Why can't Unity HDRP correctly render AAA looking character models?

I totally get what you mean, the enemy demo does have cinematic lighting. I think there is room for both: 1. cinematic lighting, which many people falsely identify as the most realistic or prefer because they are used to how reality looks in movies, 2. realistic lighting, that tries to render something our eyes or a camera would see in reality, which seems more immersive to me. The choice highly depends on how the game should feel. Using GI in general does not work against realism though, putting artificial area lights, flaming chess pieces and such does. They just went for a cinematic lighting in that, based on HDRP, which gives you the base to go for a more realistic style as well.

 

I know what a gaffer is. And unfortunately, the last images of my work I posted are a few pages back, And also my current hardware doesn't support raytracing...I'm mostly an artist who enjoys creating characters and beautiful worlds. And I am a sucker for natural lighting.

But I remember when I rendered these, I used APV and it looked amazing. I don't know if raytracing works on animated characters yet, but combined with some lighting techniques like APV (I often use emissive objects for lights as well) it will push the level of quality.

This was done with a custom shader and high res sculpting. The eyes were a real challenge.

 

No, I wasn't saying it was too dark. What I said is it is way too dark. It was flat black. No definition. It literally looks like someone took a sharpy to the pic.

I wasn't saying it needed to be lit up, but was suggesting a little lighting so that you can see the texture just a little.

In the end, I believe perception drives what people see and subconsciously the image looks off because a person doesn't see sharpy flat black when there is any lighting at all.

Also, if you have too much light like in the last pic above, then it looks just as odd as flat black, just a different odd.

I am not trying to tell you what to do, just asking don't you think the flat back is odd looking?

BTW, I love the texture you use for the floor/ground.

 

Honestly, I would use some form of post processing to warm it up a bit, such as tone mapping. But honestly, using GI and APV helps a ton, especially in dark areas.

 

man your work looks incredible, i'm glad to see someone who really understand good graphics, i can see you are a perfectionist, maybe? it lacks some details tho but looks amazing so far

 

I struggle with perfectionism and I'm trying to break through it. And if I wanted to, I could easily go back and add more details onto the character's skin. I still have the ZBrush files and change the details.

Also, I found out that adding a curvature map in the Z channel and it makes the skin even more detailed. My custom skin shader has a softening feature per channel, but yes, I want to move from this character. I could rework the lip details a bit and eye wrinkles. I still need to generate blendshapes.

 

You could use post processing to lighten a scene, the problem is that lightens even the areas which are already highly lit,like those in the sun which leaves them too harshly exposed, so that doesn't work unfortunately as it is a very simple option. Any other guesses?

As for GI, your head shots without an environment and a black backdrop don't show GI or APV do they? I'm trying to work out why any use of GI light bouncing or APV light bouncing when there is nothing to bounce off?

 

These shots were rendered months before my GPU died... I was using GI and APV, using a reflection probe around the character of an HDR that I downloaded on Polyhaven. Even the eyes have subsurface scattering on them

As for your scene, I kinda like that it evokes an old school rendering feel. Gives me Skyrim vibes

 

I want to learn from someone who knows exactly how something was done because they did it themselves. I'm not here just to give everyone else information and get nothing in return except guesses about how 3rd parties might have done something or hearsay about how to do things from promos or documentation.

 

I just sort of think you might be too hung up on new tech new buzz word good everything else bad, even when that new tech is now pretty old, I've used APV and GI Ray Tracing in Unity and it really isn't very much difference as most gamers who turn it off find when there is a setting. All lighting is just lights and bounce lighting from any GI method or probes is just source light bouncing, it's not some magical new thing. Being good at using lights and controlling them is the only way to be good at lighting.

That would be my last comment to the OP in answer to "Why can't Unity HDRP correctly render AAA Looking Character Models" Answer: It can you just need to be better at using lights, shadows, shaders and materials, it's that simple.

 

While this is true, I was using GI in my Unity scenes LONG before any kind of real time raytracing and it was challenging then, especially without physically based material (back in the day I used Phong shading). Without global illumination, emissive objects don't light naturally. I know how to fake it with point lights, by tuning it's intensity and falloff.

