Highlighting System [Released]

ZJP, cayouMontreal,
Thanks for the kind words, guys!
Enjoy the Unity Asset Store!

ChiliJuan,
Probably your problem is with your objects hierarchy.
Read this important note and change objects to which HighlightableObject and occluders are applied correspondingly.

Also, I should note that you can't completely cut the glow with the fish body - only limit the fin glow area with it.
Look at the image from my previous post. See this purple edge where the bridge intersects with the wall?
Same white glowing edge will be visible where fin intersects fish body.

 

Hi, I just picked up the plugin and am getting this error as soon as I run a scene, even without any highlight being turned on:

Tiled GPU perf. warning: RenderTexture color surface (232x155) was not cleared/discarded, doing <run with profiler for info>
UnityEngine.Graphics:Blit(Texture, RenderTexture, Material)
HighlightingEffect:FourTapCone(RenderTexture, RenderTexture, Int32) (at Assets/Plugins/HighlightingSystem/Scripts/HighlightingEffect.cs:305)

My project is setup for iOS build. I looked through this thread but couldn't find any solution for this issue.

 

capitalJmedia,

Hi!
You've probably missed this.

 

Ah thank you! Is this going to be implemented in the next update?

 

ThankYou. Its working now. It looks awesome now.

 

Hi just started using this script.

I've got this log msg spewing out that I'd like to avoid:

 

I am using the highlighting system in my project. Its working fine on editor but when I tried it on iPad performance drops very fast without even any single object switched on for highlight. On profiler it shows "Rendering" the huge performance dropper.
Is there any setting which I am missing for mobile device. I tried selecting "speed" in HighlightingObject script but result was same.

 

Hi !

Here my problem (sorry for my bad english).

I have a camera, with Clear Flag set up to Solid Color designed to show a fullscreen GUITexture with my background image.
I have a second camera for my main 3D scene. This one is set up with a Clear Flags at Depth Only (so I can see my background image). The HighlightEffect script is on this camera.

So, I have on Android (Nexus 7 2nd gen) :
With HighlightEffect script disable : 30fps
With HighlightEffect script enable : 3fps

I think the problem is related to this issue :
http://issuetracker.unity3d.com/iss...image-effect-greatly-reduce-fps-on-the-device

But I'm not sure.

Would you have a workaround to my problem ?

(Note : I can't use a plane/quad shown by the second camera because the second camera FOV regularly changes).

Thank you in advance for your help.

Best regards.

 

I have two cameras in my project, one main camera， another we called front camera，front camera used for special effects。when I put HighlightEffect.cs on the main camera, it works very great on the device, but when I put HighlightEffect.cs on the front camera, greatly reduce FPS on the device!
main camera used [skybox] clearFlags, and front camera use [Depth only ].
why?

 

I have two cameras in my project, one main camera， another we called front camera，front camera used for special effects。when I put HighlightEffect.cs on the main camera, it works very great on the device, but when I put HighlightEffect.cs on the front camera, greatly reduce FPS on the device!
main camera used [skybox] clearFlags, and front camera use [Depth only ].
why?

 

Guys, sorry for the delayed replys - I was on vacations.

capitalJmedia,
Sure, it will be in the next update.

ChiliJuan,
Glad I could help!

twangsta,
Please apply this fix.

hirenkacha,
Please read at the bottom.

xenotime,
In case you're targetting mobile platforms - this should be performed via the custom post-processing effect (or customized HighlightingEffect.cs in case you'd like to use it with the Highlighting System). This effect should set up main camera targetTexture to the custom RenderTexture, and then blend it with the background texture after all rendering has been finished. I will show you how to do this after the new update of the Highlighting System will be released (read at the bottom for more info).
Otherwise, in case one camera targetTexture is set to None - background will be rendered directly to the framebuffer and then will be read back by the post-processing effects on the second camera. This operation is a bottleneck on all mobile platforms.

Joe-at-SH,
Then just keep it on your 'main camera'.
More seriously - see above my answer to xenotime.


