Screen Space Reflections for Unity

Really impressive video!
Any planned release date?

 

What's the performance of this compared to current realtime reflections usage? Current usage is realtime cubemap generation (I haven't found any other way to do it).

Edit: Been reading up on this technique and looks like it's the best way to go for realtime reflections. Looks great! Hope to see it release soon (for a reasonable price)!

 

Impressive stuff. I'm definitely curious to see how this works when it becomes available. I am interested to see how this would look when combined with the Alloy shader framework.

 

I believe Candela SSRR has been delayed as the author recently said "Definitely before Christmas" yet here we sit. I don't think he should rush this one though as it looks so promising.

 

The latest demo video you posted look really cool! I had a couple questions about its current and/or planned functionality:

1. I noticed that the SSRR seem to be added over the background cubemaps (possibly with a 'lighter-than' type blending rather than a full add), which results in a few artifacts like the dark knobs not casting dark reflections that would occlude the background reflections and some of the brighter spots of the background peeking through in other areas.

Do or will you have the ability to layer the SSRR completely on top of any background cubemap reflections (in either your shader or other physically based shaders)? I'm thinking specifically about situations like those presented in the early Killzone Shadowfall tech docs where they have dark characters standing near water puddles in bright day - they cast dark reflections that occlude what would otherwise be bright skylight from the base cubemap.

2. I'm not sure if this was answered before, but can you multiply the Candela SSR by the reflection/specular color from a deferred buffer, particularly for tinting the SSRR with the appropriate color in the case of metallic materials (gold or brass for instance would tint all reflected light with yellow hue)?

Again, this is looking fantastic, and I'm excited to hear more about your planned release schedule

Cheers!

 

any plans for mobile support? That is a major selling point for me right now.

 

Wow this looks incredible! Looking forward to seeing it on the store

 

wow 2 weeks since anyone from LIVENDA has replied to this thread.

it's not what I would call a professional customer service.

 

Candela SSRR is progressing very nicely and we will be submitting it to the Asset store as soon as it's ready, perhaps early as next week. We are making sure to provide an easy to use elegant solution which is integrated well with Unity. It has taken a little longer then anticipated however the wait will be worth it!

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your wonderful comments, allow me to answer your points as best as I can.

1. Being a Screen-Space process there are good options available and Candela SSRR is not restricted to 'our' custom shaders in anyway. All standard Unity shaders will work. We provide full access to the generated local reflections as a global texture and depending on your needs, simple or complex blending can be implemented.

2. It is possible however Specular color is not free in Unity and is not exposed, a separate render target is required if you want full control on per material basis.

Initial version will be DX11 and we are certainly looking at supporting as many platforms as possible in future versions.

 

Awesome, can it also work with mobile devices.

 

Hi,

I can only but admire the work you are doing but considering the complexity of each of the tasks you are taking; GI, IBL, SSRR, OCEAN aren't you hopping on more horses than you could ride?

Wouldn’t that mean that your expensive product will suffer from a lack of focus or interest? Say for example you said you'll try to implement a DX9 version but who will go first DX9 or selling a new GI or ocean or IBL shader pack?
Looking at how others have done we can only but assume it won't be what the SSRR customers want.

The guys at marmoset have 1 unity product and yet the new features take months to implement.
Skyshop made the guy rich because his tools are excellent, constantly optimized and updated and they are actually useable in real conditions on most projects. That's why he's still selling his product like cakes to this day.

I'm afraid doing all the stuff you want to do increases dramatically the chances to end up with some expensive unfinished and resource hungry demo tech like we see most of the time with fancy stuff.

This tech has a potential to change the Unity landscape like Skyshop did and could make you a lot of money, please don't waste this opportunity by losing focus, make it work on dx9, optimize it to the core, and try to enhance the product with your customers feedback and only then start with something new!

This said, I'm super excited to try this on our FPS , PM me if you need some testing on a complex project.

Good luck and keep the reflections flow!

 

This^^

 

Depends on how many people are working on it. Don't you think there's a reason Unity has hundreds of employees to handle all the huge number of features and integrations?

