Games Unity HD Render Pipeline R&D by iLema R.Manohiray

Realtime rendering is the future of computer animation
I'm using game engines to render animation movies. I would like to go deeper . In this thread i'm going to share the progression of my researches about the new Unity HD RP. My name is iLema R.Manohiray , i'm a generalist 3D artist transitioning to specialised realtime 3D surfacing and lighting artist. I have zero knowledge about coding so some of you may speak chinese to me...

What are my main goals or MAIN MISSION?

1.understanding the Unity HDRP
2.being able to create an indie filmmaker real-time 3D animation pipeline around Unity's HDRP
3.ditch the FBX format and being able to import seamlessly some specific formats like abc for FX
(cloth sim, hairs, fluids etc)
4.also use the pipeline for motion design, architectural rendering etc.

NB: a part the MAIN MISSION there will be some SIDE MISSIONS which will consist to reproduce inside Unity, images or effects from another softwares.

So what is the ideal pipeline for me?
I need a hi-quality free or cheap pipeline ,easier to share and propagate to indie artists:
- Rendering and a bit of set dressing = Unity (free)
- Modelling UV unwrapping, object animation and FX like fluid,cloth and particles = Blender (free)
- Character Design, cloth animation = Iclone and CC3 (not free but still searching a free or a cheaper alternative)

Why Unity 2018?
1.I like the Unity's workflow and it's very compatible with Iclone for building a semi real-time character animation pipeline.Now i can animate a character and cloth inside Iclone which is very fast and intuitive then export the alembic and Unity auto update the animation. I've noticed that soft like Maya or Houdini or Blender cannot handle on the fly abc files updating. Unity eat it easily. Also in the same feature for example UE alembic and FBX import are really really slow for long clips, slow enough to not choose UE for this project.
2.Unity has now a new real-time graphic renderer called HD Render Pipeline which is powerful and very fast with hi end quality.
You can know more about it here https://blogs.unity3d.com/2018/03/16/the-high-definition-render-pipeline-focused-on-visual-quality/
3.Unity has a very nice asset management and the Interface is simple and intuitive.
4.Unity has Cinemachine .
5.this is a personal taste but unity has countless wonderful assets like umodeler, umotion etc.Most of them have free versions.
6.And last but not the least Unity is FREE

What are the issues now?
1. the recorder asset is not yet working so i cannot export my project to video.(already filled a bug to the devs so i'm waiting )
2. i cannot figure out how the GI works with the HDRP

SO SOME RENDERS
TEST R&D 2 HDRP render
Roughly this render contains some HDRP features
1.layered material (HDRP)
2.spot light with cookie (HDRP)
3.metallic material (HDRP)
4.planar reflection (HDRP)
5.alembic import (Standart feature)
6.subsurface scattering material (HDRP)
7.fur material by material tesselation (HDRP)
8.hdri sky and exponential fog (HDRP)
9.cinemachine camera with handheld noise (Standart feature)
10.camera DOF (Standart feature)
11.post processing volume (HDRP)
12.high definition shadow (HDRP)
13.area lights





TEST R&D 1 STANDARD RENDERER (old non HDRP)

That's all for the moment , i will update this thread as soon i have interesting contents. If you would like to access the exclusive contents please follow me on FB : ilemalight

 

SIDE MISSION 1.
BLENDER Vs UNITY HDRP
The goal of this side mission is to create a heavy and complex scene with Blender and reproduce it with Unity IF POSSIBLE. This is an artwork project for my Artstation .Below is a sci-fi city scene that i've created with Blender. this secene is heavily relying on displacement map and lighting. I'm still trying to find a way to render it as the scene is very heavy.Having a real-time render workflow will be very cool . I'm using a GTX 650 Ti as GPU so i would like to build an "indie artist" cinematic pipeline around it.This GPU seems working fine with Unity HDRP (see post above) . I will surely upgrade it in the future but for another reasons.

Blender WIP render


Render vs Displacement

The final render