FOR ALL,
Good news everyone! I've found all workarounds for bugs in the Unity Engine related to Graphics.Blit() usage. I still should resolve several issues, but I think the new update, containing mobile optimizations and the highly requested depth-occlusion mode, will be released within this month.

 

FOR ALL,
For those, who experience such imprecision problems on the edges of the highlighted objects on iOS devices or any other mobile devices:


Please apply this hotfix:
1. Open the HighlightingEffect.cs script
2. Find this line:

Code (CSharp):

1. stencilBuffer = RenderTexture.GetTemporary((int)camera.pixelWidth, (int)camera.pixelHeight, stencilZBufferDepth, RenderTextureFormat.ARGB32);

3. Right after this line, insert this:

Code (CSharp):

1. stencilBuffer.filterMode = FilterMode.Point;

Result:


Update: No longer required since version 3.0!

 

Hello Slice3d,


After purchased and applied to my current AR project, I left a fair review on the Asset Store. And, just find this thread a good place to discuss with you on how it could be optimized better. Besides this warning message, it could be eliminated by adding source.DiscardContents() inside FourTapCone() function.

Please kindly shine some light on how I could improve performance with Vuforia AR camera, if possible. Thanks!

====================================================================
Review
====================================================================
To be frank, this highlighting system is a great solution for both desktop and mobile (Android) application. It just that it doesn't work well with Vuforia AR. Probably, due to the conflict on image effect (post-processing) resource, where both Vuforia and Highlighting system heavily rely on RenderTexture.

At least, after purchased and tested, it works on Android, so this review provide other developer more information on this...

I will be very appreciated if author could provide more info on how to optimize thing with mobile application using camera. Or, does any other user has same experience using Vuforia together?
====================================================================

Look forward your reply.


Best,
Jay

 

JayHuang,
Thanks for a fair review, Jay!

You should admit - I can't be aware of every use-case of the Unity engine + Highlighting System on practice. That's why it's better to contact me directly on my support email with the description of your problem and a little repro project in attachment if you'd like to get a feedback fast.

You haven't send me any repro project and I doesn't even know what is actually Vuforia AR, so please give me some time to figure out which problems may appear with this Vuforia + Highlighting System combination.

 

I found this asset and it looks awesome, just wondering though, if I were to use it to highlight adjacent planes, would the highlight bleed through the seam or would it work correctly? Thanks.

 

Hi!!, Just purchased the package . Looks fantastic, but I have a quick question:
how i draw a laser to see select an object using camera targering?

 

This package looks interesting but as I don't know if it'll fit my needs (and if the game will ever be released anyway), I wondered if there's some "trial" package or something.

Thanks.

 

Hi, any update on whether this will work with Unity 2D sprites - in particular the SpriteRenderer on sprites that have a sortingLayer?

Edit: found an example on the bottom of page 5.
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/highlighting-system-released.143043/page-5#post-1525835

Edit2: Ok so I got the highlighting system working really quickly, by applying the SpriteRenderer patch linked above.

I'm now having issues where, when dragging a sprite over another sprite (or a sprite is drawn above another sprite), it doesn't occlude the outline. I guess this is by design though, as the outline is meant to be visible through everything else. Hmm.

Example image here (I'm prototyping a card game):


The card being dragged (top left) is properly overlaying the other card, just not occluding the green outline from the card beneath it.

All the cards are in Sorting Layer "Cards" (id = 1), and their orderInLayer property is 0 when on the board, and 2 while being dragged.

I've tried enabling 'Use Z-Buffer' on the camera but that doesn't work.

Edit3: I've applied a different colour outline to the card being dragged, and this seems to have worked around my issue -- the dragged card outline seems to occlude the other outline.

Thanks!

 

Jay,

This asset is great, and works perfectly for my iOS needs. However, I could not get the affect to work for an individual mesh within a game object that has multiple sub-meshes. For instance let's say I import a model named "Car" which has "Chassis," "Wheel1," "Wheel2," "Wheel3," and "Wheel4." If I try to add the highlight to "Chassis," I get no visible highlight. But if I import each of the 5 models seperately, they work fine. Any thoughts on why this is happening?

 

Could you please add a mode where I wouldn't have to add occluder scripts to the hundreds of objects in each of my scenes?

