RPG/FPS Project 2014

I've been experimenting with lights and all that. However I could never get it to the level of cryenigine, at one point the lighting was great but the performance was even worse than now so I deleted the lights. I've read pretty much everything about graphics in Unity. So I guess I'll improve the graphics once the demo comes out. Does anyone know of any tricks to improve the graphics?

 

That's kinda a little excessive...

 

Want better graphics?

Use cryengine.

/chuckle

 

The more the merrier!

 

I wish I could, but cryengine costs money. Of course with the release of 5.0 GI and PBS should help a lot.

 

*Giggles*

"needs moar lens flare"
My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

 

Good for you. -Eric2241

 

Does anyone know of any tricks to improve the graphics?

 

Having better textures/normals and better models. Then shall the graphics be truly improved.

 

Learn how to make good art. After you've gotten gameplay. The key to good graphics is well-made art.

 

I've gotten some textures from nobiax, and I'm making many of the normals through crazy bump. I'm also making the hiehgt maps through ld3t. I've also read that shaders in unity help to improve the graphics by a ton.

 

It will be for nothing without good art.

 

So could you provide some more specific examples?

 

This game is still being developed. I would think full work on optimizing is one of the last things you would do. Also correct me if I am wrong I have never been able to get acceptable performance with a large terrain in Unity. That is just on my computer at least.

 

Unity Terrain has low performance its recommended to use meshes and splatmaps.

 

I wish the Unity team would update the default terrain. Maybe sometime in Unity 5.x

 

Lighting is the key for a great looking game. So you want better graphics? Then work on the lighting!

 

Eric2241 I'll bite so I will help you out. First of all what rendering path you are using? Forward or Deferred?

 

I'm using forward because my pro trial will expire and indie does not allow deferred. I know that in forward the number of lights can seriously impact performance, I've also looked at the profiler it points to the forward rendering path. Alas I can't do much because I won't have pro forever.

 

Forward rendering + open space scene = 2-3 directional lights and 'ambient light' to mimic ambient light scattering.
Anything else (car lights, torch lights, indoor lights etc) will require spotlight and point lights that will seriously impact your performance. NO more than three of those should be active at one time. How you handle that? Easy, make a script that enables / disables light component based on distance from player

This setup will already make your game look better.

 

Cool thanks for that explanations, that's most definitely useful! As of now I'm still just using around 3 give or take 1 directional lights. Though I'm not using point lights so I'm not sure what's going on. But I'm going to make that distance activate script.

 

I am using one directional and Lux shaders for IBL. Does not work for dynamic scenes but looks pretty darn nice.

 

Other things to consider, since you don't have Unity PRO -> Umbra Occlusion Culling
1. Terrain size. Terrain over 1000 m x 1000 m with trees and other light nature props (rocks, mountains etc) already starts to hinder performance.
2. How many textures you use on the terrain? The more textures, the heavier the load.
3. What is the draw shadows distance? Everything over 70 is pretty heavy
4. What is the terrain resolution? You should not modify the default one.
5. Big camera draw distance combined with big terrain = bad

I will be fair with you and tell you that large levels are impossible without Unity PRO occlusion culling. Every game that is based on large levels needs a form of OC. The way hardware works is that it will draw everything, no matter if it is really visible on the camera or not. So for example, a small house behind a huge apartment building, will still be drawn (processed by graphic card / cpu) even though you don't actually see it.

 

Definitely true.

Having too many textures on the terrain will kill your game. I think for good performance you should stay at 4 or below.

Not having OC is a killer. @Eric2241 you should try the OC before you lose pro. See how that affects performance.

 

I have about 7 textures per map but all under 1024, the shadow draw distance is actually rather low, like 50 or so.

I've tried the pro oc and it really improves performance.

 

Bake shadows. Don't use realtime on everything.

 

I would but the problem with Unity indie is that Lightmapped shadows remove the normal mapping so the terrain textures are satisfying.

 

Unity Indie Lightmapping is not usable. Low res shadows and no normal maps. Would not even pass for a low end mobile game now a days.

 

Wow, that's awful! Hopefully they make significant improvements in 5.0.

 

Frankly, this is what Unity is missing. Better lighting and graphics overall. I have friends that are not into game development but they still need powerful apps for architectural showcase and what not. Sadly, they had to consider Unreal over Unity because of more eye-candy stuff.

 

I think having 7 textures, even if they are lower res, will still slow down your game.

Cool about the OC. How many fps did it save you?

 

Yeah it probably does. The oc probably saved around 30 fps though I'm not sure.

I agree, Unity 5.0 should really define the course of Unity graphics.

 

Peakaboo
!

 

I hope that you have Shadows activated for only one of the directional lights, btw
One directional light is the actual sun (shadows and all) and the other should be just to set the mood (like noon, dusk, dawn, overcast etc)

 

Yeah only one light with shadows, others are ambient lights.

 

I can't agree with you on the last point, there are a lot of forms on unity indie to handle occlusion system and terrain splitting.

Cheers

 

Which require some advanced scripting and have different success chances based on the way you build your level.

 

I've seen a terrain splitting system for super large terrains but never used it. But I could find it and implement it. Also does anyone know of a indie oc system?

 

Wow. That is impressive.

Nice. Wearing a suit? Must be an assassin.

 

I just hope there is something for free users in Unity 5. Do not need too much eye candy but some performance improvements (OC, Profiler, Built in LOD system) would really help. Unity is so awesome to work in. Just hoping for more features in Unity 5.

 

Are you serious?

 

That looks really nice but what does the terrain look like when you are standing on it. Also rocks that depend on normals?

 

Pretty groovy.

 

Unity indie?

 

Nothing in the scene uses pro, just bloom(which has nothing to do with art/texture).

 

What are you using for the water?

 

I dont want to be rude but ill just point out the things that make it look bad in that case. But ill focus on the lighting.

1. Wayyy to contrasted
2. In mid-daylight shadows are not purple. Change the ambient color to a slight desaturated blue. like shown here - http://puu.sh/bh0ec/cec38e678d.png
3. Make the ambient term a bit brighter, its wayyy to dark.
4. There is no bounced lighting from the look of it. If you want to create one just make 2 aditional directional lights. One is the bounced light from the ground, and the other is the skylighting. Its performance heavy so right now Im making a shader that includes the ambient term. as well as some other stuff. It will save you some performance.
5. No ambient lighting, I geuss you can bake AO in the beast lightmapper, and combine it with the realtime lighting.

ill make a shader for you right now that includes

- Ambient Term (Hemispherical Lighting)
- Roughness

and some other stuff.

 

Standard water.

 

How are you getting the reflection?

 

Awesome! I'm using 4 or 5 directional lights though I'm not sure on the best methods of the bounce lighting though.