InstantOC - dynamic occlusion culling + LOD

Hello micuccio,
I've looked a bit into the issue, it seems SpeedTree objetcs are special objects in Unity 5, so I'll have to investigate further to see if it's possible to support them in InstantOC and if it is, I'll push an update as soon as I can.

 

@unit102

WOW! These seem like CAD/Architectural models! Not really suited for realtime usage.
You are right, your best option is to first try to tear down the polycount before using them in Unity.

Glad to read this

 

Hey thanks for your effort!
I hope you can manage to include even these trees in the "culling system"

 

Hello there,
I'm finalizing an update with 2 long awaited features, after all, it's Christmas time!


PS: I'll do a post on the InstantOC blog soon, with all the details!

 

Sorry to be pedant...
Is there any news concerning this Speedtree objects?

thanks

 

Hello micuccio,
no problem! I haven't yet grabbed Unity 5, my plan is to start a Unity Pro monthly subscription January 1, so I will be able to download the Unity 5 beta and immediately start the testing.

 

Hy there,
I just published InstantOC 2.1.0, should be online in 3-5 days.
a quick changelog:

• added terrain occlusion culling (needs multiple terrains)
  
• added occludee support (good for transparent objects for instance)
  
• added multiple TAGs support
• added "Precull Check" support to lights

I'll do a blog post with some more details about the new stuff!

 

Good evening Gentlemen,
in this post, I've described the new stuff in more detail.

 

Hy there,
InstantOC 2.1.0 is live on the Asset Store

 

Lately some users weren't able to setup InstantOC correctly, and got objects disappearing, errors, and framerate drop... and they expressed their disappointment in form of a BADREVIEW™ on the AssetStore (without trying first to reach me for help!).
So please, contact me if InstantOC does not work for you, it's mostly due to some setup problem.
I would love to make it dead simple to use, but scenes are very different, and game object hierarchies can be very intricate. As far as I would really like to include a big green button "ENABLE INSTANTOC", there will be always some tweaking involved in getting it work in every possible situation.

Now that I've taken this out, I would like to hear from you about the work-flow, do you think it could be more fluid, or easy to get it the right way? Is the Readme not clear? Should I do some more/updated video tutorials? (this one is definitely on my to do list)
Thank you for your help, any bits are welcome!

 

Hello. I'm considering the purchase for my procedural game, this looks like an ideal solution if it does what you claim!

If I have a mesh with a hole in it, say, a doughnut shape, or a mesh with a cutout shader, or transparent shader so you can see through parts of it, will this solution be able to handle those situations?

Thanks

 

I just found some information in previous pages that suggest the system uses colliders. I guess that means it's not suitable for me as I only put colliders on the things I want to be occluders or occludees based on how close certain things are to them. Looks like good work though, pity I can't really use it!

 

@Shinyclef
Hello Shinyclef,
thank you for your interest in InstantOC!
Yes you can, you have 2 options:
if it's a completely transparent object, then you simply mark it as "occludee" (new in InstantOC 2.1.0!)
if it's a mesh with a hole, or a mesh with a cutout shader, you use a collider (or more if you use compound colliders) that resemble(s) the shape of the object (including holes)
If you send me one or more objects with the topology/characteristics that you need, I can make a short video demonstrating it.

 

That sounds quite good. Unfortunately my situation is a little bit different. My world is made of many objects that have cube shapes in the mesh (think blocks and chunks in like minecraft). The individual blocks get box colliders only when certain objects approach them, otherwise I go over the collider limit very easily. So, most of the objects I want to use as occluders and occludees have no colliders, until particular objects get very close to them.

Here's another question though, do occludees also need colliders? I'm assuming they do.

 

Not sure if this strategy would work for you, but you could possibly set up a small number of large trigger colliders that could bring chunks of your scene into view at a time. Something like that could also help you manage your individual object colliders.

 

Thank you for suggestion. It's another thing to consider. I'll keep InstantOC in my mind.

 

@hopeful nice idea, should work pretty well.
@Shinyclef yep, occludees also need colliders.

