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[RELEASED] - Screen Space Area Lights (SSAL)

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by MPanknin, Mar 25, 2013.

  1. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi,

    the redLights illumination package for Unity is now available in the assetstore. Shape up your scene illumination with Screen Space Area lights (SSAL)!

    Get it now in the Assetstore!

    Live demos and videos

    What does it do?

    Supported emitter types
    The redLights package supports rectangular light emitters (monochrome, textured and animated) as well as monochrome spherical light emitters. All emitter types provide correct diffuse and specular lighting.



    Spherical emitters are advantageous over the standard point lights, because they are volumetric and actually generate a circular specular reflection.



    Falloff options
    The lights support several types of falloff types. You can choose between standard constant, linear, quadratic falloff or custom falloff functions, that can be adjusted via the builtin graph editor. You can also go crazy and use completely animated falloff functions.



    Advanced editor for animated falloff curves



    Proper integration into the editor


    IES light profile support
    The redLights package supports basic IES profiles for point emitter. We support input data, that has been exported by the iesgen 4 tool, that can be downloaded from:

    http://rip3d.net/Downloadmodels/iesgen_4.rar



    Oculus Rift support

    SSAL redLights can be used in multi camera setups. For example the Oculus Rift.



    Some more screenshots


    Videos




    What else?

    Full artist control
    All properties are exposed to the user and can be adjusted completely at runtime. This includes color, intensity, emitter textures, falloff parameters as well as transformation settings such as translation, rotation and scaling. All parameters can be controlled either manually in the editor or via scripting.

    Supported Unity versions
    The redLights package works with Unity version 3.5.x and above. The Pro version is required!

    Supported Rendering paths
    All available rendering paths are supported (Vertex Lit, Forward and Deferred)

    Supported platforms
    Webplayer, Windows Standalone, Mac Standalone

    Supported Unity Features
    Correctly blends with built in materials, shadows and lights. Also works together correctly with standard image effects and post pro filters.


    Open topics and stuff that is work in progress
    Cylindrical light emitters, shadows, support for mobile, runtime configuration

    Cheers,
    Martin
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2013
  2. I am da bawss

    I am da bawss

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    Awesome! I been waiting for something like this for a while (I have seen something similar done on Blender) and this looks perfect.

    So how much is this going to cost? And what's the minimum requirement for the shaders? (eg. what shader model does this one support? SM2.0? SM3.0? SM4.0?; are there any other special requirements? (does it work in any type of scene? or does it only work in rectangular room?); does this work on Unity 3.5x (as I am still stuck at 3.5x and I am sure a lot of people are too)......and most importantly, does it work on mobile?
     
  3. Daniel_Brauer

    Daniel_Brauer

    Unity Technologies

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    It looks pretty good on Mac OS, but I think you aren't vertically flipping a texture somewhere for reflection.
    $00000115.png
     
  4. Jaimi

    Jaimi

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    So, what does using your SSAL package give me? Is it faster, is it nicer looking, what is the advantage?
     
  5. RC-1290

    RC-1290

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    At first I thought there was ambient lighting in the demo scene, but I was glad to see that it all comes from the lights. Do they have a fixed/limited range?
     
  6. TechnicalArtist

    TechnicalArtist

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  7. ZJP

    ZJP

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    Need!!!
     
  8. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Thx, for the kind comments.

    @I am da bawss
    Yes, it is based on the same algorithm as the blender version, but our implementation is rather different and quite unity specific.

    We haven't decided on the pricing yet, however, it will be moderately priced for sure.

    Currently it's shader model 3.0 and above. I'm not sure if it can be squezzed into 2.0, will take a look.

    There aren't any requirements on the type of scene, the demo is just programmers art :). We are currently preparing another demo with a more advanced level.

    Yes, it works with Unity 3.5, but since we are utilizing rendertextures, the pro version is required.

    It should work on mobile, but we haven't done any testing yet. It certainly runs fine in gles 2.0 emulation mode. Of course, this will be verified and tested before the release.

    @Daniel Brauer
    Thx, this is probably due to unity switching vertical uv's when using rendertextures, depending on the platform. Will be fixed.

