Alloy Physical Shader Framework by RUST LTD.

Hi,

I just realized that even using the tiny minimum height value for the Parallax and POM effect, yields a too deep extrusion, especially for the POM.
I then tried lowering the minimum height value of the slider in the shader code, but that didn't change anything. Is there any way to lower the extrusion amount further than the standard minimum height value?

Thanks!

 

Also, I'm still not able to drag Bitmap2Material output maps into the Alloy Material Map Channel Packer. Any workaround for this? Can this functionality be added?

 

@SeanM3D
Are you using Alloy 2.1, or are you one of the testers for the Alloy 3 pre-alpha?

 

@DGordon
Sorry about the delayed response, again. At this point, it would be best if we could start a private conversation and exchange contact info to diagnose the problem. I will also need a repro scene so that I can test the assets on a PC and see if the problem is tied to the platform or not.

 

I'm using Alloy 2.1.

 

Hi @SeanM3D: The BTM outputs can't be dragged into the channel packer because they aren't -actually- textures. They're procedural textures that are only cached. They don't exist on disk.

In good news though, for Unity5/Alloy3 we've actually been working with Allegorithmic to have a custom version of the BTM3 sbar setup to work with Alloy! Its in its final testing stages now

 

Perfect timing.

 

@SeanM3D
Apologies for the delay. I've sent you a PM with a patch and instructions on how to apply it. Hopefully it will address your problem.

 

Hello I'm currently working on a tessellation+Alloy PBR shader and I found that the custom vertex output trick used in Alloy vertex shader is not supported in tessellation vertex modifier. here's my vertex modifier

void SrVert(inout appdata_sr v, out Input o)
{
float4 uv = float4(v.texcoord.xy,0,0);
float d = tex2Dlod(_SR_BaseHgtCur,uv).r * _SR_DetalHeightMax;
v.vertex.xyz += v.normal * d;
UNITY_INITIALIZE_OUTPUT(Input, o);
o.texcoords.xy = v.texcoord;
#if defined(_UV1AO2_ON)
o.texcoords.zw = v.texcoord1;
#endif
}

But in unity generated shader file custom vertex output is not supported

[UNITY_domain("tri")]
v2f_SrSurf ds_SrSurf (UnityTessellationFactors tessFactors, const OutputPatch<InternalTessInterp_appdata_sr,3> vi, float3 bary : SV_DomainLocation) {
appdata_sr v;
v.vertex = vi[0].vertex*bary.x + vi[1].vertex*bary.y + vi[2].vertex*bary.z;
float3 pp[3];
for (int i = 0; i < 3; ++i)
pp = v.vertex.xyz - vi.normal * (dot(v.vertex.xyz, vi.normal) - dot(vi.vertex.xyz, vi.normal));
v.vertex.xyz = _SR_tessPhong * (pp[0]*bary.x + pp[1]*bary.y + pp[2]*bary.z) + (1.0f-_SR_tessPhong) * v.vertex.xyz;
v.tangent = vi[0].tangent*bary.x + vi[1].tangent*bary.y + vi[2].tangent*bary.z;
v.normal = vi[0].normal*bary.x + vi[1].normal*bary.y + vi[2].normal*bary.z;
v.texcoord = vi[0].texcoord*bary.x + vi[1].texcoord*bary.y + vi[2].texcoord*bary.z;
v.texcoord1 = vi[0].texcoord1*bary.x + vi[1].texcoord1*bary.y + vi[2].texcoord1*bary.z;
SrVert (v);
v2f_SrSurf o = vert_SrSurf (v);
return o;
}

as unity shader-lab generated code cannot call this vertex modifier function with to parameter.
Does any one know any work around?

 

@Lieene Guo
Sadly I ran into that same problem while developing the Alloy 3 alpha. It was one of the many reasons why I had to abandon surface shaders. Unfortunately, as near as I can tell there is no way around it.

Now UV1 and vertex colors are basically dead in the water, but there is a REALLY hacky way to get UV0 back. Basically, for tessellation mode you need to replace the "texcoords" field in the Input struct with something like "uv_DummyTex", then have a property defined for it. As long as that property never has any transforms applied, it will basically be a drop in replacement for UV0.

That's the best I can offer you. Sorry.

 

Hi everyone

I know I've been a bit radio-silence lately. We've been hauling away on Alloy 3, and are almost ready to start releasing some cool demos and tutorial information for our new system.

As a little tease, I thought I'd share a shot from a demo I've speed-modeled out the past 3 days, that I've been using to performance-test large numbers of real-time lights/shadow casters.

The demo proper should drop sometime in the next week or two.

