[Released] Physically Based Area Lights - redLights 2.0

Hi,

just a heads up. We spotted a bug that results in our materials not being rendered when building your application. It works fine in the editor though. We'll investigate this and prepare a patch asap.

Thanks,
Martin

 

No. If you want to bake area lights you should use regular static geometry with emissive materials.

 

Hey Martin,

Not sure what you mean by your materials? Does that mean materials provided in the demo scene?

The new version seems to work well, it would be great if you could write a couple of lines regarding the new parameters introduced in the new version. Do they have tooltips, I could not get any info when I hover over the different options in the editor.

Thanks.

 

Hi,

regarding the documentation. Yes, we know that it is lacking, but time is limited and we wanted to get the updated version out as soon as possible. We will catch up on this (promise ).

Glad to hear but I highly doubt it. It works fine in the editor but there is a severe problem, when building your application as a standalone for example. Or does this work on your side?

I would assume, that there will be a couple of lines in the application log file similar to the following:

GpuProgram creation error: empty shader string
WARNING: Shader Unsupported: 'Standard (Specular setup)' - Pass 'SHADOWCASTER' has no vertex shader

Can you confirm?

Thanks,
Martin

 

Hi there,

here is the patch. Please replace the AutoLight.cginc in your Project with the patched file.

http://data.redplant.de/transfer/redLights/redLights_autoLight_patch.unitypackage

We will include this in the next release but since approval usually takes a couple of days we would like to provide it here also up front.

Have a nice weekend.

Martin

 

Hey Martin,

Thats true, I just checked it and the log file does contain the above mentioned errors. However for me the scene rendered correctly in the build so am not sure what happened.

Thanks a lot for the patch , really appreciate it when we don't have to wait for asset store update especially during the weekend.

 

That is deeply confusing...

Nevertheless we recommend using the latest patch.

Martin

 

Hello,
Do you have the time to make a new apk?
Or it's possible to test a limited version of your Asset on my WindowsPhone, Android and iOS?

 

There is no trial Version, I'm afraid. We'll try to prepare a new apk by the end of this week.

Martin

 

So I upgraded my old project to Unity 5 but since the original redlights isn't supported I just wanted to ask some questions about 2.0 before I buy since its a lot of money for me. Is there any features that the original has that 2.0 don't have? Can I still have almost a unlimited amount of lights active on screen? Does it have a higher system requirement than the original or is it about the same?

 

Hi,

I have an issue with latest update, everything turns pink. I think I have managed to pinpoint the problem to the standard and standardspecular shader that comes together with the plugin ( located here: Assets\redLights\Resources\Shader\).

this is the error I get in inspector when I select the shaders



another way to detect this problem is when the standard shader is at the bottom of the shaderlist



It looks like it's working by simply deleting the standard and standardspecular shader (and reselect the standard shaders in the materials). Is this a good workaround or is there any better workaround/solution? Will I be missing out on some features by deleting the standard and standardspecular that comes bundled with this plugin?

Thanks

 

Hi... I'm interested in getting this asset... but I see on the documentation that I need to replace the Deferred shader on Grahics Settings...

Is there a way to make this compatible with UBER/Alloy shaders? and also "Shadow Softener"? (I'm also thinking on getting that, but I'm worried about compatibility) Since they also require changing the Deferred Shader (Now I know that Shadow Softener and UBER can be compatible)

 

The patched file failed to import; BTW, The file downloaded is only 3k
"""
Failed to import package with error: Couldn't decompress package
"""

 

Hi, I was just wondering if the new building for 5.2.2 or above was available please? I don't seem to be getting my light showing. The demos just come out black.

Thanks a lot.

Neil

 

Hi

@davile
Alloy Shaders are supported as they have integrated support for our Lighting code. You can use their Deferred Shader.
There is a Installation Note in our Manual.

@tiantian_
A new Version is in the Asset Store. Version 2.3.2 should have the fix integrated.

@e3di
Which version do you use? Version 2.3.2 should work fine under Unity 5.2.2. Could you give us more indication
why they won't work on your Machine. (build settings, graphics settings, forward/deferred, directx/opengl etc.)

 

Did you create a new apk to test your solution?

 

Hi thanks for answer you quoted me wrong so I didn't got a notification, is ok I just checked here anyways.

That sounds good for Alloy's part, just one more question what about UBER? any info on that?

