[LEGACY] PIDI - Planar Reflections 2. Real-time reflections with Lightweight SRP+Mobile support

Hi there,

In January of this year all asset publishers were told that we had to update our assets to fully support lightweight srp (regardless of any technical issues with the pipeline at the time and that its limits might be a problem). After some initial backlash, the Unity asset store team gave us a long clarification saying that while it is not mandatory right now, it will become mandatory next year that all assets in the store support the standard pipeline AND the Lightweight pipeline.

This is a big issue for me since a lot of my assets are either designed to work with the current pipeline in quite a simbiotic way (using features/commands not available in SRP) or heavily relying on custom shaders which was very poorly documented till recently, but last word we got from the asset store team was that the change would be in force next year.

Because of this, I can't keep the tool at this price point while adding so much work to support another pipeline, and I didn't want to raise the price for a feature 99% won't use right now. My best solution is to have both available till January and make the transition from the current version to version 2.0 as easy as possible for my customers


In short we were told about this by the asset store team since earlier this year on the publishers forum, way back when both pipelines were still experimental.

I really thank you for your reply and reassurance, but it does conflict directly with what we were told by the asset store team since once they put in place the requirement for lightweight support next year on their end, they will start rejecting new submissions/updates that do not have them, just like they've done lately for assets that do not meet other old and new requirements. But it makes sense since the first months after we were told all this there was a very serious miscommunication issue with the store team telling us they hadn't decided yet how they wanted us to pack both versions well after they had already told us to start doing it, so this might be just that they didn't pass on the information clearly enough (I hope, since I have no clue how independent each Unity team is! )

We asked plenty of times and in the end, next year is the timeline they gave us to have all our assets be SRP compatible so I'm doing my best to get there in time just in case they got it right this time and start rejecting my updates if the tool is not srp compatible


EDIT :
Here it is


If they start to enforce that rule by the end of 2018-early 2019 (which seems unlikely right now since....well, we are pretty close to the end of 2018 so 2019 is more likely and thus the date I gave) I am doing my best to be prepared and make an easy transition for my customers in case they indeed enforce this rule next year

 

Again, thanks for your reassurance and for taking the time to reply and check this post here, I appreciate a lot to see your interest in these issues even if they are somewhat buried now among many posts

And just to be clear too, this is more an upgrade plan rather than just a deprecation. The standard pipeline will keep getting all my support through all 2019 and beyond

(after all, with LTS as you mention, the Standard pipeline will be in full action till at least 2022 thanks to Unity 2018 LTS so we did find it weird that the Asset Store team was in such a hurry to make us all comply with SRP)

Again, thanks and have a good day !

 

Hi!

I'm currently having an issue with the hololens,

I have a hierarchy set up as follows

MixedRealityCamera
-> Camera (Renders for both eyes)
(See the scene below)

Single-pass stereo rendering
In the editor (using holoremoting) it looks ok! (minus a little floating, but that's probably just the holoremoting)
Deploying on the hololens however, leads to a stretched and floating image, it looks like the render texture is capturing for both eyes?
(If I rotate my head, I can see the rendered texture for each eye)

I've left an example here:
Editor Rendered: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PeQXRyNgwQAbi4xW73Gs6TQQYp8THgK6/view?usp=sharing
Hololens Rendered: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dscB9RKLILBogO3tAG-CRjJmccjfgeum/view?usp=sharing

Is there some specific setup required for the hololens? I *really* do not want to use multipass stereo rendering (as it can be quite slow!)

 

Hi there!

First of all, thanks for purchasing my tool

While I do not own a hololens device of my own, the tool has successfully been used by other developers with Hololens so I believe we may find a good solution. I'll start a PM conversation so we don't fill up the thread with our back and forth for this support request and so we both can keep better track of it

I hope this helps!

 

And version 2.0 now with Lightweight SRP support is available on the Asset Store !

You can get it now here ​

 

Has anyone with a Vive been able to test this asset to see if it works?

