Hey guys, need some help with camera alpha mask and smoothing it out

hello, this is my first post, and I am very very weak in terms of shaderlab and Cg, I've looked into some quiet helpful tutorial on youtube and unity wiki and such but I still dont seem to have an idea how to solve my issue

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/camera-mask-alpha-falloff.145313/#post-994707

my problem is pretty much the same as this post's, from the youtube tutorials I've seen I feel like I am supposed to use Lerp to solve this, but I just cant understand how to blend the main camera view with this secondary camera view which is looking at a texture renderer.

I've tried contacting the OP for help, but it seems the last time he was seen on this forum was December 2014.

Any help will be very much appreciated, thank you!

 

The secondary camera view isn't looking at a texture renderer. It's rendering into a render texture instead of the main target. You then have to draw this render texture onto the screen. You might as well just use GUI.DrawTexture for this.

 

Umm, I heard that GUI draw calls are quiet expensive, (perhaps it doesnt matter here since it is a camera?), but I still dont see how this will make the edges any smoother...

 

Ah, I though you were unable to display the results of the secondary camera in the primary view.

Maybe you can post some shader/script code to show what you are doing now.

 

The shader is the exact same shader im using on the link I put up, and there really isnt a script code that accompanies the shader.

 

So, something like:

Code (csharp):

1. Shader "TextureMask"
2. {
3.   Properties
4.   {
5.   _Mask ("Culling Mask", 2D) = "white" {}
6.   }
7.   SubShader
8.   {
9.   Tags {"Queue" = "Overlay-1"}
10.   Blend SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha
11.   Lighting Off
12.   ZWrite Off
13.   ZTest Always
14.   Pass
15.   {
16.   SetTexture [_Mask] {combine texture}
17.   }
18.   }
19. }

 

well yeah,

1. 
   
2. Shader "TextureMask"
3. {
4. Properties
5. {
6. _Mask ("Culling Mask", 2D) = "white" {}
7. }
8. SubShader
9. {
10. Tags {"Queue" = "Background"}
11. Blend SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha
12. Lighting Off
13. ZWrite On
14. ZTest Always
15. Alphatest LEqual 0
16. Pass
17. {
18. SetTexture [_Mask] {combine texture}
19. }
20. }
21. }

this to be exact but they are pretty much identical right?

 

Yes, I know, but what about my version?

 

uhh your code doesnt actually make the 2nd cam a circle, as the ZWrite needs to be On for it to do that, and on some occasions I get an error stating that Queue = Overlay - 1 is unknown or something

 

The original code seems to render the overlay at the start of the frame and uses the z-buffer to mask it. You can't do any blending with this approach.

My code should render the overlay at the end of the frame. ZWrite is meaningless at that point. Queue = Overlay -1 should work, but you can also try just Queue = Overlay.

 

hmm thanks, it seems the 'Queue = xx' determines at what point of the frame it works, so at what time can I blend anything? Anything with Queue = Overlay doesnt actually make the circle it seems.

 

Anything between Transparent and Overlay I'd say. You want this map to be on top of other transparent objects. There are numbers assigned to these Tags, so that's why Overlay-1 is supposed to work. Or Transparent+10.

How does it look now and how does the mask texture look?

 

it looks like the camera only becomes a circle when the tag is on background (well I tried overlay, overlay+10, transparent, transparent+10, and then background). I think the camera alpha mask thing only works when the tag is on background.

Can I then perhaps then do tag = background and then with the circle view port camera renderTexture it to an object and make a camera stare at that object to do blending?

 

Background simply isn't the right time to do blending if you want to blend it over your scene.

How does it look now and how does the mask texture look?

 

Uhh i told you, the camera viewport stays rectangular, when the mask texture is circle here I uploaded the required set up so you can see it for yourself.

The clipcam has to be set as Orthographic btw, and I've also uploaded the mask im using.

 

I also have the same problem. can`t find the answer anywhere