 

Hey there, outstanding work slice3d.

I'd like to know an ETA for the next update with the improvements and fixes that you have been showing? Thanks!

Edit: Oh and would very useful if you add a link to this thread on your product description page

 

Hi, It looks really cool! I bought it for use in a iOS game we are making and figure that is really heavy, there is not way to make it more light?

 

Highlighting System 3.0 has gone for a review to the Asset Store.

Changelog from the upcoming 3.0 update:

• In this version, highlighting occluders doesn't work with Sprites! This might be fixed in the future releases of the Highlighting System, but you shouldn't upgrade in case you heavily rely on this feature in your project
• Mobile optimizations (9 FPS vs 25 FPS on iPhone 4)
• Highlighting occlusion feature (highlighters is now occluded with scene objects without the need to add highlighting occluders to all of them). Not compatible with hardware anti-aliasing!
• Per-Highlighter see-through mode (controls when the highlighting should be always visible)
• Hardware anti-aliasing (MSAA) support (highlighting buffer is now also anti-aliased. RenderTexture anti-aliasing support was introduced in Unity 4.2)
• Support for nested highlighted objects (previously it was causing an error)
• Invisible highlighted objects culling (they will not be affected by the material replacement routine. Scenes with huge amount of highlighted objects now should work faster)
• Depth Offset Factor and Offset Units settings added to avoid visual artifacts when Dynamic Batching is enabled in Player Settings
• Real stencil buffer is now used during highlighting buffer rendering (speeds up rendering. Stencil buffer access was introduced in Unity 4.2)
• Fixed lightmapped objects highlighting
• _CameraDepthTexture / _CameraDepthNormalsTexture is no longer cleared when the camera.depthTextureMode property is set to DepthTextureMode.Depth / DepthTextureMode.DepthNormals
• RenderTexture restore operations avoided in most of the cases and “Tiled GPU perf. warning" is suppressed in all other cases. Uncomment DEBUG_ENABLED define in HighlightingBase.cs script to see when this happens
• Null reference exceptions now prevented in case highlighted GameObject or Renderer was removed, but ReinitMaterials() wasn't called
• Fixed one empty pixel border around highlighted objects on a devices without support for NPOT (non power of two) textures
• Fixed one texel vertical offset in Direct3D 9
• Coroutines, used in HighlightableObject (Highlighter) were replaced with simple frame number comparision
• Combined highlighting shaders. Fixed function states (ZWrite, ZTest, etc.) is now driven by the material parameters (feature was introduced in Unity 4.3)
• Events/delegates used to control HighlightableObject's (Highlighter's) state from HighlightingEffect's (HighlightingRenderer / HighlightingMobile) were replaced with Highlighter components management
• Added HighlightingSystem namespace (to avoid potential name conflicts)

In case you would like to support further free updates of the Highlighting System - you can make a donation.

 

macdude2,
It will bleed through the seam. What would be the correct behaviour in this case for you?

Rodrytaku,
I'm sorry, could you please clarify your question?

Skullbot,
Unfortunately, Unity Asset Store doesn't provide such functionality.

Torninator,
In the current (2.0) version of the Highlighting System you should add the HighlightableObjct component on the first card and call highlightableObject.OccluderOn().
Update: Please note that highlighting occlusion doesn't works with sprites since 3.0 (It might be fixed with the future updates).

scarletshark,
Thanks! Support for nested highlighted objects has been added to the 3.0 update, which should be released soon (see my post above). Also, 3.0 will work even faster on all iOS devices.

Lukas_GMC,
Implemented in the upcoming update (see my post above).

Novack,
Thanks! Sure, I will add link to this post to the product description page.
For an ETA - see my post above.

ratonmalo,
Mobile optimizations will be in the 3.0 update. See my post above.

 

Hi, I want to know what kind of bur algorithm do you use in blur shader? Is it Gaussian blur?

 

ofusion,
Hi! Nope, gaussian blur requires lots of texture read operations (what will lead to significant performance impact especially on mobile devices).
I use fine-tuned 'four tap cone'.

