Front Row like Reflections

I'm attempting to build a gui similar to the front row black environment with subtle reflections, but in 3D. Is there any way to achieve this reflections/environment with unity pro?

Thanks.

 

Yeah, render to texture can do this. You pick a camera to render as a texture. I think it is a matter of drag and drop, not sure I dont have pro, but yes you can do this. Very cool pro feature, you can use it for things like security cameras cameras too.

Bill

 

Any pointers onto how to do this thorugh render to texture?

 

Do you have a enviroment map (skybox) that you use ? It it is allright that it is static, you do not even need a pro but can just use the reflective shaders we ship.

Are you talking about 3d buttons that are placed on the screen, and that can be moved around? it might be a little more dificult to do that... explain a little more of what the scene should look like, and I might be able to help. Reflections from dynamic scenes can be expensive to render though.

- Peter

 

The idea is to have a dark studio setup where a set of 3d buttons appear. These buttons do indeed move (actually roate) and I want to have a reflective ground plane. The idea is to achieve somthing like:

http://www.apple.com/imac/frontrow.html

 

I would recomend mirroring the geometry, and rendering it again with a slightly darker color. If you render under the reflecting plane you want to make blend the mirrored geometry in. If your buttons can move outside the plane, you would need to mask using the stencil or some other method, that might be a little more complicated.
Another way could be to render the buttons only into a texture. You should set up the camera to render from under the plane, orthogonal to the view direction. This might only work from specific scenes though, where you are somewhat far away from the reflecting buttons.

I think the mirroring is the best choice, especially if the reflecting is only on the plane and the buttons are always over the plane.

- Peter

 

Here is a quick reflection using render to texture. This is the first time I have tried this (and I am not experienced in this graphics stuff),so keep that in mind. I assume someone who knew what they were doing could clean it up, but as a proof of concept I think it shows what you might want to accomplish (movement being mirrored). This is the PPC binary.

 

Come to think of it, since you have the pro (I think I misunderstood something perhaps) you can just use the water shader with no ripples... That should give you what you want I think..

- Peter

 

I tried the water reflection, but somehow it simply des not work right. I named the camera as needed, and it actuaally reflects, but the reflected image does not seem to refresh correctly. For example if I make a sphere over a reflective plane it starts correctly, but if I move the sphere, the plane will add the whole trajectory of the reflection, thus looking very odd. ie the reflection for the previous frames is not removed, but added! Am I missing something?

Thanks!

Alejandro

 

It seems to work pretty well here...

What is the "clear flags" set to on the camera that renderes the reflection? It should be set to solid color I guess, it sounds like it is set to dont clear.
That should clear the render texture so it does not accumulate each frame.

- Peter

 

Thanks. will try!

 

Worked like a charm

 

So far so good.

http://www.zerofractal.com/fractalreality/menu-test-camino.html

Now I have to make the arrows work fine and think up some good icons. What do you think?

 

It looks nice, but I thought you did not want any ripples on the water ?

- Peter

 

Once I saw the prefab I just fell for it. I will post one with icons soon.

I have a question.

I want the camera to move slightly, just subtle slow rolls (+- 5 degree) and very slow movements always mantining its point of view. Is there a prefab or easy way to achieve this random slow moves?

Thanks.

 

I can see the mip-levels switch quite clearly on the water bumpmap... You should consider setting to trilinear and aniso sampling in the texture inspector....

 

Joachim,

I implemented the look at controles an a random local position, but have no idea on hoy to damp the result of the position vector to make it really slow and smooth.

Please look at this to have a laugh. Talk about handshake!!

http://www.zerofractal.com/FractalReality/060406-menu-test.html

This is the main concept but really really slow and smooth. This is my current component

Code (csharp):

1.  
2.  
3. //Smooth Camera shake Component - Zerofractal Studio
4. var Radius = 0.25;
5.  
6. function Update () {
7.     transform.localPosition = Random.insideUnitSphere * Radius;
8. }
9.  

 

Thanks, but while this smoothes it out, it is equivalent to reducing the radius of the postiton vector, so I need to increase the radius, which again increses the speed and shkyness..

What I have in mind is very slow but continuous translations, so that for example the camera moves slowly in one direction, then in another, etc etc. all in one smooth, chaotic single trajectory.

 

Wow. thanks! just a problem. When assigning the js to my gameobject I get the following error:

"Can't add script behaviour to SmoothRandomPosition. The script needs to derive from MonoBehaviour". Looking a bit further the problem narrows to unity not being able to loas script class "noise". any clues? I put the class on the root of standard assets with no luck.

 

worked like a charm. It seemed to be loading the script before the cs, just put the script outside the standard assets and it worked.

It should be a nice addition to the camera scripts!

http://www.zerofractal.com/fractalreality/060409-menu-test.html

Just one side note. It seems that the range prosition in added to the original location, thus making the movement displace drom the original location. I think that by simply subtratting it from the position variable might do the trick.

Thanks once again!

 

Man the water in pro looks good... *wimper*
-Jeremy

 

Here is a small update:

http://www.zerofractal.com/fractalreality/060410-menu-test.html

Added images of the levels, and a higher res sky. One thing that bugs me is thta if you look at the box's semas you see a black line. Is there any way to aovid this? I'm cedrtain the skybox's edges are semaless.

Now I have to work on the arrow navigation, and on the button click operations.

I have anothe question. Is there a way to create the menu items on the fly? I am planning on writing a component in which you say how many buttons you want and the respective textures for each, and voila.

Thanks

 

Worked!! Not really clear it should be like this, but nice to know.

One question, is there a place where one could write/read this tips for newbies?

 

Thanks. Talking about skyboxes, is there a way to rotate the orientation of the skybox?

 

Another Question.

Is there any way to change the geometry of the water prefab? I want ot make a rectangular pool, and the prefab is an elliptic ocean.

Thanks!

 

And if its a plane created within unity and does not appear in the project view?

 

So far so good:

http://www.zerofractal.com/fractalreality/060410-prism-menu.html

Now I need to add an animation when an item is selected. Menu can be navigated with joystick or keyboard. Press F1 for help.

 

That looks fantastic! May I ask, what resolution is your skybox/pano?

cheers.

 

1024 x 6 maps

 

thanks for that. also what FOV is your camera set at in the 3D world?

cheers.

 

65