Glow 11 - for desktop and mobile

Another glow shader and it looks like this

Now available in the Asset Store

Webplayer
​

Build for desktop and mobile.

Oculus Rift patch
As a lot of people were asking for it here is a patch to make the glow work with the Oculus Rift

Glow 11 1.0.8 - patch for Oculus SDK 0.2.3
Glow 11 1.0.8 - patch for Oculus SDK 0.2.4
​

Requires Unity Pro!
If you don't have Unity Pro and want a glow you should check out Indie Glow.


There were two main goals while creating Glow 11:

1. Generate a wide glow so it looks good on high dpi screens
2. Be easy to use

Lot's of settings to configure the glow.


No need to modify shaders all the time, you can simply configure materials.


A few more screenshots:




Version history:

1.0.6

• fixed glow not working correctly with deferred rendering

1.0.5

• added new "Advanced" blur mode for desktop
• added workaround for devices that don't support max blending

1.0.4

• fixed glow effect not working with image effects in some circumstances
• fixed glowing fog
• fixed Downsample Resolution setting when Downsample Steps is 1

1.0.3

• fixed rendering of alpha blended objects
• fixed High Precision mode not being saved
• fixed glow disappearing after loading a new level
• fixed deferred rendering
• added setting to control the rerender resolution
• added settings to control glow resolution

1.0

• initial release

 

I don't see the screenshots - but I believe that's an issue with the forum software (recently had the same issue with a posting that I created - I see the screenshots but others don't see them).

 

Thanks for the info. They should work now.

 

@SRH
Can I apply glow to only one character of the scene?
Which mobile hardware is required? iPhone 4? iPad 2?

 

Yes, the glow is controlled by the material.

It will run on iPhone 3GS+ and all iPad's (can't say much about android devices). But don't expect great performance on iPhone 4 and iPad 1.

 

Good to see the shader is finally available!!! ^___^!!
It works great!

 

Could you kindly provide a webplayer demo and a Mac/Win standalone demo to demonstrate it better thanks

 

A webplayer is available now.

Note: The webplayer was build with a slightly updated version of Glow 11, so it may not be possible to get the exact same results with the version in the asset store yet (update should be out early next week).

 

I cant animate the glow, every time I try to animate it the material becomes a new instance and it looses its settings.

also reloading the same scene a second time, glow doesn't seem to work correctly and everything looks ghosted blown out.

 

It seems that Unity loses the shaderKeywords when creating an instance (sounds like a bug in unity to me). So there are two possible fixes:

1. get the shader keywords from the material, change the material, set the shader keywords.
2. instead of modifying renderer.material (I asum that is what you're doing), use renderer.sharedMaterial

 

Another update on that issue.

Did a few tests myself and the easiest solution seems to be to copy the shaderKeywords in the Start method (or somewhere else where it's guaranteed that it's called before you access the material).

string[] shaderKeywords = renderer.sharedMaterial.shaderKeywords;
renderer.material.shaderKeywords = shaderKeywords;

Do not try to call
renderer.material.shaderKeywords = renderer.sharedMaterial.shaderKeywords;
as this won't work

UPDATE
Just got an update from the Unity QA and they confirmed and fixed the issue. Now we just need to wait until the next Unity update is released. Fix doesn't seem to be in 4.1.3

 

Thanks for the quick support, the suggested code fixes the first issue ( not being able to animate the glow )

The second issue (the glow stops working and strange glow artifacts on screen when loading the scene for a second time) is still there, I'm only seeing it affecting the reloaded scene on iOS.

I wrote a script that adds / removes the camera component when the scene is loaded / unloaded... that doesnt seem to fix the issue.

 

I can see the same issue here, but I wasn't able to fix it (or even get a clue whats causing it) yet. I'll have to take a loser look at it tomorrow (it's already 5 am here, so I really should get some sleep)

 

Spoke to soon, actually found the issue. I'll send you a PM.

 

First update is out. It's mostly a bugfix release but also contains a few new settings for the glow (screenshots in the first post are updated to reflect this changes)

 

Looks cool, i want to make a Glow Hockey kind of game with this shader

 

hello
i m very interested in your asset, but it seem that it s only for pro version, not chance to got something close for non pro version?

regards

 

Sorry, it's not possible to do this kind of effect in the free version as it needs render textures which are only available in pro.

 

Nice effect! Doest it work with 2d system such as 2dToolkit, ex2D, etc.

