Specular Occlusion?

Hello. I've only been using Unity for a few months. I used to use Unreal, and I stopped using it for a few reasons. But Unity didn't have the same quality in terms of graphics compared to Unreal. I thought it was because of dark surfaces not being reflected well.

I could not find any information on the forums about this and developed this method.







Here's my question. What I have done seems right, but is it? Or is there an easier solution I haven't seen?

Thanks in advance.

 

I'm not sure about your method (though seems right, judging by the first GIF). I usually bake bent normals for my geometry in Substance Designer and use them for this purpose.

The last screenshot looks really good, not worse than Unreal, to my mind.

 

I don't know how to make the situation better. Finally, I did a few tries. As such, the glare on the dark surfaces has decreased considerably. For more realistic scenes I hope unity does something. https://imgur.com/a/8D4Um4C


Unity Default Lit


Unity Specular Occlusion Edit


Unreal


Shader Edit

 

Unity has already done something for specular occlusion. It's called "Specular Occlusion Mode" and you can find it in the advanced tab of your shader:

As I previously said, you're supposed to provide a bent normal map to your shader, plugging it into the respective input. You can also add an AO map which is supposed make the occlusion effect even stronger.

Furthermore, you can enable SSR to ground your objects better.

 

Unfortunately, these things do not make the scene better.(AO, SSR, Bent Normal) Also SSR, AO, Bloom off in unreal and unity. these things have a cost and i love bake light and maybe i won't use ao. I can only use bent normal for moving objects.

What do you think should I do to make my scene look as good as unreal?

 

Yep, they do, but in order to match your offline render reference, you have to enable at least SSR. Preferably the new one (PBR Accumulation). The reflection on the floor is the most obvious thing that both Unity and Unreal lack in comparison to Blender. Because of this your objects "float" above the surface. They are just a bit more shadowed in Unreal, but the general lack of connection to the surface is the same.

Are you sure that you've correctly baked your bent normals? They work perfectly for me, adding all the specular occlusion I need. I've been struggling with the same problem for a while too, but bent normals + a bit of AO completely solved it for me, so it's very strange that they don't work in your case. I do bake lighting as well and I understand that once you've baked it you don't need any fake AO, but nevertheless, I've found it useful to add a bit of AO just for the sake of specular occlusion. And I'm not talking about the realtime ambient occlusion that you enable as an override in your HDRP volume. I use an AO map that comes with a material (which you put in the green channel in the Mask Map) and then I mix it in Shader Graph with an AO Map baked in Substance Designer for the whole object. Then I tune it to look realistic and aesthetically pleasing (usually this means low values) and in conjunction with Bent Normals it gives very good results.

Why can't you use it with static objects as well?

 

Because moving objects cannot be baked!


You constantly ask me to use bent normal. bent normal only concerns the owner object. What will do the reflection blocking between the table and the floor? I can't create bent normal of the whole map!


I did not see bent normal being used in Unity's last released scene! Also, reflection leak is present in this scene!



unfortunately ao, ssr or something else doesn't solve this. I will try what you say. I don't think anything will change. Thanks for your interest.

 

This word broke my heart.

Unity Default Lit.
(I also turned off "sky reflection" in hdrp default settings.)


The question I'm looking for the answer is this.

Same scene same materials same light same reflection probes Same post precess. but unity somehow looks bad compared to unreal. When I compared the two scenes, I came to the following conclusion. Unreal controls the reflection of dark surfaces very well. I found the above method for Unity and asked if this was true. I think I got the result I wanted. I just wanted to consult on the accuracy of this. Because I'm interested in level design. not a shader programmer.

 

i don't think you can do anything else to match UE4 lightmap here. If i'm not mistaken UE4 volumetric lightmap also bake static bent normal for the whole scene for specular and directional occlusion which unity doesn't

 

Yes, I've been thinking about that lately. It was the first time I saw a different lightmap in Unreal, I didn't understand why. I realized when I switched to Unity, this colorful lightmap has a meaning. it carries different information on each channel.



I think I got the answer to my question more than enough. Thanks to all who answered and interested.