 

I googled 'four tap cone', and find this is what you refer to?
http://wiki.unity3d.com/index.php?title=BloomEffect
Any further doc about the 'four tap cone' algorithm? Thanks!

 

Highlighting System 3.0 is now live in the Unity Asset Store.
I'm sorry about several typos in the documentation - they will be fixed soon.

ofusion,
Look for BlurEffect from the Unity's standard Image Effects (Pro Only) package.

 

Just purchased this. Is there something special you're supposed to do when highlighting skinned mesh renderers and the mobile version of highlighting? The outline seems to be "stuck" in one place.

 

Iron27,
Nope. Must work out of the box. At least works for me. Can you send me your example project?

 

Or does it also have something to do with multiple cameras and/or nonstandard viewports? In the scene I'm currently testing, there are already 4 cameras and I'm trying to use highlighting on one of them. Using the regular HighlightingRenderer component and attaching HighlightingBlitters to all the cameras looks good, but I'm worried the performance hit might be too much.

In another scene I plan on using highlighting in, there are several cameras, some of which have nonstandard viewports and one of which has an oblique projection matrix. I'm trying to get it working in the other scene first though.

 

Oh wow, fast reply thanks. I'm gonna tinker with it a bit more then try and get a sample. going.

 

Iron27
Yes, there might be some corner cases with unusual camera setups.
Make sure that you are not affected by the known Unity issue if you develop on Mac OS X (it's in the documentation).

Oh no! You shouldn't attach HighlightingBlitters to all of them!
Attach one HighlightingRenderer to the camera which should render highlighted objects and add corresponding HighlightingBlitter to the final camera which finishes rendering the scene (should work in most of the cases).
Oblique projection matrix? Multiple cameras? For mobiles? Wow You should definitely send it to me for a proper setup.

 

I upgraded to version 3 and ran into a change that is causing trouble. Previously, I would have an object that would have the highlighter applied to it. This would sometimes be grouped under another object that also had the highlighter object. I could set the highlight on the parent object and it would highlight both. But in the new version, if the child has it's own highlighter, it no longer is highlighted when the parent's highlight is activated. Is there a work-around for this?

 

Hi, great asset, (using version 3) but I am some times running into a problem with this error warning in Unitys console:

HighlightingSystem : Framebuffer depth data is not available and can't be used to occlude highlighting. Highlighting occluders enabled.

I have two cameras in my scene, a Main one with the renderer and blitter scripts attached (with a camera depth of -1), and NGUI UI camera with a delpth of 1 (I have not attached the blitter script to this one).

There's no occulders needed so all that my script does is turn on the highlighting at certain times when I need them. Do I need to attach the blitter script to the NGUI UI camera?

Cheers!

 

I think if the NGUI camera has a higher depth than the main camera, then it needs a Blitter.

Also I think I got HighlightingMobile working, but I'm still having major performance issues.

 

I put the Blitter script on the NGUI camera also, which I was sure I had previously done by way of elimination of the error, but it still see my original error warning of:

HighlightingSystem : Framebuffer depth data is not available and can't be used to occlude highlighting. Highlighting occluders enabled.

Cheers,
-Andy

 

ScrappyRMH,
This wasn't a feature of 2.x version, and can even lead to a bugs in some situations.
Several customers requested me to fix this (make using nested highlighters possible), so I've put this fix into the 3.0 release.
I apologize for any inconvenience caused, but it was just an improper usage of the Highlighting System and now it was fixed.

As a solution - you can change InitMaterials and GrabRenderers methods in the HighlighterInternal.cs script to change this behaviour as you wish.
All you need to do in this method is just to create a list with references to the Renderer components which current Highlighter should control, and feed this list to CacheRenderers method.
But I strongly recommend you to just create a parent script (group controller), which will control all child Highlighter components and call highlighting methods with the same parameters on them when you need this. This will be easier, more consistent and bug-safe.

I've also replied to you by email.

oOoANDOSoOo,
Hi,

Thanks, Andy!
This message is harmless if you don't use highlighting occlusion at all. It just notifies you that for some reason depth buffer is no longer available and because of this highlighting occlusion feature can no longer work.
In most of the cases this happens when hardware anti-aliasing is enabled in Quality Settings. If it's not - make sure that the HighlightingRenderer or HighlightingMobile component is always on top of all other Image Effects applied to your camera.

