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Color3 - Advanced Color Grading [RELEASED]

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by Diogo-Teixeira, Sep 15, 2011.

  1. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    .
    Get Color3 for only $50 USD

    ** Only for Unity Pro **
    (requires full-screen post-processing effects)

    Try Color3 Now

    About Color3

    Color3, the most flexible color correction tool is now available in the Asset Store today.


    This plugin effectively enables you to apply color grading to your entire game by mimicking the color transformations made inside a tool like Photoshop, E.g. changing contrast, color curves, exposure, saturation, hue and more.


    Features
    • Industry level color grading
    • Semi-automated Photoshop workflow
    • File-based standard workflow
    • Dynamic blending between profiles
    • Texture-based per-pixel masking
    Workflow

    This plugin provides an integrated editor with two possible workflows:
    • A semi-automated workflow where it actually connects to Photoshop to upload the reference frame and download the modified frame
    • A standard file-based workflow, compatible with all image editing software
    We've uploaded a video showing how easy it is to create grading profiles using Color3. Both Photoshop and Standard file-based (using Gimp) workflow paths are demonstrated.


    Feel free to have a look at the Online Manual for more information about how this plugin works and available workflow options.

    Where To Buy

    You may purchase securely at our website.

    Feel free to contact us if you need more information, either using our feedback page or directly using contact information available at our company page.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2013
  2. Metron

    Metron

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    Is there a web demo?
     
  3. 95KillerZ95

    95KillerZ95

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    Nice! But as Metron said a webplayer will be cool....
    But if I've understood this is a tool to change the rgb color channels?
     
  4. parnell

    parnell

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    Unity Free? Or Unity Pro?
     
  5. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Metron, will do. It'll be up in an hour or so.

    95KillerZ95, kind of. Unity already provides a color correction shader, albeit limited. This one replicates any color transform you apply on Photoshop (or any other tool). It generates a color transformation look-up-table that can be switched at runtime, e.g. to change the mood.

    modeling_man, since it requires full screen effects it's only available for Unity Pro.
     
  6. Alienchild

    Alienchild

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    Looks interesting, I'll have to check the demo :)
     
  7. Andrew_atl

    Andrew_atl

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    Looks cool. Would like to see a video or something.
     
  8. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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  9. seon

    seon

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    Well done. Really nice grading!
     
  10. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Seon, cheers :)

    We've uploaded the manual so feel free to have a look for more information about how this plugin works and available workflow options.
     
  11. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Hi everyone,

    We've submitted a small update (1.0.1) and it is now up on the asset store. Only a few changes, for now:
    • Fixed sample LUT import settings that was causing visual corruption.
    • Added descriptive sample LUT names.
    • Simplified description and added links to webplayer demo and official website.
    We are committed to keep improving Color3 and are very interested in your feedback. Feel free to share your experience with this plugin and let us know how we can improve it - be it bugs, workflow/interface issues or features that you feel are missing.
     
  12. fholm

    fholm

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    Wow this is a steal for 25 bucks, buying instantly. Awesome!
     
  13. Airship

    Airship

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    This is really cool!

    Can we animate/ blend between mutliple different textures in the image effect, to kind of cycle through different color themes to mimic a night day effect? Then the animation could be controlled by a script? If not I think this would be a great feature.

    Also can you tell me what the performance is like?
     
  14. hellraizerhhh

    hellraizerhhh

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    beautiful work and the demo environment is top notch
     
  15. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    fholm, cheers!

    Airship, not at the moment but I've just added it to the feature request queue. It'll be a nice feature to have. We'll keep you posted.

    HellraizerHHH, thanks! Just baked a location from Unity's Bootcamp into a high-res cubemap. Also added FXAA to get sweet smooth edges.
     
  16. Andrew_atl

    Andrew_atl

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    Yes this is the feature I would like.

    I bought this and it works great, can get a lot of different effects with it.
     
  17. techmage

    techmage

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    Does this run well on iOS?
     
  18. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Airship, sorry missed your question about performance. The effect shader itself is not very complex so I'm hoping that performance is not even an issue. That being said, we haven't yet gone out of our way to optimize it further. The current compiled shader lists 22:3 and 20:3 (ALU:TEX) for GL and D3D respectively.

    eem, unfortunately we don't have access to iOS hardware yet. However, as far as full-screen effects go, this one should be rather lightweight. It should work right off the bat, in case it doesn't however, we are available to make any necessary changes to make it work.