    @Jaimi
    It gives you nice-looking realtime arealights. Arealights are currently only available for static lightbaking.

    @RC-1290
    No there is no fixed range. However you can control the area of effect by manipulating the light's attenuation parameters. It uses a basic constant-linear-quadratic falloff, with all values exposed to the user.

    @devang_xprt
    Thank you :)
     
  9. fffMalzbier

    fffMalzbier

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    Thanks for the demo but i have quit a bit fun artefact's.
    (Running at a Mac mini Mac os 10.7.5 2,5 GHz Intel Core i5 and AMD Radeon HD 6630M 256 MB)
     

    Attached Files:

  10. kenshin

    kenshin

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    Really interesting!
     
  11. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi, it's most probably the same issue, that Daniel Brauer reported. Unity may switch rendertexture uv's on certain platforms. I'll upload a fixed version tomorrow, as I'm currently not in front of my unity machine.
     
  12. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    The demo should now run correctly in mac webplayer.
     
  13. fffMalzbier

    fffMalzbier

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    Looking very nice , nice performance.
    I now that the product is "just starlet" but do you now what a ETA for the version that is working with texture and shadows?
     
  14. Andrew_atl

    Andrew_atl

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    I must have this.
    Is it possible to have the (lights "colored planes"), invisible but still have the lighting?
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2013
  15. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Yes, of course. The planes are just dummies to visualize the light emitters. It's just a box geometry with an emissive material. You can deactivate them to your liking, as they are not relevant for the lighting calculations.


    @fffMalzbier
    Thx. As for the release date, we hope to finish a first version by the end of next week. We need to do more testing, bugfixing and generally shape things up a bit. However, shadows probably won't be finished for the first version.
     
  16. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Small update before the weekend.



    Happy Easter!
     
  17. nuverian

    nuverian

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    Does the mesh actually produce the light? I allways thought thats very expensive performance wise
     
  18. PolyMad

    PolyMad

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    It is screen space filter, so no matter what produces the light, it's the screen resolution that matters.

    BTW absolutely fantastic! I thounght we needed still some years before having this kind of lights on real time!
     
  19. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi nuverian, there is no mesh. The neon sign is just a texture.

    Thank you!
     
  20. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Another update, added specular reflections to textured light emitter.

     
  21. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi,

    I updated the first post, as there is a new demo version online.
    This time it shows the support for texture / movie texture as well as a more complex scene, that is less programmers art. :)

    Check out the new TV-demo at our demo corner:


    Cheers,
    Martin
     
  22. fffMalzbier

    fffMalzbier

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    Nice to see the texture and video support.
    It the TV demo i looks like the screen space effect is lagging a little bit behind.
    If the camera is moved or rotated the the screen space effect is delayed.
     
  23. nuverian

    nuverian

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    Demo with movie looks great indeed, and yes it alos lags to me when I look traight at the tv and be further back from it
    What kind of shader is the reflection shader?
     
  24. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Ups, will be fixed.

    The reflection is part of the lighting shader. It's similar to specular highlights, created by other light types. However since in this case the light has more than a single point of origin, we can use a texture for coloring the specular reflection.

    The strength of the reflection is based on the material of the respective object. In the demo you see a nice reflection on the ground surface, as it has a bumped specular material, whereas the carpet under the table does not have any reflections on it, since it is just a basic diffuse material.

    Later on the SSAL-package will come in different flavors. The user will be able to choose from different light prefabs.
    For example the current options are:

    Single colored lighting:
    Single colored lighting with specular:
    Textured lighting:
    Textured lighting with specular:
    Movie texture lighting:
    Movie texture lighting with specular:
     
  25. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Demo is updated. Fixed the lag.
     
  26. nuverian

    nuverian

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    Thanks for answer.Looks prety cool. Looking forward for the package :)
     
  27. elbows

    elbows

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    I'm getting very excited about this. Hows the timescale looking for initial release?

    Cheers.
     