I've never worked with NGUI and doesn't know what it does with depth buffer and cameras internally.
Can you send me your trimmed example project? I will help you to setup Highlighting System in it.

Iron27,
Nope, this is not correct.
One HighlightingRenderer - one corresponding HighlightingBlitter. Neither more nor less.

 

Thanks for the reply, I just wanted to make sure that the warning was harmless or otherwise.

Cheers,
-Andy

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll go with your recommendation so that it will continue to work with each new version. Great asset. It's been very useful to my (non-game) project.

 

Here is something I have not seen on this thread. I would like to see the outline or the glow ONLY when the object is obscured by a wall or something. Like if half the object is behind a wall it would glow ONLY on the part behind the wall.

 

bigdaddio,
It is possible, but will work only in case native depth buffer is available (not compatible with hardware anti-aliasing).

In the latest (v3.0.x) version of the Highlighting System, in HighlighterInternal.cs script change:

Code (CSharp):

1. // ZTest LEqual
2. private const float zTestLessEqual = (float)UnityEngine.Rendering.CompareFunction.LessEqual;

to:

Code (CSharp):

1. // ZTest Greater
2. private const float zTestGreater = (float)UnityEngine.Rendering.CompareFunction.Greater;

and this:

Code (CSharp):

1. private float zTestFloat { get { return zTest ? zTestAlways : zTestLessEqual; } }

to:

Code (CSharp):

1. private float zTestFloat { get { return zTest ? zTestAlways : zTestGreater; } }

Result:

 

Small v3.0.1 update has been released in the Asset Store.
In this version:

• Fixed possible screen darkening when Color Space is set to Linear in Player Settings
  
• Improved documentation

In case you would like to support further free updates of the Highlighting System - you can make a donation.

 

Sweet! Thanks

 

Am interested in your product, but was wondering if it works with 2d, specifically with unity's sprite game objects? Thanks,

 

Hi
I have a hierarchy like this:
Model (this has mesh data and renders a 3dmodel)
---> Sign (this is a child of the above and renders a sign)

This is to have the sign always follow the model. When I attach a HighlightObject onto Model also the sign highlights along with the Model.
Is there an easy way to avoid this, and not have the sign highlight?
I have read that you cant have nested highlighted objects.

Thanks in advance

 

Can this highlight separate meshes contained in the same mesh object? That's what I really need.
Or is it that each separate mesh island inside a the same object will be highlighted?

 

DieHappyGames,
In current version - highlighting occluders is not compatible with Sprites. Previous version has full compatibility.
Email me your invoice number after the purchase in case you'd like me to send you this version.

Christop,
Hi,
Since version 3 you can have as many nested highlighted objects as you want.
You can change the way how Renderers initialized by modifying the InitMaterials and GrabRenderers methods in the HighlighterInternal.cs script.

For example, you can:
1. Create empty class HighlightingBlocker derived from MonoBehaviour.
2. In the GrabRenderers method of the HighlighterInternal script change this:

Code (CSharp):

1. Highlighter h = childGameObject.GetComponent<Highlighter>();
2.  
3. // Do not cache Renderers of this childTransform in case it has it's own Highlighter component
4. if (h != null) { continue; }

to this:

Code (CSharp):

1. Highlighter h = childGameObject.GetComponent<Highlighter>();
2. HighlightingBlocker hb = childGameObject.GetComponent<HighlightingBlocker>();
3.  
4. // Do not cache Renderers of this childTransform in case it has it's own Highlighter or HighlightingBlocker components
5. if (h != null || hb != null) { continue; }

3. Assign HighlightingBlocker component to your Sign GameObject.

GizmoBradwell,
I'm sorry but currently Highlighting System doesn't support this.

 

Will buy if/when the latest version once again supports sprites. Seems like a nice asset - keep up the good work

 

I've bought it anyway, though it would be great to see it able to handle island meshes because of the optimisation technique of combining meshes located across a scene into one mesh object to reduce draw calls.