Official New Post-processing Stack (Pre-Release)

Exciting stuff, great job on the release guys! Definitely a big improvement for built-in post-processing

 

This is so good. Has anyone run performance comparisons between the old uncombined effects?

 

This is looking very niiiiice. One thing I'd like to mention for a future update, and I mentioned it on GitHUB as well, is that the SSR module isn't taking background skybox information into account when it calculates reflection data. I hope this can be added to a future version as it is almost mandatory that skybox is included in reflections when viewing outdoor scenes.

 

@Chman interesting, I hadn't considered that, but it makes sense. After doing some tests here I indeed see this to be the case... doing skybox through the reflection probe works very well.

 

This looks absolutely amazing - together with the upcoming incremental lightmapper it will bring Unity to new heights in visual quality.

I think I'd still take your SMAA over TAA though, TAA has the tendency to make everything vibrate like a Duracell bunny on a caffeine rush (at least it does so in Unreal).

 

I'm getting blocky flickering from SSR with rough surface

 

Thanks, since the flickering are really distracting and i'm not getting that in cinematic effect

 

A question with the asset based profile - am I still able to change post at runtime, such as colour grading? I had thought I could change it dynamically without a hard switch from a new profile... or does that not matter?

 

@Chman any chance we can get a debug mode for SSR just like in the old SSR version?
oh and i 2nd hippocoder question

 

Congratulations, you guys really nailed it this time, please stick to this workflow, don't throw away your hard work.
It's perfect, the asset workflow is brilliant, all the effects are previewable in scene mode
I hope this ends up in Unity as a built-in plugin-less feature.
Some glitches here and there:
- Time-driven effects (like Grain) still don't update in Game View outside Play Mode, this is a very old nuisance.
- TXAA not working both in forward or deferred rendering, gamma or linear space. Other settings: D3D11, no SMAA, no HDR.
- SSAO is not consistent in screenspace and depth, with the effect fading towards the edges.
Some suggestions:
-More effects!
-Profile snapshots and drag and drop.
Can't wait for final release

 

Awesome !
I was waiting it for so long, thank you Unity !

 

Good question and I'd very much like to know that too. How would we go about toggling effects on/off or changing their values at runtime?

 

One essential that is Tone mapping is missing.

 

No it is not. It is part of grading now (as it should be).

 

@Chman i'll check the latest repo, thanks

 

I'd like to point out that the eye adaption isn't correctly adapting to scenes with an avg luminance above 1. Setting 'max luminance' to anything above 1 doesn't change anything. Using the debug view, you can see the avg bar doesn't go above 1 either. Removing the saturate in this code in EyeAdapation.cginc

Code (CSharp):

1. float GetLuminanceFromHistogramBin(float bin, float2 scaleOffset)
2. {
3.     return saturate(exp2((bin - scaleOffset.y) / scaleOffset.x));
4. }

seems to fix it, without causing undesired side effects in my quick testing.

 

In my game, there are multiple cameras (5) for rendering distance, also for different players in different monitors and different quality settings that adapt change post at runtime as hippo mention. Plus all this made for each different platform.

Can this stack be a more sophisticated solution for complex camera settings? or I'm asking too much?
Don't know how but, the new input system is a nice simple solution example to the complexity problem of multiple players and inputs. Is a nice example that can be transfer some how in this camera solution.

 

I've been using the post processing beta 3 along with Unity Version 5.5.0b7. Regarding the tonemapping. Could someone explain the definitions of the following knobs, and how they relate to the tonemapping curve controls? I've been more familiar with terms like Toe, Crossover, etc..

• Black In
• White In
• Black Out
• White Out
• White Level
• White Clip

Also would be super useful to display the tonemapping curve which would make the tuning of these values more intuitive. Another observation is that changing the tonemapping to Filmic crushes the dark values significantly. I can post some tests of this with a color wedge or something similar.... but for now just seeing if anyone else is experiencing this?

FWIW I'm using deferred rendering, HDR, Linear along with previewing in VR on Oculus Rift device.

thx

 

Rookie here. Can somebody please post a code sample of how you would toggle a single effect on or off at runtime? That would be very helpful, thanks.

 

HOLY DOGSHIT!!!! THIS IS LOVELY!! I can drop scion now and look at this... downloading now

 

Yeah I guess we won't moderate that comment. Sometimes, an expressive use of language is the only way to describe the euphoria that stems from using the hard work of many, who toil away ceaselessly for our pleasure.

Unity did a bang up job.

 

Yes they did. I consider myself a Unity pro and as someone who aims for visual fidelity, such as for my Project Champion title, I welcome this new plug. And I love that I can edit and play!!

I can't wait to see the support for FP HDRI, especially for sky textures. In 5.4, I have a full HDR sky and it doesn't display in full range. Also spectral textures for Aberration turns the camera black.

 

So happy to see this. Just the improved management and the ability to share full post-processing presets makes this really exciting. All that's left is for more people to use it.

 

And I can script it to add it for any camera at any time

 

The defaults.

 

Great asset, I'm having a lot of fun with this - thank you

I'm using two cameras to render the scene (for a Fog Of War effect) and overlaying some areas from cam B (render texture) over cam A (screen). They are 99% the same, since only enemy units hide in the Fog Of War. My custom "composite" effect is the first on the screen cam and comes before the Post Processing Behaviour. Still, some of the post FX are only applied to my main render (the screen) and not to the render texture's, namely AA, AO, Reflections and Motion Blur. The other affects are applied to the whole composite.

