fix a couple of things based on your input (thx for the feedback again, if you are interested for a first look/test just drop me a message via my support mail!). With next (hopefully) soon update its possible to stretch the glare a good amount larger, while having the same performance/quality. I was also able to fit my code a bit more into the HDRP, which improved the performance. The AA issue should be fixed too.

 

Hi. Nice. Dropped you a message.

FYI
Unity PPV3 Bloom has a very strong blur behaviour whats dicussed in many threads like.
Here some links about prelimary discussions.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/hdrp-5-3-0-ppv3-bloom-blurs-the-whole-frame.620272/
and
https://forum.unity.com/threads/pho...nto-digital-assets.521946/page-2#post-5230607
see answer from Unity
https://forum.unity.com/threads/pho...nto-digital-assets.521946/page-2#post-5254001

 

Hi, I wonder if MK_Glow will support HDRP7.2 in the future?

 

Hey there,
Just checked it on HDRP 7.2.1. Everything seems to work as expected.

1) import MK Glow
2) Import the HDRP_Component package
3) Add MK Glow under HDRP Grapics Settings => Custom Postprocess (Before)
4) Add MK Glow to your postprocess volume

If its still not working feel free to drop me a message via my support email.

 

I used your options,but it does not work on android,Have you test it on unity2019.3????

 

hey there & really sorry about the issue. Normally the shader should work without any hassle.

I just did some test on my android devices, but everything works as expected.
In your case it would be super helpful if you drop me message via my support mail and attach me a simple example project, which contains your issue. Then i'll take a deeper look at it!

 

I'm interested in checking the asset out for the flicker-free bloom effect. I'm running URP 7.3.1 right now; does the asset support this?

Also, what's the performance like compared to postprocessing stack bloom effects?

 

Hey,
Regarding URP Support:
Currently it's not possible to do any custom postprocessing on the URP. Allegedly it comes with the 2020.1 version. My code is already prepared. I dont have any plan to implement the effect on the urp using a custom renderer or something. So on URP your are forced to the URP Fallback. More info: https://forum.unity.com/threads/post-processing-and-urp-the-plan.795456/

Regarding Performance:
Of course you should get out of the box a decent performance, which also run's on almost every device (even some weaker ones). You can even finetune for more quality or performance.
If you want some numbers i just tested on a postprocessing stack v2 setup:
Builtin-bloom: 0.154ms
MK Glow: 0.079ms
I'm using a GTX 1080, 1080p rendertarget, Builtin GPU profiler, builtin-renderpipeline. Default settings for both components.

 

Hello! Love your assets, using glow and toon in a couple of projects, so thanks for that!

I am trying to use SetColor with your glow shader MK/Glow/Selective/Particles/Additive

using:

_Color
_MKGlowColor
_MKGlowTexColor

rend is set to my objects renderer

but these have no effect:
rend.material.SetColor("_Color", newColor);
rend.material.SetColor("_MKGlowColor", newColor);
rend.material.SetColor("_MKGlowTexColor", newColor);

It works with Unity particle shaders, but for some reason can't get this going. Do you have any insight as to why this might be occurring? TY!

 

Hey, glad you like the shaders.

just did a quick test. Couldn't reproduce your issue. In your case it would be super helpful if you drop me a message via email including a simple example project / unitypackage. Then i'll take a closer look at it!

Cheers!
Michael

 

Great glow/bloom system!

One problem... it seems incompatible with the post-processing stack (standard pipeline) color correction effect. If you turn that on, the MK Glow effect is killed. Adjusting values in MK Glow just make distortions but nothing makes it right that I can find.

 

Hey & thanks!
Are you combining the legacy image effects pipeline (Component on camera) and the postprocessing stack (v2 i guess)?
If this is the case you should import the LWRP_PPSV2_Component.unitypackage inside the MK/MKGlow/Components Folder. Then you can attach a MK Glow Component directly on your post processing stack.

 

Got it... thanks!

 

Really a nice glow system which i discovered years ago.
In those days i was profiling my game and found that Camera.RenderWithShader in the OnPreRender event spends a large admount of time calling UIEvents.WillRenderCanvases and UGUI.Rendering.EmitScreenSpaceCamerasGeometryForCamera even if the camera has NOT to render UI elements.

Is there a way to prevent this? I found a trick to minimize the willRenderCanvases but it involves reflection:

Code (CSharp):

1.                 var canvasHackField = typeof(Canvas).GetField("willRenderCanvases", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Static);
2.                 var canvasHackObject = canvasHackField.GetValue(null);
3.                 canvasHackField.SetValue(null, null);
4.                 //
5.                 GlowCamera.RenderWithShader(glowRenderShader, "RenderType");
6.                 //
7.                 canvasHackField.SetValue(null, canvasHackObject);

Can you add the possibility to exclude any rendering of UI elements? That would optimize really good for mobile development.