    Andrew_ATL, thanks!

    We should have blending up and running starting next week. We're also considering adding support for texture masking.
     
  19. Airship

    Airship

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    Thanks for the reply.

    Awesome about the blending. Texture/ material masking would be a great feature as well to give more control over what gets affected.
     
  20. techmage

    techmage

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    I am interested in this, but am hesitant to purchase without knowing about iOS performance. I am also doubtful it even could work on iOS as the built in unity color corrector runs sloooowww on iOS. But I do not know if thats just because the unity color corrector is extra heavy or something.

    I don't know if perhaps you'd be willing to arrange something to let me be your iOS beta tester? I'll try it, record what kind of performance it gives me and report back here. Although I won't have an ipad2 to test it on for maybe another month. So maybe someone else might be a better candidate for this.
     
  21. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    If Unity's color correction is already slow then I don't think there's any hope for Color3. While simple, it is a couple of times heavier than regular CC. What hardware did you test it on? first gen iPad?

    That would be great, actually. Based on the results above, however, it would probably be better for us to focus on iPad 2+.
     
  22. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Hi everyone,

    An important update (1.1.0) is now up on the asset store. Small, albeit important, list of changes:
    • Added support for blending between profiles. Added a BlendTo() method to Color3 Grading component to allow control over blending via scripting at runtime.
    • Added per-pixel texture-based masking. Supports dynamic/render-target textures.
    We updated the demo to show off the new features and uploaded a workflow video to better show how this thing really works.

    Feel free to share your experience with this plugin and let us know how we can improve it - be it bugs, workflow/interface issues or features that you feel are missing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2012
  23. I am da bawss

    I am da bawss

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    Looking at it I am dubious at first, thinking "I could have just use Unity Pro's own Color Correction image effect why should I use this......."

    BUT after watching the video - I think this is marvelous extension. Simple idea but executed so well - just export the screenshot (the extension automatically attach a reference color swash to the image) to Photoshop and change the colors however you like it, and import the image back. The extension reads off the color swash difference and match the color exactly (Instead of fiddling with Unity's CC endless trying to match a particular look).

    Definitely on the to buy list! :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2011
  24. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Cheers Bawss! We use this ourselves all the time now, quick and effective.
     
  25. bergerbytes

    bergerbytes

    Guest

    Any word on iOS performance?
     
  26. SevenBits

    SevenBits

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    It's not working on the PowerPC Mac I'm using right now. It performs just fine, but I clicked every button and nothing happened. Does it actually require Photoshop to be on the end user's computer? Because if so, the potential usefulness of the tool is not going to be very high if it requires a somewhat expensive program just to play a small game.
     
  27. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    bergerbytes, not yet. We have no access to a device ATM. Is anyone out there willing to try it on iOS and chime in on this?

    SevenBits, it does not require Photoshop to create grading profiles. It can be used with other image manipulation program, e.g. Gimp, just not using the automated workflow. Unfortunately we also don't have access to PowerPC Macs, but there shouldn't be any incompatibility. Have you tried it with an Intel Mac?
     
  28. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Hi everyone,

    Mobile devices, both iOS and Android, are now officially supported in version 1.2.0, which is now up on the asset store!

    List of changes:
    • Fixed inverted mask texture when anti-aliasing is enabled on Windows targets
    • Added help buttons for troubleshooting LUT and networking issues
    • Locked LUT size to 1024x32 (32^3) for performance purposes
    • Shader performance optimizations across the board
    • Mobile support
    A trial version is also now available for download.

    Once again, feel free to share your experience with this plugin and let us know how we can improve it - be it bugs, workflow/interface issues or features that you feel are missing.
     
  29. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Incremental update 1.2.1 is now available on the Asset Store. Main focus was Photoshop connection issues and GUI.

    List of improvements:
    • Fixed Photoshop 6 connections issues, 5.1 also tested
    • Improved overall connection handling and testing
    • Improved editor window GUI, e.g. show password, save settings, scrollbar
    • Improved error handling

    Next on the roadmap is Unity 4 support.