 

Glad to hear it

 

I'd like to give a big thank you to Frenchfaso for his excellent support and willingness to do so, also making a great asset! I'd recommend this asset to anyone.

 

I wonder if you could consider this idea in a future release, when adding the various scripts, have a window show up in which you want to have objects added to the occlusion culling, then once you drag/drop your objects into this window you can control things more with your asset, e.g. check that they have colliders added I'm just thinking of a way for your nice asset to check that all components are configured correctly .

 

Thank you very much khos85, for your kind words and appreciation!

 

This is a good suggestion! I'm currently thinking on how to make the work-flow more fluid and error-proof..

 

I'm having a problem with IOC, the frame rate drops and half the objects disapear when I'm right in front of them, which si a shame as I really need this tool for my mobile game, look at the images to see what's happening (Everything was set up properly by following the tutorial)

 

Hy thendricks,
thank you for your purchase!
There is probably some problem with TAGs and/or layers and colliders, could you send me a sample scene which exposes this issue, so that I can inspect it and figure out what exactly is going wrong?

 

Sorry, I didn't realise that I disabled my Colliders, It's now working

 

Glad to hear it!

 

I found something(fixed), when trying to build my game I kept getting an error saying that UnityEditorInternal doesn't exist in this context in IOCcam. Something that you might want to add to prevent this(Line 40, IOCcam):

Code (CSharp):

1. #if UNITY_EDITOR
2. tags = UnityEditorInternal.InternalEditorUtility.tags;
3. #endif

 

Thanks for sharing thendricks!
I'll push an update asap!

 

I need this fix as well, I get "UnityEditorInternal" bug!!
I wasted a full day trying to fix it with no luck, that's why i came here
I am using Unity 5 for my gigantic scene (over 5+ million verts!!) but still InstantOC takes care of it
InstantOC rocks!

 

Sorry for that! Did the fix suggested by @thendricks work for you?

Glad to hear this!

 

If i should write this script somewhere please explain to me how (explain in a high details because I don't know where ) so I don't ask you again..
I actually tried to write it in IoCcam "#if .... " in top of the script but it doesn't seem to work.. I don't know really... I didn't write a single line on my own in unity except modifying some scripts as suggested from people in the net so I can shut Unity's mouth from screaming red line errors when I press Run time or create a build files and make it just work!


tell me in details where exactly I should write it and does it start with Hash? "#" and I will do it !
thanks guys

 

I'm currently investigating this issue, and unfortunately the mod suggested by @thendricks does not fully solve it.
I'll post here (and on the Asset Store) a complete fix ASAP!

 

Contrary to what I thought initially, this does not fix the issue, it does compile without errors, but it disables the TAG autosetup (introducing runtime errors, not visible in the build).
I'll post a fix as soon as possible!

 

Thanks

 

Hy everyone,
here is the final fix:
in the IOCcam.cs script, you have to substitute this line (40)

Code (CSharp):

1. tags = UnityEditorInternal.InternalEditorUtility.tags;

with the following lines:

Code (CSharp):

1. #if UNITY_EDITOR
2.      tags = UnityEditorInternal.InternalEditorUtility.tags;
3.      PlayerPrefs.SetString("IOCtags", string.Join(",", tags));
4. #else
5.      tags = PlayerPrefs.GetString("IOCtags").Split(new string[]{","}, StringSplitOptions.None);
6. #endif

If you edit your TAGs (add/remove/edit), you should play the scene in the editor once, before starting the build, so that InstantOC becomes aware of the new/changed TAGs.

 

Hello Folks,
I've published the fixed version (2.1.1) on the Asset Store, should be on-line in 3-5 days.
To apply the fix right now, just follow the instructions in the previous post.

 

Hy there,
InstantOC 2.1.1 is live on the Asset Store.

 

Changelog?

 

Hello Gekigengar,
it's a maintenance release, it includes the IOC Tag mask-fix described 2 posts above.

 

thanks

It works !

 

You are welcome!

