Alloy framework vs Unity 5 standard shaders?

[derkoi]

Sorry if this has been asked before but I’ve searched and didn’t come up with anything.

I was going to use Unity 5 standard shaders for my PBR materials but I’ve seen Camouflaj release République Remastered and it got me thinking if Alloy is a better solution? Currently I’m working on the mobile version and will be porting it over to PC/Mac and PS4/PSVita. Mobile platforms wont have PBR materials though for performance reasons.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

[kenshin1]

+1 …Interesting question

[mittense]

Here’s my personal comparison; just visuals, I can’t give any real technical details about the differences:

http://www.polycat.net/3029/a-comparison-of-unity-3d-surface-shaders/

[derkoi]

Perhaps the Rust guys can chip in? @xenius

[xenius]

Hi @derkoi ! Would be great to have a notion of what you specifically need out of your game in terms of visual features to give you the most comprehensive answer possible. In general though, I would summarize the SS vs. Alloy decision matrix around:

Which PBR workflow do you prefer to work in (gloss vs. rough, metallic vs. spec color, etc.).
Does the Standard Shader have all the features you need? (ie are you doing special fx, want skin shaders, etc.)
Do you care about our fancier BRDF/shading features, and do you mind the mild increase in perf cost to have them?
Do you use Substance Designer/Painter (if so, then I would STRONGLY recommend Alloy).
Do you like Unity’s light falloff curve, or would you prefer something more realist/exponential?

In general, I never take the approach of hard-selling anything. Alloy is going to be a fair bit more to learn. The shaders are a bit more pricey (though in a way that should only affect low-end gpus). It doesn’t run on mobile because our framework is built for PC/Xbone/Ps4 in mind. But, it comes out of the box with a permutation space of 100s of thousands of variations, made up of a huge swathe of features we’ve found to be most commonly useful in the years we’ve done our own games, and contract work across vfx/arch viz/games/sim/etc. First and foremost its a tool built for my unreasonable demands, and we’re very proud of it. It will require a greater investment of your time and effort to get the most out of, but if you’re shooting for the nine’s visually, and want all the toys, I’m confident in saying we’re the right choice for ya.

If ya have more specific questions about it, I’d be happy to answer them for ya :-).
Cheers,
Anton

[derkoi]

@xenius

Hi @derkoi ! Would be great to have a notion of what you specifically need out of your game in terms of visual features to give you the most comprehensive answer possible. In general though, I would summarize the SS vs. Alloy decision matrix around:

Which PBR workflow do you prefer to work in (gloss vs. rough, metallic vs. spec color, etc.).
Does the Standard Shader have all the features you need? (ie are you doing special fx, want skin shaders, etc.)
Do you care about our fancier BRDF/shading features, and do you mind the mild increase in perf cost to have them?
Do you use Substance Designer/Painter (if so, then I would STRONGLY recommend Alloy).
Do you like Unity’s light falloff curve, or would you prefer something more realist/exponential?

In general, I never take the approach of hard-selling anything. Alloy is going to be a fair bit more to learn. The shaders are a bit more pricey (though in a way that should only affect low-end gpus). It doesn’t run on mobile because our framework is built for PC/Xbone/Ps4 in mind. But, it comes out of the box with a permutation space of 100s of thousands of variations, made up of a huge swathe of features we’ve found to be most commonly useful in the years we’ve done our own games, and contract work across vfx/arch viz/games/sim/etc. First and foremost its a tool built for my unreasonable demands, and we’re very proud of it. It will require a greater investment of your time and effort to get the most out of, but if you’re shooting for the nine’s visually, and want all the toys, I’m confident in saying we’re the right choice for ya.

If ya have more specific questions about it, I’d be happy to answer them for ya :).
Cheers,
Anton

Thanks for the reply. I’m working on a fishing simulation for PC, PS4 as well as mobile/PSVita, obviously I don’t intent to use PBR for the mobile/Vita platforms.

I’ve already bought your framework, I also own Substance designer and substance painter as well as Bitmap2Material3 which I plan to use to convert my existing diffuse, specular and normal maps for use with PBR.

[xenius]

Great to hear! Our documentation is a touch light still, but just so you know, it’s one of my main projects this month to finally get that beaten into shape with both some text/image and video tuts. If you ever run into troubles, feel free to shoot me a PM on the forums here.

[derkoi]

Thanks! I’ll have a play around

[jammer42777]

@mittense

Here’s my personal comparison; just visuals, I can’t give any real technical details about the differences:

http://www.polycat.net/3029/a-comparison-of-unity-3d-surface-shaders/

Thank you very much for sharing this!! It really sold me on alloy!