 

Sure, but for the SSRR alone, considering the low rate of feedback and delayed release (no hard feelings, just pointing out), I'd guess that's typically what happens with a 1 man operation even though I bet some extra help come now and then.
Alright sorry for ranting, detective mode OFF ;p

 

Just being honest, but dx11 only is a no sale for me. Mobile is my main focus.. trying to make something that looks incredible on mobile. DX9 would be bear minimum to even make a tool purchasable. But whats the point of dx 11 unless your making a tech demo. Gamers aren't ready to be dx11 only.

 

According to steam hardware survey, you are incorrect in the PC space, 54% of steam users are DX11 capable - more that all the other groups (dx 8, dx9, dx 10) put together. http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

While obviously mobile is another ballgame, that DX11=tech demo only is entirely false.

Whether you are worried about compatibility or just performance, it should be entirely possible to have a check box in your graphics options to toggle between dx11 effects and say a DX9 fallback option (or just turn off the effect).

Frankly in my forum lurking I've seen quite a few posts like this reading along the lines of "I'm making a mobile game, everyone should only care about mobile like me, right?" posted in high end desktop targeted assets.

Well I'd like to offer a counterpoint - I would very much like to see this successfully released, looking as nice as it can and performing as well as it can. If that means DX11 that's totally fine. If later you can expand your product to cover DX9 with a fallback that's great. But please do not sacrifice quality for DX11 customers by going DX9 only (unless you decide there is no real benefit to using dx11 in your asset).

 

cool

 

My project is dx11 only, it will only benefit from it, i'd like to see how Livenda can provide here

 

So I am wrong by saying its a bad thing to cut my potential sales in half? I am a big gamer and I still don't even have a dx11 capable graphics card. No reason for it yet. gtx260 still runs every game flawlessly.

No one said sacrifice dx11 quality, but im just going from a perspective of wether the author wants to make money on this. I cant buy it if its dx11.. if it works on mobile it will attract the greatest amount of sales since that's more then likely the largest market for unity related products.

 

The point is dx11 makes a lot of things possible in a game that simply would not be feasible in a dx9 game, example being compute shaders, which aren't necessarily there just to make a game prettier. There's a lot to gain by pushing for dx11-dependant games and my project would be simply impossible to do without it. You can maximise potential sales by keeping to directx9 if you like, wether you'll be making the product you entirely wish to create upon knowing the possibilities, another matter

 

We all know dx11 is great. It doesn't mean its practical yet. If you don't care about profits dx11 is awesome. That's not the argument. Your trying to push the developer to go all dx11, and im saying don't because the product could be of use to a lot more customers and developers by expanding to other platforms.

Basically you are being selfish for no reason since its already there for dx11. I'm just stating a fact... its not a sale for me if I cant use it.

 

My only wish would be for this to be fully functional in OpenGL for Mac and Linux. While windows is the largest market(on desktop) it isn't the only platform. I have seen solutions like this in other engines. So was wondering if openGL is in the plans? DirectX is a win(platform) EXCLUSIVE as well.

Regards,

Gary

 

This looks beautiful. I thank you for pushing dx11. I just saw your ocean project. Oh my that is glorious. Please please please give us an estimate on its release. That is the best water I've ever seen out of Unity. It will be a fantastic gift for bigger projects beyond mobile. PC and console devs truly want big boy features, and if that means DX11, so be it. DX11 isn't exactly new so I'm glad you're embracing it. The more who embrace it means the sooner the industry will move to DX12, 13, 14... But that's another topic. An open standard would be nice but right now DX11 has the tricks and many of us want to use them.

These "high powered" Unity assets won't just help random devs, they will help push Unity to a higher level in the battle against Unreal, Crytek and company. I'm happy to see Unity break out of its mobile game image.

PLEASE update us on your ocean! I beg you!

 

Just amazing! Really nice work.

 

Good, and how many employee are necessary to make a GUI like Daikon Forge?

 

You've got it backwards I'm afraid. The OP already made his DX version plans clear. This is the second post on page 2 of this thread, by Livenda:

 

We Have Great News!​

Candela SSRR now works in all platforms! The first release will support DX11, DX9 and OpenGL, yes this does mean it runs on Mac OS and all high end mobile devices. Candela SSRR render performance is also highly optimized for each individual platform. We had initially announced DX11 version only, however we are now very satisfied with the performance and the visual quality of Candela SSRR under all platforms.