 

Hi,

i really like your product and its quality lighting.
thats why i want to give you some feedback.

after some heavy stresstesting the most obvious issue is the missing shadow casting ability.
that makes it in some cases pretty useless. even so the indirect light is blocked by occluders depending on the enlighten settings the direct light is leaking throug everything

i knew that when i was purchasing - hopfully you find a solution anyway.

did you consider or have a workaround with kind of an occluder object?
some kind of area/rectangle light with "negative" values respectively a multiplyer wich multiplys the specular and diffuse light by zero within its dimensions.
i saw a paper on this for ue from the team behind ""remember me". this way one would be able to block at least the most obvious leaks without having any shadows.

i also found out a "bug" which really should be fixed. only the disc light seems to be effected. it lits surfaces backsides with an inverted diffuse light. hopefully the screenshot says more than words.

 

no one else is running into this disc light issue?

 

Hi nbac,

I just came back from vacation yesterday. I'll look into it.

Yes, shadow support is a never ending story. They are essential and would be an amazing new feature for this package, but it's tricky and we didn't find a proper solution yet. The last attempt was based on Imperfect Shadow Maps.

http://resources.mpi-inf.mpg.de/ImperfectShadowMaps/ISM.pdf

And while we achieved good results regarding runtime performance, the quality of the shadows itself was not satisfying at all. We are planning to look into other techniques such as Distance Field Shadows, but at this point all of this is still in a very theoretic and experimental state.

It would be awesome if you could send us a link to that paper.

Thanks,
Martin

 

Ups, seems like I used a wrong account for the above post.

With each new Unity version we have to update our rendering code. Because sometimes there are internal API changes, some function or variable name in the core shader have been renamed or other things. The very rapid frequency of unity publishing updates, makes this really tedious and it is difficult to provide updates instantly. We are currently preparing a new build for recent 5.2.3.

Thanks,
Martin

 

hopefully you enjoyed your vacation. i will check if i can find the paper. pls also check the disc light error.

its pretty essential. since everything else is working i think its not a problem on my side.

Vielen Dank!

 

distance field shadows are pretty promising and are pretty well integrated in ue4.
anyway, cant you make any use of the build in cascade shadows from unity itself?

even the enlighten guys put something up regarding to this topic
http://www.geomerics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AltDevConf-SamMartin-RealTimeAreaLighting.pdf

also you could take a look into pcss (percentage closer soft shadows), which are pretty approved since they found there way into some games like the latest assassin´s creed. (nvidia/ microsoft)

there are a lot of techniques but you know best what could work within unity and your system.

regarding to the paper i mixed it up with a technique for blocking reflections. anyway this could be really interesting.
sébastien lagarde calls it image proxies. from my understanding it is similar to an textured rectangle light and in this case its rendering above the reflection. at least the leaking secular part could be eliminated this way.

https://seblagarde.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/gpu-pro-4-practical-planar-reflections-using-cubemaps-and-image-proxies/

i considered calling you but this could lead into an extensive chat and i dont want to bother you to much.

 

Thanks.

In order to fix the disc light please do the following:

- open redPlantDiskLight.cginc
- replace line 31 with the following line

Code (CSharp):

1. const half NdotL2 = max(dot(normal, lightDir), 0.0);

- save the file

We simply forgot to max to 0.0.

Hope this helps

 

Hi there,

we didn't try to integrate redLights with UBER, but it should be possible somehow. Most probably not out of the box, though.

We'll try to contact the developers behind UBER, maybe they can share some insight.

Martin

 

Is there no upgrade option for owners of version 1.0? One must simply pay the full cost of version 2.0?

 

Yes.

This is because redLights 2.0 is a completely different piece of software and based on an entirely different approach for calculating the area lights. It shares only the name and a little bit of utility code from the first version.

Therefore we couldn't provide this as a free update.

 

No-one suggested a free upgrade, many developers charge 50% upgrade to the new version from the old. Bitmap to material are doing this. I have paid for several such upgrades with different assets. Vetasoft do the same, I had no problem paying that.

 

Hm, we haven't really thought about that, because redLights (SSAL) and redLights 2.0 are distributed as two separate packages in the AssetStore. Not sure, if the store itself allows for this kind of discount.

 

FunFant has released a toy bundle, this has different upgrade costs depending on how many packs in the bundle were already purchased. The packs are still sold seperately, so there's an overall small discount on all the packs if the bundle is bought, I have one of the packs and instead of $30 the bundle uograde is $25. Surely this could be an option where developers could buy the packs seperately or opt to buy the bundle at a small discount and this would allow version 1.0 users to upgrade to 2.0 for a discount on version 2.0. One simply has to make it clear in the first sentence of the bundle exactly who should buy it in the same way when blox 1.0 went on the store the developer pointed out that blox 1.0 was already in Plygame and anyone with that asset should not buy blox 1.0.

 

Hi, Sorry it has taken me a while to get back, here is the error I am getting when I try and run the demos.