    Feel free to share your experience with this plugin and let us know how we can improve it - be it bugs, workflow/interface issues or features that you feel are missing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2012
  30. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    I'm interested to buy this with the intended use on mobile iOS devices.
    My main concern is performance, did anyone test how the mobile performance is versus this build in Unity color correction?

    ColorCorrectionEffect.cs

    Code (csharp):
    1. using UnityEngine;
    2. using System.Collections;
    3.  
    4. [ExecuteInEditMode]
    5. [AddComponentMenu("Image Effects/Color Correction (Ramp)")]
    6. public class ColorCorrectionEffect : ImageEffectBase {
    7.     public Texture  textureRamp;
    8.  
    9.     // Called by camera to apply image effect
    10.     void OnRenderImage (RenderTexture source, RenderTexture destination) {
    11.         material.SetTexture ("_RampTex", textureRamp);
    12.         Graphics.Blit (source, destination, material);
    13.     }
    14. }
    15.  
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2012
  31. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    I'm also interested to use it for day and night cyle, and would like to cyle between 4 settings for the different times in the day.

    Thanks !
     
  32. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    We haven't compared against Unity's own color correction, but I'm sure Color3 is much heavier on the GPU. Below are some performance number we were able to gather from different devices:

    iOS
    • iPhone 4 at standard resolution 480x320 => stable 60 fps
    • iPhone 4 at retina resolution 960x640 => simply not fast enough for this hw; should work on 4S
    • iPad 3 at retina resolution 2048x1536 => stable 60 fps; should work on iPad2 at standard resolution

    Android
    • Sony Xperia Tablet S (Tegra3) at standard resolution 1280x800 => stable 60 fps

    That can be done using the Blend feature. You can simply use a script to swap the Lut and Blend Lut, once every cycle is complete, using the Lut textures for the next cycle.

    Also, feel free to download the Color3 trial. It should also work mobile. That way you can make sure the performance is sufficient before purchasing.

    Let me know if you encounter any issues. I'll be glad to help.

    Cheers
     
    Last edited: Oct 23, 2012
  33. ddeaco

    ddeaco

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    Just downloaded the trial, Here are some of my findings.

    I have a scene that runs at 60 fps on iPad1 so its quite lite on GPU.

    One thing I've found is that Anti aliasing which is normally quite cheap to enable on iPad2+. But with AA + Color3 performance takes a massive hit where it becomes unusable.

    Here some of my results -

    iPad 2 = 60fps
    iPad 2 + AA 4x = 40-44
    iPad 3 = 50-55 fps (bit shaky)
    iPad 3 + AAx2 = 18-25 fps

    Would there be any obvious reason for this sudden drop in performance when using AA, and is it fixable?

    Also would there be any performance gains if you were to create a stripped down version that didn't provide any blending between two color profiles?
     
  34. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    The numbers provided above are for the basic color transform, without blending. We have several shaders, optimized at different levels, that get selected depending on the textures being used. If don't set Lut Blend or Mask, it will use the most basic shader which requires the minimum we could get out of this shader 11:3 (ALU:TEX).

    Regarding the AA: it's possible that the Color3 effect is being multi-sampled, which is an overhead with zero gains in this case. You could try getting around it with an offscreen non-AA render texture.

    In general, I would recommend using Color3, and other non-trivial post-processing effects, at standard resolutions on all devices up until iPhone 4S and iPad3.
     
  35. fivearchers

    fivearchers

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    Looks like an interesting product, might have to check it out!
     
  36. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    fivearchers, thanks! I hope it works for you.
     
  37. techmage

    techmage

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    Would love to see some comparison to unity's built in color correction on iOS, on very heavy scenes. Just knowing it can run at a stable 60 fps, on some level, isn't enough information for me.

    I would like to see a level running on unity iOS that makes the iPad go at 40 fps. Then turn on your color correct, cycle through each various setting, recording how much it makes fps drop. Then turn on Unity's built-in color correct, record how much it makes fps drop.

    Because it could be that, without a frame-cap, the level your using to test could be simple enough run at like 500 FPS, and when you turn on color correct your losing lets say 40 fps, but since the GPU is still way way over the 60 framecap, then it stays stable at 60. However if you have a level or game made that stresses the iPad enough to make it go between the 50-70 fps range and then turn on color correct, you may actually see a significant drop in fps making it unusable, which is what my worry is, I have a lot of projects that stress the iPad that much.