 

HI there,

Unfortunately, not anyone that I know of

There were two people long long ago who tested it on a VIVE and had a couple of errors (which happened on other platforms as well and have been since fixed) and I have tested it extensively on the Mock VIVE included with Unity (without any issues), but since I have no reliable testimony of anyone who has successfully tested it on a real VIVE device (and at the moment I cannot afford one myself) I cannot guarantee its support with confidence (since I don't want to assure support for a platform without a minimum of certainty on my part and then having people feel ripped off if in the end it doesn't work and I didn't warn them enough). As soon as I have at the very least one or two people test it successfully on a real VIVE device, I hope to be able to add it to the list of supported platforms.

I hope this helps!

 

Updated the main post of this thread with all the new information about version 2.0, how to upgrade and feature differences

Hope this helps!

 

Hey guys I'm having trouble getting this to work with cinemachine freelook camera. I keep getting different errors on runtime. The most prominent one is something like "Assertion Failed: GetMatrix(matrix)".
Have you guys tested this yet with Cinemachine?
Thanks,
Max

 

Hi there,
This tool has indeed been tested with Cinemachine and should not have any issues with any camera-targeting system (since it does not depend in any way on the camera's transform). The Matrix projection issue is a very common Unity issue that happens when modifying the camera's matrices or when using the camera in certain positions/rotations while using third party plugins. This is not something that will affect the functionality of your app (at least it shouldn't under normal circumstances) but it is highly difficult to pinpoint as it happens a lot of times internally on Unity's side and under very specific, hard to reproduce circumstances.

It can be due to the particular settings of your camera, the way it is set up on your scene, whether you are using VR or not, the field of view you are using, the particular settings on your reflection component, etc.

I can confirm to you, after testing it myself right now, that Cinemachine as used on the demo scenes of the tool on Unity 2018.1 has no errors whatsoever. Not for the matrices assertions nor in any other way, so the tool itself is fully compatible right now with Cinemachine



I ask you to test Cinemachine and the reflections tool on an empty project with one of the included demo scenes to check if the issues persist and rule out that something else on your scene/project is causing it. If the problems persist please send me a PM here on the forum with screenshots of your scene, camera, cinemachine and PIDI reflections component settings so I can give you further assistance and we both can follow this issue more easily. I hope this helps!

 

Sounds good. When I have a moment I'll do some further research and try and pinpoint what's going on specifically with my scene and your asset. Is there a way to contact you directly, or would you prefer me to post on this forum?

 

Hi again,

I'll open a PM conversation so we can keep track and follow up your support request

If you ever need to contact me directly you can click on my username and on "Start a Conversation" to start a private message conversation here on the forums. Alternatively, you can send an email to my support email (support at irreverent-software.com) and I will get back to you as fast as I can. I hope this helps, I'll look forward to hearing your follow up. Have a good day!

 

Hi there,

Thanks to several new announcements regarding how the new SRPs will be handled and what will be expected from us as asset developers going forward, as well as to the latest information I got regarding Unity Editor usage there are a few announcements to make regarding the future of PIDI Planar Reflections and PIDI Planar Reflections 2 :

• PIDI Planar Reflections 1.x will no longer receive any new features. It will receive patches to fix any leftover bug during September and October to be finally deprecated from the Asset Store in early-mid November. After this, there will be no option to upgrade for 10 dollars in the Asset Store so if you want to upgrade versions at the discounted price, this is the right time to do it. Upgrades through the Itch.IO store will be handled separately to better follow that platform's workflow.
• PIDI Planar Reflections 2.x will receive its first update with new features and improvements in mid-October. It will include new and improved workflows as well as some exiting new features that will make your life easier especially if you are creating custom shaders for the tool.
• Due to the heavy drop in users of Unity 5.x, the minimum version supported for PIDI Planar Reflections 2 will be Unity 5.6, with specific builds for Unity 2017.4 and 2018.3 being developed and planned to be sent to the store in late September.

I hope this helps and that it gives a much clearer roadmap of what the future holds for this tool!

 

Quick update with a small roadmap for PIDI Planar Reflections 2 during October-December.