This custom render path shader needs to have at least 2 passes.
UnityEditor.DockArea:OnGUI()

Could it be user error?

Cheers

Neil

 

Hello,
I would like to buy your Asset, but I want to be sure it works with Android and WindowsPhone.
It's not possible to test your Asset ?

 

hi,

@e3di i got the same problem now and than. often a force rebuild in the redlight manager helps.
anyway in general its working even if i often loose custom falloff types on play. (although fixed by rebuild).
in the editor and in game mode everything looks pretty nifty

a big problem for me at the moment is, that i cant build an working executable. i get a lot of empty shader strings.
everything is running okay except the materials are all dark.

 

What a pity! Cant use it for my project. To much troubleshooting. even with a completely fresh project - just building the demo scenes it is not working :/ unity 5.2.22f1 redlights 2.3.2 everthing seems to be okay in editor/ playmode... all materials render black in executable

 

Hi,

we provided a patch for this problem. See post above.

http://data.redplant.de/transfer/redLights/redLights_autoLight_patch.unitypackage

Just replace the AutoLight.cginc that you find in the package.

I'll try to upload a fixed version to the AssetStore asap.

Hope this helps.

Martin

 

Hi Menfou, check your inbox. PM sent.

 

hey martin,
thank you for the short response time.
could you pls check the custom falloffs i often loose them on play mode and have to reset all lights again.

 

Sure, but can you give me some more infos on what exactly is going wrong?

Thanks,
Martin

 

Aaah uh yeah ups. I see it now!

Will provide a fix asap. Hopefully today, maybe tomorrow.

Thanks

 

any "good" news regarding the falloffs?

and one additional observation. i got one big glass facade in my scene and around 30 redlights behind the surface (not all visible at the same time). glass mat is std shader -transparent. if i get close to the facade and its filling most of the screen i get a major frame drop. i am not sure if its related to the fill rate or depth sorting or something else but its not occurring with the std lights.
maybe you can somehow tune the performance/ buffer handling.
have a good week

 

Hi guys,

we will come back to you as soon as possible. We are currently in the middle of a deadline. Always the same at the end of the year. Pff..

Talk to you soon.

Martin

 

hey,
i can totally understand that. anyway i think since 5.3. the sun disc is not rendered in the reflections anymore. this is really bad. if i switch back to internal deffered renderer it does but obviously the materials do not react in a propper way than.

maybe there is a quick fix.

 

We are currently updating our code to 5.3. Stay tuned

 

Ok, we are done upgrading and will submit the updated version for Unity 5.3.0f4 just now.

Merry X mas!

 

@MPanknin:

Good morning!

I am considering purchasing your asset today, but I wanted to check in on future shadow support.

One of my current projects is in desperate need of real-time spherical area lights that cast shadows, as this will be integral to not only the style, but the gameplay of said project.

I've read through this thread, and see that shadows were in consideration. As it has been nine months since that post, I wanted to see if any progress had been made in that direction. If not, are you aware of any assets that may be used in conjunction with your own to cast said shadows?

Thank you in advance, and be well!
- S.

 

@MPanknin

As a thought -- could your asset be paired with standard Unity point and spot lights? For instance, to emulate a flashlight, I could use a standard Unity spotlight for the shadows, then a redLight disk emitter set to only display indirect light.

Would that work?

Thank you again!
- S.

 

So? The version I just purchased today (dec20) isn't updated for 5.3.0f4 or not? Do they have to approve it or something?

Because I just loaded in the demo scenes and it doesn't look right, there is no specular lighting like on the asset store page.

Am I missing something? I'm kind of a noob when it comes to advanced lighting stuff. Is there some settings I need to change to get the demo scenes working?

To be honest, I could never get GI to look right. I don't understand the new lighting engine at all. I see everyone doing all this great looking stuff, and I can't even get a demo scene to look right. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

maybe I dug myself in too deep buying an advanced lighting solution like this. Ugh, I wasted my money on some I can't get to work right (no fault of yours). I'm disappointed.

ERROR CODE: User incompetence.

 

Hi, the updated version for 5.3 hasn't been approved, yet. Sry about that. But there is nothing we can do to accelerate this submission process.

It usually takes a couple of days. So hopefully tomorrow the new version will be available for you guys.

 

Yes, that should work. Our lights behave very similar to the built in lights. So if you attach a point light to a spherical light, that should work. However, you will most probably have to fine tune the light Parameters manually.

 

@MPanknin: Thank you for the response!

Relative to my prior post, is there any news relative to native shadow support? I feel as though that is the one feature lacking to make this asset the complete package. There would truly be no other asset on the store that could complete.

- S.