For environment lighting, I could fake it with ambient colour and use a cube map. It's a challenge, but it's a hell of a reward. Physically Based materials just makes it easier

 

I don't have a clue what you did to make it look like this, TBH. I am not a lighting expert at all. My strengths are programming. (I love C# that is why I chose Unity initially over Unreal.)

My modeling and animation are college level at the moment, self taught Blender, etc...... Got a prototype to animate for MP at Halo 3 level quality animation.

 

Now THIS is a great improvement!! For things like corners and candle lighting, you could increase their attenuation. Do another test with all of the lights enabled (and if you are using HDRP, set the sun to the intensity of 120,000 which is physically accurate). For your skin shader, you might benefit from creating one using the Shader Editor. The shot I posted earlier is designed in Amplify and it works TREMENDOUSLY with APV, though on darker skin it isn't as noticeable.

Do you have reflection probes in your scene? That can also improve the look of your surfaces including metals. Btw, you have some shading errors in parts of your scene, particularly the wooden struts above the warriors' head

 

Trying out the new features of 2023.1; some bigger improvements in SSS (with Thickness pass, specular colors, better SSS) and Hair Shading (with the new, unfortunately VERY buggy High Quality Lines) for sure:

 

yes i know, i can see that on your images because i'm a perfectionist too, especially with realistic projects, inside and outside unity... i understand your struggle -.-

 

Yeah I totally back the full use of APV and Ray Tracing everyone here thinking it is great should do a lot of work and really spend a lot time working with the great technology especially the attention to perfection seeking who've been on this forum for a long time discussing this.

 

And I've been doing computer graphics since I was a teenager (long before Unity even existed) and I'm always striving for quality in my work. I was also doing a fighting game prototype but I was constrained by my aging laptop.

Also, I watch A LOT of VFX movies so I often set the bar of quality high on my characters and assets. You can see an example of my attention to detail in this shot, all of this micro detail is shader based, and I was inspired by the game Uncharted 2 by Naughty Dog, where they use this technique on Nathan Drake.

 

I've been using raytracing in my projects for a very long time and it's especially useful for creating realistic materials in real time. As for perfectionism, I'm still working through it, even as far as intentionally leaving in mistakes in my work

The hair and skin look very nice, though I advise toning down the scattering just a tad. It's making her look a bit waxy

 

me too, with lightwave, mostly interior rendering, also in my teenager years i tried some game engines before unity existed too xD like TGE, in fact TGE was very good those years, even after unity was released. I think you work with lightwave, don't you?

 

I started playing with 3D with Lightwave 7.0 and Softimage 3D... my current pipeline is Modo 14 (need to upgrade to the latest version) and I fondly remember working with Softimage XSI

 

After thinking about this a thought came to mind. Self illuminating materials? But I haven't tried this and do not know if there is any performance impact.

*What happened with @ARealiti? It seems like some of his posts had gone missing in this thread? *

 

I noticed that too. But for candles, he could use emission but he would need APV to make them cast light

 

*What happened with @ARealiti? It seems like some of his posts had gone missing in this thread? *[/QUOTE]

I can't leave the post images up for long they are part of a game that is being developed by a few of us so I have to delete them a few days after posting them.

I've come up with a solution to my original problem for the harsh sunlight transitions, I suppose the answer was obvious, increasing the skin diffusion rather than using a new type of diffusion filtering. The obvious question is how far...

Shots with original diffusion. The character on left is in the Sun, character on right is in the shade, both a bit harsh, the one in the Sun has very harsh light reflection.

[Had to remove the images they are part of a game. Can only leave them up for a week.]

 

Couldn't you auto adjust for the Player by sampling the brightness of the pixels (some of them, not all of them) and adjusting to make the scene lit enough for what should be the best overall image? (Give heavier weight to the center of the screen, because even if their eye is focused on the corner, their camera is where they are intending to look.)

 

Yes the Volume has Center Weighted Exposure Adaptation Automatic Historgram already applied. Brightness setting gives the player further option so they can blast their retina if they so choose along with ramping up their monitor brightness.

Which of the Skin diffusion did you prefer?

 

In your picture examples, I liked the fourth, because it was the brightest and yet had plenty of shadows for curves of the chin, etc. Even the one in the shade was better.

But TBH they are all pretty close in brightness.

 

You have a good eye, that was my favorite also.