 

@CihanGurbuz i totally forgot this thing exist, btw try it https://github.com/Fewes/BakerBoy/

 

also @CihanGurbuz - have a look at Bakery (https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/level-design/bakery-gpu-lightmapper-122218)

It seems still superior to Unity's own baking solutions - especially since it introduced the volume texture baking in its recent updates. That should give you nicer shading on movable objects that are in partial shadows. Look through the videos and release notes for example.

 

oh right, bakery have new volumetric lightmap now

 

yes, I knew about this add-on, but I didn't see that in the description.

- Supports directional baking (bump/specular) with 4 modes:

I can't pay $ 55 for this plugin right now. The solution I found is giving good results for now. Thank you for reminding me of this.

 

this solution just generates a bent normal map of the object. What I need is to bake all the objects together. The solution I have already found gives good results for now.
Thanks.

 

Hi @CihanGurbuz - as this thread is quite long and complex - could you summarize the solution you landed on? Is it essentially the graph you posted at the top? If you could post the actual file to help others that would be amazing.

 

Which solution if i may ask? i'm also interested in scene specular occlusion

 

The idea is you feed a tweaked baked GI to the specular mask input.

 

Ah, just as the shader graph screenshot he posted above then?

 

I believe so, yes.

 

Of course.

You should know first. You cannot use Unity's standard shaders. You have to create your own shader layout.

You must first create a lit shader graph and a sub graph.


I did it like this.


Add this to the sub graph you created.


then you have to place this sub graph inside the main shader that it creates. I did it like this.

then you need to create your materials on this shader. sample.


very simple method. I hope I could explain.

 

Speaking of i believe you can extract baked scene AO now, might give better result than using baked indirect lightmap

 

You're a life saver. This is exactly what I was looking for.

 

Sadly this only works in HDRP and not URP right ?

 

I just discovered these two shaders that also do specular occlusion
https://booth.pm/en/items/3250389
https://shaders.orels.sh/docs/orl-standard/base-shader#advanced-features

 

@ratonmalo
I've never tried it in URP. If there is specular occlusion and exposure option, you can use it.

Hi @blueivy
I think I tried orel's shader a few months ago and didn't get good results. I've always seen filamented's shader but never tried it. I tried that shader today. It looks really nice and is what I want, but I still haven't found a solution for HDRP. (Except Bakery) My solution is not working properly. (it just saves the day)
Thanks.

 

I don't see the specular occlusion in the fragmentation node in shader graph (URP) so I guess it's not possible.

 

Is it somehow possible to grab the SSAO or shadow pass and diminish specular occlusion there?

 

Man, so this is what's been annoying the hell out of me for so long. I always wondered how unreal doesn't require reflection probes for proper lighting, but I have to go through this hell of a struggle in HDRP. The worse part is when it's a big level, it becomes unbelievably annoying.

Then again, seeing how unity's GI is struggling with just having it work I'm not holding my breath for them to take this up

thanks for the shadergraph.

 

Mmm i'm pretty noob with HDRP but i can see in your images that there is in fact light leaking in the unreal version (the ceiling) and in fact i think the unity version looks better (nop, i'm no a unity fanboy xD). Lightmaps resolution can be a game changer, really, you need to understand those settings, i really recommend that you pay close attention to what @pierred_unity says.
Also reflections are a very important thing in your blender reference, so you need to work on reflections too.
Also, is the light at the same value on blender, unity and unreal? (light looks different) Unity has this options where you can match real camera's values and there is also some tools to tweak indirect GI, reflections and all that stuffs. Try also reflection probes

Unity can achieve amazing graphics. Take a look at this:

That is just one person doing all that stuffs, so...

 

I have two projects both running on 2022.2.0b3.
One of them has correct specular occlusion, the other one not:



I compared all hdrp-settings and volume parameters which are identical.

Does anyone have a clue what may prevent the second one to work correclty?

EDIT:
It was the dimmer being < 1 in the lights shadowmap settings.
Setting it back to 1 solved it.

 

I also recognized that having the dimmer smaller 1 leads to weird effects with indirect specular; for me it was on a hair shader. This seems like a bug.