 

Currently testing InstantOC on Unity 5 RC1, it's freaking fast!
You can pump up the Ray Samples like never before (how about 3000 rays/frame ) with near-zero overhead!
(thanks to new Physics system I suppose..)
The lights-occlusion-culling automatic probe setup is also a zillion times faster!
(thanks to immense better prefab instancing I suppose..)
I'm totally impressed with the performance improvements in Unity 5.

PS: testing on an Intel Core i7 2Ghz (Laptop)

 

a slight problem: not culling on mobile, works perfectly in editor

 

What about on mobile? How many rays is too many on older hardware? Thanks!

 

Hello thendricks,
that's weird, on what mobile OS are you having this issue?
Which version of InstantOC are you using?

 

Hy eridani,
I'll do a test on WindowsPhone 8.1 (Lumia 620) and report back soon!

 

I'm using a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini, the latest version of InstantOC (2.1.1 from the asset store) and I've also tested on an Xperia Z3 compact, I haven't yet tried IOS, it may just be a problem on android. On both devices there is no culling.

 

It seems like PlayerPrefs is not working on some Androids, please try the following:
in the IOCcam.cs script, change this block:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. #if UNITY_EDITOR
3.      tags = UnityEditorInternal.InternalEditorUtility.tags;
4.      PlayerPrefs.SetString("IOCtags", string.Join(",", tags));
5. #else
6.      tags = PlayerPrefs.GetString("IOCtags").Split(new string[]{","}, StringSplitOptions.None);
7. #endif
8.  

to this:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. #if UNITY_EDITOR
3.      tags = UnityEditorInternal.InternalEditorUtility.tags;
4.      string str = string.Join(",", tags);
5.      File.WriteAllText(Application.dataPath + "/InstantOC/Resources/tags.txt", str);
6.      UnityEditor.AssetDatabase.Refresh();
7. #else
8.      tags = ((TextAsset)Resources.Load("tags", typeof(TextAsset))).text.Split(new string[]{","}, StringSplitOptions.None);
9. #endif
10.  

also add this line at the top of the same IOCcam.cs script:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. using System.IO;
3.  

This should work almost on every platform/device permutation, except for the WebPlayer target, which needs the original version
Will check for a universal solution (comprising WebPlayer builds) soon!

 

Hello, I read the user guide PDF, and is thinking of purchasing InstantOC,
I have a few questions though,
does the OC & LOD only runs in automated periodic interval? (Every update())
Or can it also be made to run when a function is called?
I am thinking of an OC which does not run every update, but only when its needed,

Does this work with more than one IOC Camera?

If I don't need the OC, and only needs the LOD,
does it simply use Vector3.Distance instead of raycast? (The raycast is only necessary for the OC after-all.)

Why doesn't it support more than 3 LOD?
I don't think it is that hard to implement more than 3 LOD.

 

Hello Gekigengar,
thank You for Your interest in InstantOC,
via scripting you can enable/disable InstantOC at runtime, or modifying it's parameters.
It's usually not needed, because contrarily to what you would expect from something using raycasts, InstantOC is rather lightweight and fully optimized. Especially if you use Unity 5 (the new Physics, and thus raycasts, is a LOT faster!).
Yes it works with more cameras, it has been already successfully used in splitscreen setups and VR setups (OculusRift).
It can be used in 3 ways:
- OC only
- LOD only
- OC + LOD
It's a ray-based system, so it will always use rays, also in LOD only mode, but in this mode you need far less Rays than you would need for OC (LOD only has virtually zero overhead).
Ray-based LOD is in some cases smarter than distance-LOD, because it will use lowest poly model of occluded objects, even though they are "near" the camera (but hidden behind a wall for instance).
Adding more LOD levels is on the todo-list, but currently I'm working on code-refactoring to enable extensibility with other LOD systems.
InstantOC and QuickLOD are already playing nice together, so if you need a more advanced/customizable LOD system, you can use InstantOC for dynamic occlusion culling and QuickLOD for LODs.
I hope this helps, feel free to ask more questions to get a better grasp on InstantOC!
Please read also the InstantOC FAQ to see if it suits your needs.