Made some changes, below are 3 user lighting settings 50%, 75% and 100% for the fourth diffusion profile picture in the last post, the lighting for the characters and scene have been increased a bit at more angles. It is a dark pub with more sun blocked now than the original shots a few days ago, so I think this is close.

[Had to remove the images they are part of a game. Can only leave them up for a week.]

 

I have a question. Are you using reflection probes in your scenes? That would definitely improve the lighting on your characters and also for some strange reason, the previous renders, all of the models have this hollow feel... Try to avoid using too much diffusion on the skin. Your profile scale should be set to 1 at all times and use the subsurface mask

 

The generic lighting gives a good look in corner shots at 50%. Enough for me in a dark corner of a pub, but again lighting can be ramped up as per 100% in second shot.

[Had to remove the images they are part of a game. Can only leave them up for a week.]

 

Yes the original shots had a professionally produced SSS map (by an artist far better than you or I) and a scattering profile multipler at 1 and diffusion power at 1, they looked harsh especially in sunlight IMHO and MrBigly confirmed that more subsurface scattering and a higher diffusion power looked better with his keen eye. Hopefully, you have learned quite a lot from me. I thought your head shots didn't have enough scenery and lacked lighting, by that I mean they had no scenery to be able to tell whether your lighting was any good which was very lacking, which made it impossible to make any judgements to help your diffusion/SSS or character setup, they looked very flat and lacked any detail IMHO without being able to see anything in a very unlighted scene.I think you could do with a lot more scenery and lighting to help your work, or at least allow me and others to help you. You can do better than this, I know you can, there is a lot of room for massive improvement.

 

Thank you for your feedback. This model was lit with an environment map, similar to how it is done in VFX movies (example to test out the materials when it is composited to a plate). I was mainly playing around with HDR lighting when I did this. Once I get my computer back, I will be pushing this hard. Real hard. Especially with lighting. I also have HBAO, which will add a lot more detail.

 

In the first picture, it looks like you are indoors because the dark area around the window. To be specific, the light from the window shining in should be brighter than the surroundings (e.g., the window frame and wall) from a perception perspective.

The candles on the wall on the second pic are too bright, and the man on the left looks like he is just under a roof, but that a wall behind him is missing and the sun light is lighting his clothes. It doesn't look anything indoors like the first pic.

 

Indoor lighting is a challenge sometimes, which is why when I do indoor scenes I almost ALWAYS do a test with global illumination and probes to see i can light the entire room with natural light (such as at a restaurant with huge windows) and adjust the EV of my camera to lower values (higher values will make the scene darker) to lighten up the scene.

And the candles are way too bright against the wall (I've run into this before myself). I imagine a wall sconce in a hallway and how the light falls off with distance.

 

Yeah that's why the first one is the 50% default and thanks for confirming once again with your keen eye that I have got it right. 100% is there for the retina burners to set it to that, so it is now what it should be because because even you think it is too bright at 100% Agree about the candles in general will tone those down.

 

not just too bright, but physically wrong, the light is way to high compare to the flame itslef xD (i mean, the point light is higher than the flame), that is a very common mistake.

 

This used to drive me crazy back in the day (we used Phong shading)

 

You're being too sensitive to other people's criticism of your work and you're worried to post it IMHO. Someone like you could learn a lot from putting your work out there.

 

When I bought my son an XBOX 360 and Halo 3 when Halo 3 was the latest and greatest, we played it on a boob tube. (I loved that game far more than any other game we played together.)

A couple years later I got my first flat panel and the clarity of the skins was amazing. The textures on Narrows was simply breath taking. All I could do is stare at it. I couldn't decide if I was enamored with the details of the texture or the jump in graphics by the monitor. But I remember staring at the textures on Narrows alone for nearly a half hour.

They were far more detailed than one could see on a tube. But they were also very simplistic. Halo 4 showed me how beautify simplistic textures can be. Halo 4 had extreme visual noise through out their levels and in the palette objects of their forge (level builder). That confirmed to me less is more when it comes to textures.

It was from that I decided that Halo 3 / Reach served as excellent examples of what would be good for a games regarding textures. I love looking at the cavern scene you showed us, but it isn't worth the effort for my trilogy. I hope to post my high school grade models that I developed to show you my maps and the simple lighting I use on them (just three directional lights, nothing more). I wouldn't mind feedback. Perhaps in a few days, I gotta get my game running a decent map. Right now I am in the midst of netcode stuff for weapon firing.