 

Okay I see. that's why Shader Forge don't generate shader-lab shaders too...
Thank you! I am using this uv_MainTex thing now. but sadly can't out put and thing from vertex modifier.

Here's another question.
Now I am able to tessellate a alloy based material as in this picture

and without wireframe

The lighting is good as expected.( The wired extruded to the right is because i'm using trail version of b2m.)
But when I put the exactly same shader on terrain.
It comes with strange lighting effect, the dark and bright edge of object become very sharp. as in here:

I am multiplexing uv scale 100-1000 times to achieve tiling. I was guessing this is the reason. Because i'm using float uv coord and the floating number precision is the reason I lost those detail. but it is still the same even after I added this to the code.

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2.        float2 uvScale(float2 base, float scale)
3.         {
4.             double2 uv = base;
5.             uv*=scale;
6.             uv=uv-floor(uv);
7.             return uv;
8.         }

And sample texture with:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2.             float4 control = tex2D(_SR_Control,baseUv);
3.             float4x4 uva=0;
4.             uva[0].xy=uvScale(baseUv,_SR_SplatScaleA.r);
5.             uva[1].xy=uvScale(baseUv,_SR_SplatScaleA.g);
6.             //uva[2].xy=baseUv*_SR_SplatScaleA.b;
7.             //uva[3].xy=baseUv*_SR_SplatScaleA.a;
8.             float4x4 spa = 0;
9.             spa[0] = tex2D(_SR_Splat00,uva[0].xy);
10.             spa[1] = tex2D(_SR_Splat01,uva[1].xy);
11.             //spa[2] = tex2D(_SR_Splat02,uva[2].xy);
12.             //spa[3] = tex2D(_SR_Splat03,uva[3].xy);
13.             spa[0].a = pow(spa[0].a*control.r,_SR_HeightBlendPower);
14.             spa[1].a = pow(spa[1].a*control.g,_SR_HeightBlendPower);
15.             //spa[2].a = pow(spa[2].a*control.b,_SR_HeightBlendPower);
16.             //spa[3].a = pow(spa[3].a*control.a,_SR_HeightBlendPower);
17.             heightWeight+=spa[0].a;
18.             heightWeight+=spa[1].a;
19.             //heightWeight+=spa[2].a;
20.             //heightWeight+=spa[3].a;
21.             spa[0].a /= heightWeight;
22.             spa[1].a /= heightWeight;
23.             //spa[2].a /= heightWeight;
24.             //spa[3].a /= heightWeight;
25.             base.rgb += spa[0].rgb*spa[0].a;
26.             base.rgb += spa[1].rgb*spa[1].a;
27.             //base.rgb += spa[2].rgb*spa[2].a;
28.             //base.rgb += spa[3].rgb*spa[3].a;
29.             material += tex2D(_SR_MASRMap00, uva[0].xy)*spa[0].a;
30.             material += tex2D(_SR_MASRMap01, uva[1].xy)*spa[1].a;
31.             //material += tex2D(_SR_MASRMap02, uva[2].xy)*spa[2].a;
32.             //material += tex2D(_SR_MASRMap03, uva[3].xy)*spa[3].a;
33.             normalTs += UnpackNormal(tex2D(_SR_Normal00, uva[0].xy))*spa[0].a;
34.             normalTs += UnpackNormal(tex2D(_SR_Normal01, uva[1].xy))*spa[1].a;
35.  

The adding and dividing is because I'm trying to merg texture splat control and texture height.
The effect is the same even if I sample only one splat texture.

Do you have any idea why is this happening? And how can I make it nice and smooth again?
Thanks!

 

@Lieene Guo To be honest, I have no idea. My knowledge of tessellation is pretty limited beyond how to use Unity's offerings to add it to our shaders. Sorry.

EDIT: Scratch that, I remember now. Unity's terrain meshes don't have all the needed vertex data to calculate normal-mapped per-pixel lighting. They usually have it be a constant in their shaders. I don't remember which one it is off the top of my head, but I am sure you could look at Unity's built-in shaders to find it.

 

tangent is missing. so you have to calculate it in the vertex shader.

 

Thanks you guys, Tangent it is. I was guessing it's about tangent in the first place but in the wrong way. I was thinking that tangent space is rotated as I apply texture based vertex extrusion. And I should use tessellated triangle tangent space. but that was wrong too, cause normal map is generated in original mesh tangent space. So I was stuck there and start search for other solutions... Never think about vertex input...

 

Hi,
I've got some problems in visualizing Skyshop environment map after player building.
I'm using Unity 4.6.1 and the latest version of both Alloy and Skyshop.
In the application I've created a set of materials with Skyshop reflection that the user can istantiate and assign to variuos parts of a procedural generated mesh. In the editor everything works well, but after I build and launch the application, the reflection of the istantiated materials disappears (like it doesn't find Skyshop maps)
Any idea on how to solve this problem?
Thanks

 

@Wambli
Unfortunately Alloy 2.1 lacks support for the current version of Skyshop. I need to examine the latest version of Marmoset's product and make the necessary changes to support it.

 

@n00body
I see. Please let me know as soon as you have any news about it
Thanks

 

@Wambli
Okay. We've updated to the latest Skyshop code, and tested it against their included demo content. We'll be pushing an update after the holidays.

 

Ok. Thank you so much!

 

Does it work with Unity5 b17?

 

@ksam2
It should. Though if you REALLY want to use Unity 5 I strongly recommend getting in on the Alloy 3 alpha. PM @xenius with your Alloy 2 invoice number and he'll hook you up.

 

When can I see the Alloy 3?

 

@ksam2
Do you mean when will he get back to you with your copy, or when will you see examples of Alloy 3 in action?

 

examples of Alloy 3 in action

 

There's nothing here.

 

Hi guys,

Hope you haven't all minded the radio-silence too much. We haven't put out any preview images yet, mainly because I don't like to tease too far out from an actual release, as I know first-hand how irritating that can be. Plus it seems its taking a bit longer for Unity5 to be beaten into shape than I initially expected, and we don't have any sort of official release timeline for that.

News update for you though: We're working on the new site, documentation, and sample content that will be shipping with Alloy3 which is much more robust than the previous version. We'll be putting out the first public info on the set mid January, as well as some demo builds.

IMPORTANT QUESTION for you folks though.

As Alloy3 is a full-system-replacement for Alloy2, we will be slowly sun-setting development/support for the latter over time. For I imagine at least a few months though following the release, the asset store download will contain the packages for both of the sets (though you will _not_ be able to have them both active in a project at the same time). We will at some point however remove the Alloy2 package from within it.

What I'd like to know from you guys is how long you plan to be sticking with Unity 4.x, and as such would prefer to be able to grab the Alloy2 package from the assetstore?

 

Does alloy have any skin shader for the Unity5?

 

@ksam2
Skin, Hair, and Eyes.

 

Is there any documentation for the skin shader? Because I couldn't find any.

 

@Yakykopo : We're working on a new documentation framework right now. It will simul-launch with Alloy 3.0 and will include per-shader/per-property type breakdowns, pictures examples, and be closer in structure to something like the unity api docs.

 

Is there any demo or video or something?

 

@ksam2 Not yet. We're getting ready to go from Alpha to Beta, at which point we'll be releasing info/pics/video etc.

 

Hi alloy team,

Can you explain me why in your doc:

I need to byPass sRGB Sampling using my original maps? Using PBR we need sRGB alogn with linear color space ...

Thanks,

 

Hi @kax2057

The reason you need to use byPass sRGB on the packed map so that the metallic, occlusion and specf0 map are interpreted linearly (rather than on a curve).

Note that the other maps do NOT need this checked, and the Alloy channel packer will automatically set this for you when you pack a map. The source maps that you plug into the packer do NOT need to be set to this. The packer configures everything properly automatically.

We include that line in the documentation in case you don't use the packer, and combine things in photoshop yourself for the packed map, so you know to set it up equivalently in the texture import settings.

As for linear color space, without it, lighting is not summed correctly, and textures are not sampled in the correct color space. In short: all the math is wrong unless you're in linear.

 

@kaz2057
Yeah, what @xenius said. Also, we strongly encourage you to use our map packer tool, as that's how we pre-calculate and store specular antialiasing information so that it has no runtime cost.

EDIT:
Oh I see, you thought we meant setting "Bypass sRGB" on your input textures that you feed to the map packer.

 

Excuse me for my stupid question but ....

Following Sebastian Lagard guideline, the metalness value is based on linear value ....

If we use linear scale, why we don't degamma e regamma texture using sRGB buffer?

This is the chart for example using Quixel: http://www.marmoset.co/wp-content/uploads/materialref01.png

Albedo and Metalness are sRGB

It is the same setup for UE4 pbr shader? alloy = UE4?

Thanks for clarification

 

@kaz2057 That chart is not showing the metallic value of a surface. M stands for 'microsurface' in that chart, which is their confusing word for 'smoothness'. You would use the inverse of that value for the roughness of the surface in Alloy.

The charts shown there are for Spec-Gloss style PBR, namely using an SRGB Albedo and Specular Color, along with a smoothness value.