We are very excited about this development, as it's going to open Candela SSRR to almost all Unity developers. We are now in the final stage of unifying Candela across all platforms for ease of use and functionality.

Our first newsletter will be sent out in the coming days, which will include further information regarding this significant progress . If you have not already done so, we encourage you to sign up to our newsletter from our website www.livenda.com

We also like to thank everyone for their great comments and support, we cannot wait to see what the Unity community will be able to achieve using Candela SSRR.

Cheers,
Livenda
Happy Reflections!

 

YESSSSSSSS!!!! OpenGL!!!!! HUZZAH! I CANNOT WAIT!!!

 

This is great news!

 

It's so nice ! What about performances on Unity Free ?

 

boom! Now im interested

 

Just wanted to add my two bob to this discussion. Unity as we know is behind UDK and Crytek in the AAA awesomeness factor zone of gaming. Any company which can reduce this gap by providing these kinda assets has my vote.

 

Curious, does the scene geometry somehow get re rendered a 2nd time for the reflections? or is it some sort of illusion?

 

FWIW I'm glad to hear this awesome looking product will be available for everyone.
Any idea on price ballpark yet? Something like <=$100 ; <=$200 ; <=$XYZ would be useful for those of us planning a budget.

 

Thanks for your enthusiastic comment! Nephilim Ocean Engine for Unity is progressing nicely, I cannot tell you an exact release date at this stage, however it is next in our priority after we release Candela SSRR. We've had many interested inquiries from multiple major developers for Nephilim OE for upcoming Xbox One titles, so we are doing our best to keep everyone happy.

Candela SSRR is a screen-space based effect which relies on Ray-tracing so geometry is not rendered twice. I can assure you it is not an illusion

This was asked before in the forums and the price is not finalized as of yet, however we aim to make all our products affordable for all Unity developers. I can tell you now that it will definitely will not be above $150

Cheers
Livenda

 

Thanks, that helps.

 

I can't remember the last time I was counting down the days for an asset to release. I just want this now, any chance this will be released next week? And any chance of a webplayer demo or standalone demo?

 

Should not be much longer. We were going to release Candela SSRR next week, however since it will now be available for all platforms DX11, DX9 and OpenGL we are making sure they are all unified and optimized. A demo is possible after the first version launch, thanks!

Cheers
Livenda

 

Awh, well I guess I would rather wait for a perfect then rush a mediocre one. I would love to see some more screenshots, I mean, I'm already sold, but I'm honestly more excited for this then any actual games coming out.

Anyways, best of luck to your team,

 

Interesting article on Gamasutra about SSR from a guy who worked on AC4 and the Witcher2. I imagine most people here will have seen it already, but just in case: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/BartlomiejWronski/20140129/209609/The_future_of_screenspace_reflections.php

 

cant wait for it, really looks awesome!
any updates about release date?

 

i hope this runs in a tegra 3 processor on mobile. would so freakn awesome.

 

I'm really interested in this also. I cannot wait for it to show up in the unity store. I hope there will be a demo version also, so that we can assess its potential before buying.

 

Christmas week release, This week release. Whatever. Just stop telling people when your going to release it...

 

Come on, this is now DX9 and Opengl , can't you understand this take time ?
Anyway, a webplayer could be very welcome

 

Hi Livenda,

about Skyshop compatibility any new?

I quote BigZer and ZJP about skyshop opportunity also for you

Thanks and I m waiting for yhe publication

 

Few months late I see, still no estimated release date? I'm glad you added compatibility, but the blind waiting is making me start to loose a little interest. No release date, no new videos, no web player, nothing. Don't get me wrong, still really excited though.

 

Next week will be done

 

Guys... Is under-promise, over-deliver...

Not the other way around....

 

Candela SSRR will work with skyshop

Thanks for the question and we really appreciate your enthusiasm and of many others who are looking forward to the initial release. We are now in final stages of preparing Candela SSRR for release, it will be available to purchase within this month. We will have a number of new videos that will coincide with the release, such as getting started and other tutorials. In the mean time have a look at the new screenshots we have posted today! (our next post)