Thank you

 

Hey there,
glad you like the shader.

Could you please tell me about your pipeline/postprocessing setup and the workflow you are using?

If you are using "Selective" workflow (i guess you are using it because of the RenderWithShader call), i would highly recommend you to switch to "Threshold" workflow and a HDR setup. The selective workflow will be deprecated very soon, because its impossible to maintain it with all the unity changes in the past time (already experimenting with some alternative). This will completely avoid the RenderWithShader call and you are not depenent on /MK/Glow/Selective/XXX shaders (and a performance improvement). You can almost achieve a selective feeling if you set the threshold to ~1.25 and simply raise the emission on the shader you like.

 

Thanks Wraithes, just sent you a PM

 

@Wraithes Hi, I just installed mk glow in a HDRP project. It seems like a great asset but I tried to use it without success. I followed the readme file but curiously there is a full glow
in all my scenes even after deleting the asset and restarting the project. I also deleted the before post process in my project setting.

Is there a way to go back to my original project and get rid of the blow that is added to my scene. I can probably replace some files if you point me to the right direction. Please see attached picture, I bypass the volume so you can see the glow problem by itself.

Thank for your help!

 

Hey there,

wow thats super weird.

1) which HDRP version and unity version are you using? Normally it should work out of the box.
2) After deleting the asset, nothing except a removed glow should be changed (the shader does not touch the HDRP code or something).

In your case it would be super helpful if you could send me over a simple example project (via support mail), which has this issue. Then i'll take a closer look at it.

 

@Wraithes

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I am using Unity 2019.3.13f1 with HDRP 7.3.1.

I am sorry I can't send the project because it is is a huge 20 gig project with loads of assets. So it might be a conflict with other assets. I was able to partially fix the problem by replacing the HDRenderPipelineAsset from a backup. It solves the problem until I open the project settings window. Then the problem comes back again. The only way to fix it is to close the project, replace the HDRenderPipelineAsset with the backup again then reopen the project but I can't go in my project setting anymore without having to redo the process again.

I bought a nice asset call Turbo backup Pro and I made a backup of this project, but since I have been working for several weeks on this project, I was trying to avoid restoring the backup in case it does not work as expected and creates other problems. So for the time being and until I can release my project I think I will live with the project settings window bug and replace the HDRenderPipelineAsset when needed.

But thank you anyway for your help again.

 

@netpost
Hey,
just took a look into this again (Using your unity version and HDRP version), but everything seems to work as expected.
Are you able to reproduce this issue on a new hdrp project?

Definitely will keep an eye on this.

 

Love MK Glow. Using it in standard rendering pipeline project and testing in HDRP, been working great in both. Just upgraded to HDRP 9.0.0-preview.33. Unfortunately this breaks MK Glow's post processing override.

Think you could provide an update to support?

 

Hey there & thanks for reporting this issue,
i just took a look into this and was able to reproduce it (at least i guess). I'll drop you a (hopefully working) fix via PM soon (official fix will follow soon of course).

all the best
Michael

 

Hello. I love this asset, I'm using it from the times when there was a free version. However. once I updated MKGlow, the build size for Android upped by 11 MB, building time increased because of building shader variants.

The question: what shaders can I delete if I only use selective glow with one material?

The build log:
7.5 mb 3.4% Assets/_MK/MKGlow/Shaders/Effect/MKGlowSM40.shader
5.3 mb 2.5% Assets/_MK/MKGlow/Builtin/LensSurfaceDiffraction/LensSurfaceDiffraction0.png
4.5 mb 2.1% Assets/_MK/MKGlow/Shaders/Effect/MKGlowSM40Geometry.shader
2.7 mb 1.2% Assets/_MK/MKGlow/Builtin/LensSurfaceDirt/LensSurfaceDirt6.png
1.6 mb 0.8% Assets/_MK/MKGlow/Shaders/Effect/MKGlowSM35.shader
1.6 mb 0.7% Assets/_MK/MKGlow/Shaders/Effect/MKGlowSM30.shader

Is it okay to delete these?

 

Hey there & sorry about the issues,

thats actually an issue i'm already aware of (and i'm currently working on). The problem is to keep the shader's compatibility without breaking features. I really want to keep the user away from sorting shaders or something similar, so at the moment most of the shaders and variants are included into the build (even if the platform is not supporting it).

I'll drop you a quickfix for it via PM very soon.
Cheers!
Michael

 

Does this play together with TextMesh Pro and, if so, is there a tutorial on how to make that happen?