SESSAO (High-Quality SSAO w/ Color-Bleed)

Bad news: In 5.3 SESSAO still doesn't work with Speedtree when overlapping objects (darkened fringe).

 

I've been a big fan of SESSAO since it was first launched and loving it every day, but just found out about a but that's brought things to a halt on our end.

It turns out the reason CETO ocean is appearing incredibly black where it meets a shoreline or object in opaque mode is because you have SESSAO on your main camera. Even if it's disabled, it still breaks the system. I see support requests here going back quite a way unanswered, so any chance of getting support for this issue or is Cody only interested in his GI now?

 

I'm having an issue with forward rendering in Unity 5.3.
Here's the scene in deferred render mode:

But if I switch the render path to forward:

First of all I get the depth buffer from the scene view.
So I close the scene view and then I get this:

The forward rendering path produces both unwanted haloing and almost brightening where one would expect darkening along the walls etc. Why could this be?

 

Ok so I found the problem.
I was using the some of the older Lux shaders in the project, and they contained a Camera-DepthNormalTexture.shader file which didn't compile properly because of a problem with some function in there.
Fixing this caused the DepthNormalTexture to compute properly and the bug is now fixed.

 

Hi guys,

Have anyone of you experienced flickering grass with SESSAO? I only bought it a couple days ago and while i admire how pretty it is 98% of the time, this problem gets on my nerves. The weird thing is, the grass meshes in question must exist in the depth buffer because if i switch to Unity's built-in SSAO (component on the same camera, just disable SESSAO and enable that one), they do get darkened. If i move the camera around a bit, they are reliably darkened but with Sonic Ether's SSAO certain batches(?) of grass flicker. In "visualize SSAO" mode i can see their colour coming through but no darkening at all. Like ghosts.
Any ideas?


UPDATE:
Fixed it! After a lot of digging over forums and noticing that shadows may also show through when this happens, the solution is as simple as opening the settings of the terrain and increasing the Detail Resolution Per Patch value from the deafault 8 to, say, 16; depending on your grass density you might need more, 24 in one of my scenes, but it's definitely a fix. Yay!

 

Quick question - any way of combatting the old "SSAO fringe around characters" problem?

Here's a shot where I'm having that issue, whilst using SESSAO:



Obviously I've got the SESSAO settings rather high, but even when reducing them, the goblins still end up with green halos around their heads.

Is there a setting that can get the shader to, for example, check the depth map and avoid that particular rendering error? I know recent triple-A games have gotten much better at avoiding the "dark fringe" problem.

 

If you're talking about the green bleed on the ceiling, it's by design and gives a GI-ish look to it, you can lower the zdepth threshold to cut that off.

 

That's great! Thanks.



I can't find the zdepth threshold on the effect controls, however. Probably just being dumb - where would I find it? (I tried all the available sliders and none of them seem to do the job, although I could well be using them wrongly.)

 

Try colour bleed amount? I'm just taking a stab in the dark..

 

ZThickness would be what you're looking for, I suspect.

 

Neither of those settings do the job, I'm afraid.

 

Anyone used this asset in VR? Curious if it works correctly with the left/right cameras

 

It doesn't work with Unity 5.3+ dude, and the maker hasn't been back to this thread since last August, so if I were you i'd pass.

 

..wait what? I'm using this, successfully, in Unity 5.4.Beta10. I've had no issues with it at all, and it's very editable if you need to fine tune the effect for your specific needs.

 

Then you aren't testing it fully.
https://gyazo.com/4ba49b56da1821ad47f60be167a9aa21

 

Looks like you need to add the replacement shader fix that Seith3d and Sonic Ether worked out to handle Forward-path objects. It's provided earlier in the thread.

 

That guy was using some aftermark shaders; I'm not. This is the default system in unity and it doesn't work with SESSAO

 

Interesting! So, the SESSAO worked properly in previous versions of unity, under those same conditions? If you're willing, I'd like to see if I can help you with this - I've recently run into a ton of problems with forward-path rendering with image effects, and solved most of them, with help. What order are your Image effects in?

 

Yup, it worked in 5.2.
The first thing i tried was moving SESSAO to several places in the pipe but none of which made a difference - Only disabling it.
I should point out that all of the default unity SSAO effects work fine as well. I do a lot of testing before i make accusations.
Dx11, Linear, Deferred

 

We've just upgraded from 5.2 to 5.3.4 and it's working fine for us.
Your problem looks like it's to do with your characters shaders as you can see even in the left image where it's not being affected by the DOF properly around his legs.

 

Player characters are intentionally masked from DOF.
You should show some imagery that contradicts mine.

 

So, if you disable your DOF masking, does the SSAO start working again? And can we see some pictures of your game with the SSAO off, On, and with unity's SSAO turned on?

 

You're fixating on one graphical effect that has nothing to do with the effect in question. No, it doesn't make a difference. As i stated, nothing does other than just disabling SESSAO. Every other SSAO solution works without issue and SESSAO is the only one that screws up; It just happens to be the only one with color bleed so i'm preferring that he fix the issue as opposed to using SSAO Pro.

 

DOF and SSAO both rely on the depth buffer so they are very related. How are you doing your DOF masking? Are you using custom shaders? Do those custom shaders have a different RenderType that hasn't been included in the CameraRenderDepth/Normals shader?

 

Not single effect on the main camera whatsoever other than SESSAO = exact same problem.
Unity SSAO = Does not have this problem.
SSAO Pro = Does not have this problem.
It is SESSAO.

As sad as I am to lose color bleed, his complete and total absence from all three of his products for this last year, not making even one update since, tells me the show is over and it's time to move on.

Just like SENBDL, it was something he got interested in, got bored with, threw it up for sale and walked away never to be updated again. All those hundreds if not thousands of people on the SEGI thread right now desperately wondering why SEGI has went nowhere in a year as well.

It's just really unfortunate. Here we have a guy who is undeniably talented, undeniably capable, but conversely absolutely unreliable. When I think about where these three products could be right now if he just completed even half of the features he's promised about them over the course of the last two years, I just get bummed out.

I'd love to be wrong. I'd be the first person to throw my money at his next product just like I did the last two, but I need evidence to believe in it, and at this point, I have none.

 

This is increasingly common. This is why i am now focusing on the native tools and less on the Store.

 

Yeah its a bummer, luckily the new cinematic stuff is quite pretty

 

Divergence: If you want the color bleed back, take a look at the HBAO asset. Might be what you're looking for. It's way better (but slower) than the color bleed SESSAO offered. It sucks that SE hasn't come back to fix these problems.

 

SESSAO isn't doing anything really special, so it has to be a fairly simple fix. I do remember there being something wierd when SESSAO enables, affecting some post effects. It was temporarily fixed by turning it on and off again in editor. The problem was caused by SESSAO changing the cameras depth mode in a script IIRC. That's about the only other thing I can think of if you have all your other bases covered re shaders, etc.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the rest of your sentiments. I generally like to cut people a break, everyone gets busy, but it's a damn shame. I had contacted sonic with a technical question on one of his products and never received a reply. I chalked it up to a once off, things get missed. But things are not looking great at the moment

 

Out of respect, I won't talk about this other product here, other than to say thanks dude I had no idea it even existed!

 

Ops, posted on the wip thread by mistak. I was wondering if it would be possible for VR to compute the depth just once instead of for each eye.

 

Well, I definitely owe everyone here a big apology. There's no excuse for me simply disappearing and providing no support for this asset. I sincerely apologize for that.

That being said, I want to make it right. I've considered depreciating SESSAO, but instead I'm going to fix any outstanding errors and make it free.

 

Well, I'm glad you're back.

Yet, I'm a bit disappointed I had to pay over 30 euros for an asset I had faith in, own it half-broken, just to discover that is now going to be deprecated or offered as free... :-/

Yeah, apologies. But this is not Kickstarter, we actually paid for the support we should have gotten.

We all had faith in your skills and you were probably one of the last developers we could have expected this behaviour from.

There are many of us who weren't even be able to see it working properly a single time for a year.
You were still receiving a monthly revenue from it tho.
I'm not expecting to get a full refund, but I wouldn't be against getting a partial one.

Cheers.

 

May be for users of SSAO you could make a boucher for your SEGI product.
We know you're having hard personal times but the boucher thing could help your SSAO customers.

 

I'm looking into a way that I can provide a discount to one of my assets for all SESSAO owners. I don't currently know of a way to do this, but I think it's a great idea and I'll do what I can.

 

try to make "update" option for 1$ for SESSAO owners maybe?

 

Except, if SESSAO becomes free, everyone can get the $1 update option.

So there would have to be a time window - maybe a few months - for SESSAO users to take advantage of the upgrade. After that, the upgrade opportunity is removed and SESSAO becomes free.

 

Great point, @hopeful!
I totally forgot about that too.

The alternative without time window would be to release the free version separately, and to mark the commercial version as deprecated. Customers should probably still be able to get the upgrade offer (and without time window), and would use the free version of SESSAO for they projects.
However, the downside of this is that the ratings etc. are lost--and users that aren't active in the forums might be surprised about the change, and won't notice that there is a free version available.
I personally would prefer not having a time limit to decide, but I understand the downsides of making the free version a new asset, so I'm fine with either way.
After all, giving any discount at all is a nice gesture, and not a necessity--so thank you for thinking about it at all.

Best Regards,
Kristina Waldt

 

I'm having a major issue using SESSAO with the latest Unity's Post Processing Stack : The AO appears broken. Here's the visualization, the left is the issue with the PPS enabled, the right is how the AO should be (PPS disabled).

Any chance for a fix? Thanks!

 

That's an excellent alternative. SESSAO could have upgrade pricing pointing to another asset (SEGI, screen shadows, whatever), and then could be deprecated, with a new SESSAO Free Edition created separately.

 

I haven't had a chance to play around with the latest build yet, but might it have something to do with the depth buffer being inverted in the new versions of Unity?

 

Yeah, that might be it. It could also have something to do with the depth-normals texture giving wrong normals (or not being rendered at all). Perhaps the Unity PPS disables the flag to render depth-normals.

 

Hi @sonicether ,
I've discovered only now the nature of your disappearance, I'm sorry about that, and I'm sorry about the tone I used, I couldn't have known that.

I was actually going to ask you privately for a refund (since, well, the support is part of the product, or at least, it should have been), since I barely had the chance to see SESSAO working properly for such a long time.

Yet, if you could create a new package for the free version, and grant the "supporters" of the SESSAO a reasonable discount (at least equal to the cost of SESSAO) to upgrade to SEGI (beta) or SE Screen Space Shadows (WIP) would be nice.

Yet, we'd be still getting access to other uncomplete or not officiallty stable projects (even if undoubtedly interesting) so I hope you'll be proposing a nice deal for that.
After the transition, you could simply deprecate Paid SESSAO and everyone should be happy.

For instance you could, step by step:
1) Increase the price of SESSAO to something unreasonable eg: 9999$, stating in the description that you're keeping this asset active only for previous users, and that the asset is going to be soon available for free, while this one is going to be deprecated.
2) Make SEGI (beta) or SE SSS (WIP) an update of SESSAO using the publisher tools, for a fair price.
3) leave it on the store for, let's say, a month or two, trying to warn as many SESSAO users as possible about the chance of upgrading.
4) create a new SESSAO Free package.
5) deprecate SESSAO (Paid)

Would it be an acceptable solution as opposed to asking for a refund?

 

imagine, that someone will buy in for 10k $ (by mestake or etc.) and then will read comment... i think such ppl will want to know live adres of developer...

 

If someone's willing to spend 10K $ in the asset store for a single asset without even reading the description, well, he's getting what he deserves
(and would still be able to get a refund)

Anyway, you could push up to 999999 dollars and see if someone's still going to "buy it by mistake", I guess not many people looking for assets in the asset store have 1M $ to spend for a single asset.

Yet, there's a simpler/safer way: set it to 99$ (so that it doesn't become as an easy way to access the upgrade option for other packages) and insert a EULA, so it pops up as you click on the purchase button, and make sure the customer agrees in buying something that is going to be deprecated.
If someone also skips reading the EULA, well... his fault

 

I am wondering does this shader/postfilter get this issue right ?!



in the viking village shots it looks kind of like it does but than there are screenshots here in this thread that make me skeptical again.

can someone confirm ?

 

I'll be sure that this is handled properly when I go to fix up this asset. I created this asset before there was a decent way to handle this with command buffers. My plan for this is to modify the _CameraGBufferTexture0 alpha channel (which is used for material ambient occlusion) before the lighting pass instead of just multiplying the AO result on top of everything.

 

awesome go go go

 

Just curious since I didn't undestand: are you going to support this asset from now on or is it soon going to be deprecated as soon as it gets stable? I see you're still selling it, should we assume you're going to support it for a reasonable amount of time?