 

It will work, but there could be issues using a separate glow texture. The issue here is that most of these systems use a texture atlas and to use a glow texture you would have to generate an corresponding atlas for the glow too which may not be possible (depends on how the system generates the atlas). If you don't need a separate texture for the glow there should be no issues (you''ll most probably have to make a small modification to the shaders used by the system, but that's just copy&paste of 5 lines of code).

 

Hi,

awes.....m.

 

Hello,

I bought this and while I think it looks nice, it's adding an unwanted "bloom" effect to my landscape. Anything white-ish is getting a glow effect, even if it doesn't have a glow shader. Something to do with alpha possibly? You know, a soft bloom isn't a bad idea, but it was unexpected and this wasn't very soft and I couldn't adjust it.

Which brings me to my next point - no source. I've been burned a few times by the asset store when purchasing a closed-source plugin. I'd rather have known about it before hand.

So as it stands, I can't use it. I only want glow on objects I designate. Any idea?

Thanks.

 

That shouldn't be happening, please send a scene or at least screenshots showing the issue to glow11@i-gamedev.com so I can take a look at it.

 

Still waiting to get a but more information, but I'm going to take a guess.

I assume the objects don't actual glow, but they receive a bit of glow of other objects.

To figure out if that's the case, simply reduce downsample steps to 0.
If this doesn't fix the issue I really need more information about the actual scene.
If this fixes it, I recommend you either reduce the downsample steps or set the blend mode to Screen.

 

To apply your glow effect to a shader (mobile bumped specular), do I need to re-write the shader combining your glow code?
How it will works?

 

Most of unity's shader are already included, so in this case you won't have to do anyting.

If you have another shader that needs to have glow you just have to copy&paste 5 lines of code into the shader. (see http://i-gamedev.com/glow11/manual.html#writingShaders)

 

It's only for pro.. :"(

It's ok, I will leave you rich people alone to play with your fancy shaders.

 

Here are two images demonstrating glow on and off. There are no glowing objects in this scene.



I've found when switching to another camera without glow, then back again, the glow camera flashes magenta for a moment before rending the first normal frame. I don't have a screenshot of that though. Without Glow 11 component on the camera, there is no problem.

The performance on my mobile wasn't great, even with no objects glowing, but I hadn't tried optimizing it yet either. This is with only the component attached and no glowing objects.

 

Check you PM...

 

Hi SRH,

I am liking Glow 11 but any idea why the glow effect 'flickers' when the camera moves. This happens in the demo scene as well.
When I say flicker it's like the glow is shifting and undulating.

Thanks!

 

For now I suggest you increase the resolution of the glow. In the next update the flickering will be reduced, bud sadly it can't be eliminated entirely for mobile devices if you want a wide area glow (but it should only happen for small very 'bright' objects). Also there are additional blur modes coming in the next release that won't have this issue, but they either won't be able to have such a wide are glow or won't be really usable on mobile devices.

 

Thanks SRH, I am using it on a PC build, so are you saying it should be improved for that and not mobile?

 

There will be a small improvement for mobile and something a lot better for PC.

 

hi!, it works with deferred render ?

many thanks

 

Yes, it does work with deferred lighting.

 

Can we have a Diffuse, Spec, Normal + Glow material?

 

Yes, the glow doesn't affect the normal rendering of the material, you can have 'any' material with glow (In case of shaders which modify the vertex position some additional coding will be required but this is a rare case).

 

Time for a quick update.

I am currently putting the finishing touches on the next update. This update will include a new blur mode (for desktop), which gives you even more control over the blur.



After this I'll work on the 1.1 update which will be mostly focused on handling more complex camera setups (and will include proper support for the Oculus Rift ).

 

It looks amazing! I can imagine what this shader can do with a control room filled with screens and computers. it is good to see that stuff in the asset store.

 

Great news SRH! I'm looking forward to testing the new version.

 

The update is available now.

 

Another update is available now. The last version broke deferred rendering support.

 

Decided to temporarily lower the price to $30. It will most probably go back to $40 with the 1.1 release.

 

I looked into yourWebPlayer, the glow looks great! Good work.

 

Thanks... actually I should thank you twice as your post reminded to also create a thread on the unity-community.de forum

 

Do these shaders provide access to the source? Would love to be able to combine this with one of my own shaders.

 

Yes, the source of all shaders is included.

If you want to combine your shaders with the glow you should take a look at: http://i-gamedev.com/glow11/manual.html#writingShaders

 

Looks cool !

I was wondering what the two dlls are for ?

 

They contain the necessary code for the effect.
One DLL contains the neccesary editor scripts and the other one all the stuff needed for actually doing the glow.

 

Looks really fantastic. Great job. Will purchase.