It seems that said effects are applied before all user-defined post FX. Is there any way for my composite effect to come first?

 

Command buffer will allow you to insert it in the correct place. I don't have an example though.

 

I tried to insert my composite effect at various places using the Command Buffer. The effect works and I can reliably put it before or after Ambient Occlusion, for example, by choosing CameraEvent.BeforeImageEffectsOpaque or CameraEvent.BeforeImageEffects respectively.

Still, TAA (and Reflections, though I haven't looked into that too much) does not care for my composite and only affects the current camera's area. Some parts of the effect, like Sharpen, seem to work on the whole image. For simplicity, I use forward rendering. My custom command buffer appears before the Temporal Anti-Aliasing command buffer in the list at the bottom of the cam's inspector. Any ideas?

 

@Chman

 

Hello,

Great job, Unity really needed to step up on the post-effect part. Two things
1- Could you update the build for the non Git users? 16 days since the last one, if you don't have the time well I can understand that
2- Is there anything I should be aware of for using these post effect with VR device (Vive)?
Epecially on thoses points :
-Performance
-Compatibility
-MotionSickness
Tried it really fast this morning, AO was not working with the basic SteamVR CameraRig, added a screenshot to my post

Anyway thank you a lot for this great addition to Unity

 

@Chman Thank you for your reply,
I attached a scene view and a game view, I'm using the VR Camera rig provided in the steamVR plugin. the game view is the one with almost only the AO.
But it is strange because the exact same Post Processing Profile work on a 'regular' FPS controller prefab.
Maybe I've missed something in the settings of the VR Camera rig that is provided by SteamVR plugin. I'm using the Beta3.
Anyway it's not a big deal for me at this time, just thought I should let you know about something that looked strange to me

 

Thanks for getting back to me The basic idea is like this:

1. Render cam B (depth 20, layers set up to omit layer 'Hiders') to a screen-sized render texture
2. Set up cam A that renders to screen (depth 40, so render after cam B, all layers) with a command buffer BeforeImageEffectsOpaque
3. Cam A renders to screen, command buffer will overlay parts of the render texture
4. After everything is done, TAA is applied

I've created a minimal setup scene and guess what? Everythings working like a charm. Huh! Seems like something else is wrong in my (more convoluted) game project, so I will have to look into that myself. I've attached the test scene anyway, in case somebody wants to check it out

 

This is a fantastic system. Unity has been falling behind on post processing options for a while now. Really happy to see you guys investing in it.

Is it a bug or by design that lightmapped objects are unaffected by SSR?

 

I finally got around to testing the new post stack, got to say the AO is great.. One of the few I've tried that actually works with little artifacts, the rest seem in order besides two.

I'm not sure what Temporal AA is adding to the table? By AAA examples (like in FO4, UE4 etc.) TAA has always been a little on the blurry side, although it has an uncanny knack of smoothing jaggies (especially in tougher scenario's like foliage) and removing glossy / specular artifacts.

Unity's implementation seems to add a little bit of jitter and that's about it (yes I looked at the known issues). I can hardly tell if it's switched on or off and see no benefit over FXAA.

Also just to note the bloom is a little harsh, both Sonic Ether and Scion's implementation do a better job.

Although, now I know it's at least possible it'll be worth looking at Nvidia's postworks and trying to implement their TXAA solution..

 

Hey guys... I'm still playing with the post effects stack and I'm really liking it. Will global fog make it into the final release? That is one thing that is missing for effects in this stack. I have objects in my game that are far away and I would love to add some form of haze to give the illusion of distance.

I am also trying to make custom LUTs but how do I actually go about doing this? Could I just take a screenshot using screenshot creator and call it a day?

 

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/PostProcessing/wiki#user-lut explains poorly the process (for the uninitiated). Basically the screenshot is not used by Unity. Instead unity just wants one of the neutral LUTs from /PostProcessing/Textures/LUTs/

You paste that neutral LUT down over your screenshot in the art package, change the colours, then crop to that LUT area and export it as a new LUT image you can now use. I think the process could indeed be improved in 2 ways:

1. Unity can save existing grading to a lut texture
2. Unity can save a combined "prepared" screenshot+lut texture you can open in art package. You would still need to crop it though. I guess someone can easily make a script for this and post it up here if they have 5 mins....

 

Oh fog. . . of course, now i remember what missing

 

I still remember that too. As long as it looks natural such as using an object to determine the thickness of the fog... or like atmospheric scattering

 

I like uncharted 4's fog! http://www.advances.realtimerendering.com/other/2016/naughty_dog/NaughtyDog_TechArt_Final.pdf

However if I would make a change it would probably derive from a reflection probe which has all this data including mips. I could then just use a custom cubemap in the field or just reference an existing probe which is being updated...

 

I hope not, it's more like a slightly transparent wall as opposed to actual fog.. It'd be nice if they took the atmospheric scattering from the BS demo and finished it off with a nice exponential heightfog that uses a directional inscattering exponent based upon the position of the directional light..

In all fairness, it's not too difficult to do if you're ok with shaders.. P.S for the LUT stuff, if you have amplify colour it couldn't be easier. Just click take screenshot and then import it back, that's about all there is too it.