    But with that said, looks like awesome work, if I produced work for the PC I would buy it in an instant. Am hesitant though because of potential iOS performance issues.
     
  38. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    I agree. That's the reason why we provide an unlimited time trial that you can download and try without commitment:
    http://insidious.pt/trials/color3_trial.unitypackage

    Color3 has a predictable performance impact on each device. Whether the frame rate will drop or not will depend on how much frame time is left for the effect and ultimately how much your game is keeping the GPU busy. I can tell you that, on iPad3, Color3 averages at 15 ms at retina res and 4 ms at standard res. The best way to be sure is just try it.
     
  39. MythicalCity

    MythicalCity

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    Hi there, I just tried Color3 trial version and on the iPad 3 (usually running at 60fps) I get 5fps when I turn on Color3. Is that normal? On any other non-retina ipad it works great. Is it a limitation of Color3 with Retina res, or is it something that is happening on my side only? I get the same problem using the built in unity color effects (even a very simple greyscale one does that same thing, 5-6FPS).
     
  40. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    I had the opportunity to test this myself, on my own device, and it should be at 55-60 fps at retina res running only Color3. However, I recommend using Color3 only at standard res since it can consume 15 ms off your rendering time when running at retina res.

    Are you using Unity 4.0 ? This is not supported yet, but will be available until next weekend, at most.

    What about anti-aliasing? Make sure it's disabled.
     
  41. Games-Foundry

    Games-Foundry

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    +1 for fixing these to run under DX11 in Unity 4.0 please, with fallback to DX9.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2012
  42. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    I'm on it. Currently porting all the plugins to U4 with optional DX11 support.
     
  43. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Hi everyone,

    A tiny update 1.2.2, fixing an inverted mask issue when using Unity4/DX11, is now available on the Asset Store. No need to update if you're still using Unity3.

    Planned next is volume texture optimization (for supported platforms) and in-editor color transform tool for those of you that can't/won't purchase Photoshop.

    Feel free to share your experience with this plugin and let us know how we can improve it - be it bugs, workflow/interface issues or features that you feel are missing.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2012
  44. krassi

    krassi

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    hi there!
    i have purchased your assets and i finally have my usual photoshop-colorgrading workflow that i was missing in unity ;)

    oookk i just have one problem.. im using good old photoshop cs4.. export the reference image ,do some colorgrading in photoshop.. but my problem is, its not giving me the exact result after reimporting and processing in unity..

    i have to decrease the exposure to 0,5 and 16bit mode to get a lil bit of the result i want..

    hmm is there any trick or am i missing something, or usertostupid-error *g
     
  45. Mars91

    Mars91

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    I'm using another camera for GUI the problem is that I do not want to apply color effect to GUI camera, is there a way to do it?
    Or is there a way to script effect?
     
  46. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    There is supposed to be a very small difference because a perfect transform would cost too much memory. However, it isn't something you should notice that easily, much less have to compensate with such a large exposure difference.

    What transform are you applying to the image?
    Are you using Linear or Gamma mode?

    The effect is only applied to the camera that has a "Color3 Grading" post-processing effect.
     
  47. krassi

    krassi

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    hi there well im using linear mode in unity, and in photoshop coloreffex and some basic things, nothing with blur and vignetting..is there any need to make reference linear or something else?
     
  48. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    No need. Your output will ultimately be gamma. We just make sure that, when running in linear mode, out shader works in the correct color space. Are you having trouble matching the transform in photoshop?
     
  49. krassi

    krassi

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    hi there.. had a lot of christmas superlazyness.. ill check it out in the next days.. well anyway im happy that i bought this asset.. its the only thing that gives me a really good look ;)... well it was actually the photoshop stuff..i only got a good old cs4, so i need to export an image first, but ill make some tests to check it out..

    seeya, daniel ;)

    UPDATE:
    Awesome its working ! and 95%-99% accurate... im loving it ;)... i guess the problem was sitting in front of the computer ;))).. seeya, daniel
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2012
  50. Diogo-Teixeira

    Diogo-Teixeira

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    Sorry for the delay. Glad to know that you solved it! 95-99% sounds about right :)

    Please let us know if you find any issues or have suggestions to improve the product.

    Cheers