• Dropped support for Unity versions lower than 5.6. Unity 5.6 will be the minimum version required to use this tool starting with the next update.
• Improved support for rendering reflections with deferred shading in Unity 5.6 and above. This might be helpful to reflect deferred only effects, such as some deferred decal sysetms (currently tested with Unity0s own example implementation only). Ready to use, will be available as a patch next week
  
• Improved blur for reflections through a dedicated blur shader applied to the rendered reflection itself. This means that any shader in any material will be able have blurred reflections with a higher quality. Experimental. Currently in development.
• Post-process enabled reflections. Reflections that can have their very own post-process chain (so the reflections correctly display SSAO and other effects). Early research and development.
• **Very early in development** Support for custom chains of components to be added to the reflection renderers to match the main camera. Planned for special cases where some components modify the way the main camera renders the scene through command buffers/other parameters and you need to replicate this behavior in the rendered reflection

Again, just to be clear, all these features will come to PIDI Planar Reflections 2 only, since the original PIDI Planar Reflections tool is now in process of being deprecated and will only receive fixes for any leftover high priority bugs.

Have a good weekend!

 

Patch to improve deferred support has been sent to the store for approval. This is a PIDI PLANAR REFLECTIONS 2 patch only. It also removes support for Unity versions lower than Unity 5.6

Hope it helps!

 

Hi, I'm a bit confused. I don't currently use LRP but I might in the future.

Should I purchase v1 or v2?

 

Hi there,

At this point it's better to buy v2 directly since v1 will be deprecated soon and is no longer receiving new features. It's still available as a way to allow current users to upgrade with a reduced price until October 30

I hope this helps, and thank you for your interest in this tool!

 

Thanks, so I'll still be able to use v2 without 2018 and LRP?

 

Exactly. V2 has all the same features as v1 plus lightweight support plus better deferred plus any other features that are added through 2019

When you import v2 to your project there is an additional package called Lightweight srp inside as well. If you were to use lightweight srp you would need to uncompress it but if you are not using it then the tool will just work without any issues nor any extra steps needed.

Hope this helps!

 

And about the unity version, v2 requires a minimum of Unity 5.6 to work so don't worry, there's no need to use 2018 for all the other features besides lightweight to work.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

A small update to the roadmap for PIDI Planar Reflections 2 :

- Initial tests show that PIDI Planar Reflections 2 is working without issues with the new Prefab system in Unity 2018.3 (BETA). Please remember that since this is a beta feature inside a BETA release, it still might have some issues that will be fixed over the next weeks.
- Coming in mid-late October is a patch for version 2.1 which will include an improved UI as well as support for the PostProcessing stack v1.0 (with detailed instructions on how to use it). Support for v2 of the PostProcess stack is coming later (since v2 of the stack is still in Beta)
- Version 2.1 will also include the ability to render the depth pass to a static Render Texture Asset, allowing you to share the same Reflection Texture and Reflection Depth pass across multiple materials.

 

This is a small tease of an upcoming feature for PIDI Planar Reflections 2.0 available in the next update, the ability to render the depth pass of a reflection to a static RenderTexture to be shared across multiple materials. In the next teases I will showcase the new features that allow you to add post process stacks to your reflections so they display effects like SSAO, vignetting and more.

This update is coming to PIDI Planar Reflections 2 only, in mid October.

 

Second small teaser : Post Process Stack v.1 working on the reflection itself with a nice Sepia-like effect



Vignetting (be aware that not all effects work accurately due to the reflection not being rendered in "screen space"):



These features are coming in v 2.1, in mid October

 

any mobile demo apk available for test?

 

Hi there,

I just compiled 2 different tests, one for low end OpenGLES2 level phones (though final performance will depend entirely on the complexity of your scene, if it uses shadows, physics, etc) and one for high end OpenGLES3 phones using the same shaders as the PC version :

OpenGLES2 Sample
OpenGLES3 Sample

 

Update to version 2.1 is ready to be sent for approval to the Asset Store and should be available around this weekend- next Monday.

New features :
- Support for Post Process Stack v1.0 directly on the reflections
- Support for Depth Pass rendered to a RenderTexture asset to be shared across multiple materials
- First iteration of the updated UI

More updates to come soon!

 

HI @IrrSoft, just purchased your addon and was wondering if you had Post Process Stack v2 as part of your current roadmap? If yes, when are you expecting it to be added?

Thanks

 

Hi there,

Post Process Stack v2 (unlike v1) has not yet been confirmed as stable by Unity itself and it is still stated to be "in development". There are plans to support Post Process Stack v2 at some point in the upcoming months but it hasn't happened yet since supporting an extension that is subject to heavy changes (as all "in-development" Unity features are) could negatively impact the development of other, higher priority fixes and improvements for the tool.

I plan to have a first release of support for Post Process Stack v2 around late November - early December, but it will be clearly labelled as a Beta feature and with the pertinent disclaimers until the Stack v2 itself is officially labelled as stable by the Unity team (which will probably happen with Unity 2019.1 - 2019.2).

In short : It is coming before the end of this year, probably as early as next month but since the stack v2 is an extension in active development and with potential compatibility-breaking changes it will remain labelled as a beta feature for a while. Available for everyone, but labelled as Beta and without any guarantees of full compatibility due to the status of the stack itself.

I hope this helps, and thank you for purchasing this tool!

 

Version 1.9 of PIDI Planar Reflections has been finally deprecated from the Asset Store in favor of version 2.

As a heads up, it seems there is an issue when using Oculus Rift in newer Unity versions (2017.4.11f and above) with the new feature of Asymmetric FOV that might be producing some projection issues on some projects. This is currently being worked on but for the time being please avoid using the new Asymmetric FOV feature whenever it is possible if you are experiencing these issues while I investigate the causes of the issue and any possible fixes.

 

Hi @IrrSoft
First, thanks for the response on the Post Process Stack v2 support being in the roadmap. As I mentioned, nothing to hurry on my side but it's good to know that it'll be supported.

I've been playing around with your shaders and I'm struggling with a specific use case.

The art direction of the game I'm prototyping now relies heavily on a material that will be applied on a plane to mimic some kind of holographic user interface system as shown in the following research examples I compiled recently:




I'm betting into using a dark PBR material and planar reflection which explains why I went for your addon

Now, my current test case (applying a PIDI PBR metal depth fade material on a plane) works fine as long as I'm working with, so far, full plain 3D objects.
But I'm now facing an issue when using the Unity TextMeshPro Text labels as the textures used by their font system is obviously using alpha transparency but pixels are revealed and visible in the reflection your addon generates.
Moreover, I wonder how your system will react when I'll be introducing holographic 3D objects as per seen in the last screen above...

So, do you see an easy way for me to solve the Unity GUI and transparency being reflected correctly?
Do you think this holographic shading I'll be working on could also bring its issues with your system?

Thanks.

 

Hi there,

I would need to see screenshots of the issue you are experiencing (and of course you would need to make sure that the depth shader included with the package has been assigned to the component) since on my end I cannot reproduce that issue :



As you see here, text generated with TextMesh Pro is reflected as expected, even when working with blur and semi-transparent texts.

Furthermore, any semitransparent shader is reflected as expected and Cutoff materials even affect the depth of the reflections in an accurate way (fully transparent shaders do not support depth in Unity, so they do not write to the depth buffer).





This test was made using TextMeshPro as downloaded from the Package Manager in Unity 2018.1

I hope this helps!

 

Hi There, looks cool! Do you intend to support Vive any time soon?

 

Hi there, and thanks for your interest in this tool

I do not have (nor plan to get in the near future, unfortunately) any VIVE devices of my own to test the tool. All the tests I could make with the Mock VIVE setup provided by Unity worked without any issues but I have not gotten any word from customers using it on a VIVE device successfully. I got a complain about the tool not working properly on VIVE on version 1.2, a long time ago, but the user never followed the support ticket nor instructions so I have no idea if it was a real error on the device or if it was a mistake on their part.

In short : There is not explicit, official support for the device since I am not 100% sure it will work without issue. It shouldn't be taken as a 100% guarantee that it won't work on the device either, simply that it hasn't been tested enough for me to claim that it will work as intended.

I hope this helps!

 

Thanks for the quick response.

I would be happy to test it for you here on my Vive and give you feedback.

 

This tool looks useful though confirming iOS compatibility would be good.
There is a real lack of simple reflection support for mobile/low-spec devices - previously used PlanarRealtimeReflection which was a free asset - is this similar?

 

Hi there,

I am not really aware of how PlanarRealtimeReflection worked so I cannot tell you if it is similar, though this asset has been used by some iOS developers without issues that I am aware of. As long as the device you are targeting supports RenderTextures you should be safe to go, since the shaders themselves are quite simple (most of them) and you can easily add the output reflections to any shader, yours or otherwise, by following the included tutorial in the documentation. In short, RenderTexture support is the only real requirement for mobile

I hope this helps!

 

Hello,

we just bought your plugin to create a mirror effect in one of our scenes in VR (Oculus/Vive)
and it work pretty well, except that the Unity Skybox is moving/rotating inversely to the player eyes direction.

We use single camera with single pass stereo rendering mode in Unity 2018.3.0b12.

 

Hi there,

I will look into this. Can you tell me more about the rendering settings you are using (OpenGL/DirectX) and color modes?
Is the error happening on the device itself or in the editor?
Also please try to restart Unity itself. A user had this same issue some time ago and it was a bug on Unity's side that got fixed by restarting Unity and creating a new scene.
Hope this helps!

 

Already tried to restart Unity Editor but this doesn't changed anything.
I use your simple mirror shader on a quad of 3 by 1 units.
The project is setup with Linear color space.
The problem appears both in the editor and builds.

 

I will open a PM conversation to keep track of this issue as a support ticket, and get back to you in a moment. Thanks for your patience.

 

Hello,
how is this supposed to work on both Oculus and HTC Vive ?
I can of course setup a different eye offset with your shader but I don't understand why your shader have this kind of option and others Unity shaders not.

 

Hi there,
An important reason is that this shader doesn't officially support HTC VIVE (this is stated on the tool's description) so, at least right now, it is not supposed to work on both. On top of that, some users requested to have additional control over the projection since on some of their devices it was not uniform. This value is used ONLY on Single Pass VR, though the recommended method to use still is Multi-Pass. Hope this helps!

EDIT : A value of either 0,0,0,0 on the eye offset (or the values provided by default on newer Unity versions) should work for most devices, including the Oculus. The VIVE (which again is not yet officially supported) and a few other devices have different projections. I hope this helps, but again, since we are on the holiday break, we wont be able to provide any further support until after January 7. Have a great holiday, and I hope this helps!

 

This post is to inform all of you that, due to the holiday season, we will be taking a short break (to come back on January 7) and to wish you all a very happy holiday's season and an amazing 2019!

Irreverent Software

 

Hello, it seems that the latest version does not solved the problem I had with skybox. (See above)
(What changed did you made ?) Because the changes I made on the previous version were working pretty well.

 

Please remember to use the ticket I opened for you ( the PM or directly to our email ) for all support requests that you may have since specific customer support is not the purpose of this thread, and remember that we won't be able to solve them until after January 7.

Thanks, and have a great holiday!

 

After upgrading to 2018.3, Planer Reflections has stopped working on iOS. It was working and building fine on 2018.2.19. When you get back in January, maybe you could help sort this out. Cheers.

EDIT: Well, that was fast. I had forward rendering turned off. Not sure how that happened but it's working again.

 

I noticed this not working in a new 2018.2 project in forward but it does in an existing project. Will this be fixed?

 

Hi there,

If both projects (the new one and the existing one) are using exactly the same Unity version (2018.2) then the issue is entirely related to the settings of the project and not to the tool itself so there's not much I can fix. In this case, you need to make sure that the project settings of both projects match so that the results are the same.

If the asset does not work when changing between Unity versions then that is an issue related to the tool. If the issue exists between projects, then the cause is somewhere in the project itself. I hope this helps!