 

It wasn't easy to get a new level up that looked decently, so I will show some screen shots from a couple years ago. Each one is progressively turning from away the sun toward the sun from NE, E, S, then West at the setting sun.

I use only three lights. The sun light, and two other directional lights that lighten the dark surfaces so there are no black sharpee surfaces. It may be too much light, but perception will compensate. Immersion will never be broken by black sharpee surfaces on any model.




I am posting these only to show the lighting system I intend to use. Just the model itself was quite a learning experience for me.

Feedback welcomed.

 

What is your YouTube channel?

 

@SampleVideos2000

I only have a few videos of my prototype work over the last few years on there.

 

You just know I'm going to say your work does not have enough detail and shadows right Contrast and detail in textures/materials and lighting would add a lot to your work. It's a continuum there's no perfect.

Even in a desert there is shadow and detail.

 

As I said, this was high school level detail in the model (which is why I was hesitant to share it).

Also, this was a youtube screen shot, which isn't the best.

But as for shadows, my point is that there are no dark areas. The shadows will be there in the end, but it will look like what you see with Halo 3/4/Reach. Bright, crisp, detailed textures, and nothing truly dark.

If you look at Halo 3 maps, there was only one that looked truly dark (blackout), and a few that were just a little dark in their interiors (isolation, snowbound). I want to avoid dark. Don't ask me why, I haven't figured out why I dislike it so much. But I love bright outdoor ambient lighting.

While I like some of the pics you showed, even some of their outfits were slightly too visually noisy for my targets. Something a bit simpler is what I am shooting for. However, the outfit my prototype has is far too simple. It's just a novice level prototype model to help me develop the animation framework, nothing else.

My targets for detail level are found in Halo 3 and Reach. Halo 4 is too noisy.

 

After working a bit with Unreal Engine 5.3 (for "reasons") I get some understanding of the advantages it has over HDRP and why it's easier to make AAA looking characters:

- The Subsurface Scattering seems to be better; it's just more realistic, especially it seems to blur normals in a more pleasing way so that skin looks more smooth.
- The lighting in general is better; even without Lumen. Especially the indirect lighting with Lightmass is more plausible out of the box without any post processing, seems also still better than APVs. In HDRP you can do good lighting, but it needs much more efforts as you need to do some dirty tricks, which also has negative impact on performance.
- Meta Human models, morphs, textures and shaders are all exceptionally well done (at least on faces). No comparison to DAZ or CC; which would be the best option for Unity users who don't have resources to build own models. I guess this last point makes biggest difference. Enemies demo has shown that with well done resources Unity is capable of looking very good; especially the hair simulation, the new hair shader (if it only would have less bugs...) and the eye shader are on par with or better than Unreal Engine.

Nonetheless I like working with Unity more because of it's flexibility and I hope that it will stay feasible in the future, which for us depends on the progress we'll see.

 

Would you characterize Unreal as a lot less effort by a small team to get to a higher quality of image?

 

as far as I can tell from my limited time, yes, but it really depends on many factors. Getting great visuals on virtual characters is much easier, but it gets much more complicated once you need things which are not foreseen by the Engine developers. There are visual tools for nearly everything (physics, animations, hair simulation, softbody simulation, ...), which are much more powerful than what unity has on board. If this is all you need, it's good. If you need more, it might get difficult. With Unity, you can basically always go down to low level, but still stay with C#. In Unreal, you might need to use C++, or even worth, patch the source code of the engine, and this will make engine updates more complicated.

 

Well, I have spent one week with UE5 and decided it is superior in many ways to Unity 202X. I even believe I can shave off one man year of animation work by switching to it. My plan at the moment is to simply take Metahuman models and render them nearly out of box. My only focus will be initially to eliminate sharpy black shadows with two auxiliary soft directional lights. Then as time permits, incrementally improve the GI with changes that have the highest maintainability.

Can't say thanks enough for the good times in discussing this topic.

 

Next step in the long, long journey: Integrating the Eye Shader from digital human package, as used in Enemies demo. I must say that this was, a somewhat unpleasant journey, took nearly a week to have it setup in a satisfying way. Mostly due to lack of documentation and some bugs in the package: