Distance shadows with Enlighten.

Having some issues with shadows in the distance. I have a large sunlit scene that requires shadows in the distance, I can't set the realtime shadow distance too far as it hurts performance and reduces shadow resolution and I can't do a duel lightmap bake with Enlighten, so whats the solution for distance shadows in large sunlit scenes?

In Unity 4 I would normally use duel lightmap mode to tween between far baked shadows and near realtime shadows. Whats Enlighten's thinking for this?

 

Ha, I missed your post and submitted the same problem just a second ago. So... is dual lightmaps not implemented yet, or is it a bug and it should work, but it doesn't? Or maybe this new realtime shadows are so awesome that you can cast them to infinite distance without performance hit (I didn't try that actually)?

 

Yeah tried setting shadow distance really far, as expected the shadow resolution drops the further you set it.

Also tried baking the lights, can't see a way to make them tween between the direct realtime light. There doesn't seem to be any AO in the baked maps either. All these features I watched in the Unite videos just are not here...

Really wish one of the Unity guys would chime in and lend some advice!

 

Personally I've found that with 4 shadow cascades you can get away with setting the shadow distance high enough to not need duel lightmaps (then again, I don't have massive scenes with distant mountains etc).

Also, the AO on the baked lightmaps works fine.

 

Actually, it looks like your best bet is to set the shadow distance high, and then play with the cascade distances. That is, make a cascade or two very close to the camera, and then later cascades significantly farther out. That's how GTA5 does it, if you look you'll notice that nearby shadows are very crisp, and then at a distance become very blurry/pixelated.

 

Yes the AO works fine baked onto a lightmap. Still a bit confused to what Enlighten does with the GI though, everytime I exit my scene and go back to it, my GI calculation and lightmaps are gone. Why is this not saving my lighting?

 

I guess one way to get around this problem would be to use the LOD system, making your last level models a non shadow caster as long as the object isn't big like a building, this should preserve draw calls.

 

Have you considered some kind of realtime dual shadow maps, that blend between one close-up shadow map with low shadow distance and one far distance shadow map with a very high distance? It would almost work like a kind of progressive shadow resolution, that lowers shadow resolution in the distance and increases it closer to the camera.

I have no idea if this can be implemented or not, but in theory it sounds like a logical solution that wouldn't be too hard on performance (although I might be completely wrong). It sounds like if this was balanced well, a large outdoor scene might get a better result with two medium resolution shadow maps using this approach compared to one very high resolution map with very high distance using just one shadow map, because you'd have better details up close.

 

You've just described a dumbed down version of cascaded shadow maps, and Unity has supported it for years for up to four shadow cascades. In Unity 5 it looks like you also get total control over the distances of each cascade.

 

Ahh, I suspected I was missing something Thanks for clearing that up! I'm definitely looking forward to be able to tweak the distances of each cascade, as that's the shadow setting I've been missing. That means I should also be able to accomplish better close-up shadows even at shadow distances of many thousands.

 

If you've played GTA 5 (at least on Xbox 360) you'll notice that they manipulate the shadow cascades in just the way you're describing. The nearby shadows are very crisp, but after a few meters switch to very low res and blurry.

 

In Forward Rendering Mixed Mode doesn't render realtime shadows in B13, is it supposed too and this is a bug, or is it a pending feature?

 

In some cases, realtime shadows work with Mixed lights and Forward rendering, if Lighting/General GI/Directional Mode is not Directional Specular (beta 13).

 

It only works for me on objects that are non-static. Not sure if you are seeing something different, but I don't get dual shadows from static objects like with Deferred. (Although oddly it works in Deferred if you use the Forward rendering pipeline)

 

in b14 real time shadows on static objects work only in Non Directional and Directional modes. When in Directional Specular - they do not.
Please say that this is work in progress and will be added?!
.. also light probes seems to have no effect on non-static objects ?!

 

@kurzemnieks All those things work fine for me in Directional Specular mode. Have you checked if your camera is set to Deferred Legacy or proper new deferred?

 

I was using Forward rendering. When using Deferred (the new one), then I get real time shadows on non-static object from static objects, but not the other way. If forward rendering there are real time shadows only between non-static objects.
Anyway - I made super simple test scene with two static objects (blue) and one non-static (red). Standard shader on all. I attached picture with 4 cases - both forward rendering and deferred.
As you can see - first one is the correct one with all real time shadows where every object drops shadow on all other. In all other cases something is missing. In deferred mode - all LM modes look the same.
Test was done on geforce GTX 780, Unity 5 b14

ps - is the Deferred now the preferred mode over forward? What is the solution for anti-aliasing?

 

So is the general consensus for a large outdoor sunny scene is baked GI with realtime directional light?

I ask as with the current toolset there is no way to blend dynamic object shadows with baked shadows?