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Someone explain all these acronyms

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Liminal-Ridges, Jul 6, 2018.

  1. Liminal-Ridges

    Liminal-Ridges

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2015
    Posts:
    255
    Hello everyone, i see around many acronyms like: SSAO / SSAA / CTAA / FXAA etc. Can someone give me a list of them and what each does?

    Thank you
     
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2018
  2. neoshaman

    neoshaman

    Joined:
    Feb 11, 2011
    Posts:
    6,492
    These are shader acronyms, they relate to different technique, generally the prefix is about the methodology used and the suffix about the effect obtain. You should google about them.

    For example SSAO, can be decompose into SS and AO (ambient occlusion), generally SS mean Screen Space, but can mean various over things (SubSurface, Super Sampling).

    SSAO:
    Screen Space Ambient Occlusion
    SSAA:
    Super Sampling Anti Aliasing
    CTAA:
    Cinematic Temporal Anti Aliasing
    FXAA:
    Fast aproXimation Anti Aliasing

    Having a list is mostly pointless, it's evolving as new techniques is created. These are just shortcut to not have too much repetition.
     
  3. Liminal-Ridges

    Liminal-Ridges

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2015
    Posts:
    255
    Thank you @neoshaman, i asked for a list so i know what effects i have in my possesion. Is there a website i can look them up, or a category in the assetstore?
     
  4. Joe-Censored

    Joe-Censored

    Joined:
    Mar 26, 2013
    Posts:
    11,847
    The first has to do with darkening areas where in real life you would expect less ambient light
    https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/PostProcessing/wiki/Ambient-Occlusion
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_space_ambient_occlusion

    The last 3 are different anti aliasing algorithms, which are intended to smooth jagged edges.
    https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/PostProcessing/wiki/Anti-aliasing
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersampling
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_anti-aliasing
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_approximate_anti-aliasing

    The website to look them up on your own is google.com ;)
     
  5. Liminal-Ridges

    Liminal-Ridges

    Joined:
    Oct 21, 2015
    Posts:
    255
    Thanks guys, i found the category with everything in the assetstore