Alloy's inputs are Metal-Rough style, which is an SRGB BaseColor, and Linear input values for Metallic, Occlusion, Specf0 (0-0.08 range) and Roughness.

edit: Yes, Alloy's setup is akin to Unreal 4's (assuming you are using one of their material graphs that takes a Specf0 value for dieletrics.

 

Hey,

How does Alloy 3.0 compare to the new Unity 5.0 PBS? What are the pros/cons of using it over the built in? I'm absolutely loving the workflow between Algorithimic's Bitmap2Material and substances with the standard shaders ... do you have an easy workflow with Allgorithmic's products / substances? With that said, Alloy 2.0 already offers many more shader variants (skin shaders, etc) than the 5.0 Standard shader ... so I'm very much hoping I can return to you and continue my same workflow.

Also, the error that I was getting for so long with the deferred rendering artifacts on the mac with transparent shaders was apparently around since before 4.0. I found someone else discussing it on a forum somewhere (wish I remembered where) and someone claimed 5.0 was finally fixing that bug. I'm not going to pretend to understand it, but hopefully that should be knocked out without you guys having to do anything (and thus allowing me to use Alloy again if I wish) ... I can say that I'm NOT having that bug with transparency in 5.0 Unity shaders ... so it seems like it may all be okay if I understood what I read. Thanks for going back and forth so many times about it.

Looking forward to hearing a bit about 3.0 so I can make an informed decision about which shader set I'm going to use for my current project.

Thanks!,
Dale

 

@DGordon
If you'd like, we can hook you up with an alpha copy of Alloy 3 and you can see for yourself. Just PM a request to @xenius and include your Alloy 2 purchase invoice number.

 

@DGordon Hi hi! As n00b said, shoot me your invoice number (or ping me on skype, PM your sn) and I'll be happy to give you a tour.

Re: Substance stuff: We're working with allegorithmic to make sure Alloy has a first-class integration with the Substance tools. On top of our shader for SD4 (that's getting an upgrade at the moment), we've got a custom B2M3 version setup for Alloy that almost done, and are working with them to add the last element (srgb override for procedural textures) that's needed for sbars to fully work with Alloy3. I don't have an ETA from them on when those two things will be 100%, but I'll be chilling with them at GDC, and its definitely in the pipeline (and super critical to me, as my entire personal pipeline revolves around substance).

Re: Features of Alloy: I'm keeping mums on things publicly for the most part, but I'll put it this way. The set's flexibility has grown immensely (think its like at ~1.2 million permutations if my wolfram alpha math isn't off, YAY shaderfeature in Unity5!).

I'm still on holiday break with family on the other side of the country from my main work machine, soon as I'm back I'll be putting together the videos to show off the new shiny!

 

@xenius
Hi,
I would try Alloy3 alpha for Unity5 , and of course I have the invoice number. But really I do not find how to send you a PM in the forum

 

I didn't buy and test alloy 2 but I'm going to buy Alloy3! Can't I test Alloy3 alpha?

 

@ThunderTruck
Go to @xenius profile by clicking his image, or the name links in any of these posts. Once there, you then need to find and click the link "Start a conversation".

@ksam2
If you purchase Alloy 2, then you will automatically receive the upgrade to Alloy 3 when it officially comes out. It will not be a separate product, nor will it require a separate purchase. So that's why we require you to purchase Alloy 2 and have an invoice number to get in on the alpha.

 

So I don't know if I like Alloy or not! I just want to test first

 

@ksam2 I'm sorry, but there's no way for us to create a demo or 'try before you buy' version of the framework without actually just giving out the framework. We'll have a bunch of demo builds, videos, and documentation however, which should give you enough information to make an informed decision.

 

Do you guys have any video tutorials on how to get a few different materials looking AAA? Even in 2.0 there were a few different skin shaders, and I don't know enough to use them optimally yet. A tutorial going from start to finish on one character would be super helpful ... I wouldn't mind seeing what your workflow is on something like a sword or armor as well. I get the theory, but theres a big difference between that and seeing someone use it correctly.

Thanks!

 

@DGordon We'll be producing a bunch of vids, as well as having some friends on here like @Neptune_Imaging do some that fall outside our production specialization (his characters are crazy-gorgeous, and he has the skin/hair/eye workflow down pat).

 

Wow thats fantastic. Its really a huge help for anyone who isn't well versed in using PBR ... giving me a load of features is great, but if I only know how to use a few of them, the rest only do so much . Keep up the good work!!

 

That is correct... so far the hair is the hardest to do but I am powering through this... and the video is in planning.