  28. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi,

    just found a minor bug in the demo. So, if you are looking at the scene and are seeing artefacts like these:



    That's not, how it is supposed to look. It should look like this and will be fixed.

     
  29. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi elbows, I'm afraid, I can't tell you an exact release date, yet. We are trying to finish the first version as soon as possible.
     
  30. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Just added a couple of screenshots to the first post, for all of you reading this thread on a mobile device.

    Please note, that all the lighting in the screenshots comes from SSAL. No ambient, directional, spots or points.
     
  31. angel_m

    angel_m

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    The screenshots are not showing here...
     
  32. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi, I added the screenshots to the initial post on the first page.
     
  33. TopThreat

    TopThreat

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    I hope you release this soon. It looks production ready, why not release and then provide any additional updates over time?
     
  34. Wrekk

    Wrekk

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    This is awesome, I can't wait 'til you release it. :)
     
  35. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi LeeAllen, yes, that's what we want to do. Right now we are finishing the first version, that will include support for WebPlayer and Standalone.

    In subsequent updates we will deliver support for mobile and other open features.

    We hope to be ready for submission by the middle of next week.

    Soon :)
     
  36. angel_m

    angel_m

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    How is the performance ?
     
  37. PolyMad

    PolyMad

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    Check the demos?
     
  38. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Hi, performance is nice.

    The apartment demo runs with a constant 60 fps in fullscreen in a standalone build on fantastic. I just tested this on a GT620M mobile board.

    Further I didn't experience any performance hickups on the web demo, yet.

    However since SSAL is executed in screen space, the performance is directly coupled to your screen dimensions. So if you throw in 100 arealights in a 1080p scene, performance will probably drop, depending on your hardware. (not tested, yet)
     
  39. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    With disabled V-Sync it runs at 140 fps on a GTX 560Ti.
    Yellow stats in the bottom is counted by Fraps.

     
  40. angel_m

    angel_m

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    To megmaltese:

    I don't see any draw call or fps counter in the demos...

    Thanks MPanknin
     
  41. PolyMad

    PolyMad

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    OK sorry, thought you wanted just a general answer, not detailed fps info.

    Anyway, any hint on when this would hit the Asset Store? :rolleyes:
     
  42. Yaboiicey

    Yaboiicey

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    Where do you learn how to do things like this in Unity. I have been reading up on Shaders and Post Process but I haven't found any way to learn these things. I've always wanted to make my own SSAO or GI solution in Unity but I don't have the knowledge and I don't know where to find it :confused:
     
  43. PolyMad

    PolyMad

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    First of all: are you a coder?
    Because it's unlikely you can start writing this stuff if you are not a good coder already.
    These things involve quite some math knowledge too.

    After this, search the net for SSAO and GI for algorythms and ready code you can then adapt :D
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2013
  44. jessica1986

    jessica1986

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    1. when will this be released ???

    2. will work on mobile ?
     
  45. Xsnip3rX

    Xsnip3rX

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    Jessica, from page 1 the author wrote:

     
  46. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Good morning,
    we are hoping to finish a first version this week. If all goes well, it might be up at the end of the week.

    The first version will not include support for mobile, I'm afraid. This had to be postponed until the next update.
     
  47. ZJP

    ZJP

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    Hi,
    And what about the price?

    BTW, Unity Pro only?
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2013
  48. ZJP

    ZJP

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    UP. My questions are too complicated?
     
  49. duke

    duke

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    Hey Martin,

    Would you consider putting your ward and cook torrence shaders on the asset store?
     
  50. MPanknin

    MPanknin

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    Guys,

    sorry for not answering earlier. Last week certain non unity related things took place unexpectedly, which I had to take care of.

    Now I'm back and all yours again!

    We're just finishing our package for submission to the asset store. What's left is testing and writing a bit of documentation on how to place the lights inside a scene. However, this really is not that complicated.

    Updates on the project:

    Package will be named redLights by redPlant.
    Price will be 50 USD.
    First version will be Webplayer and Standalone only.
    There is no support for mobile yet, this will follow in the next release.

    @ duke: Yes, maybe later. But first things first :)

    Cheers,
    Martin