I’m trying out the HDRP template. When just starting a new project with HDRP preset template, all looks almost pretty and all is well. However, on closer investigation, the exposure is set to fixed at 8.5.
If I adjust this to align better with what you’d expect in real world, like EV 14 for example, then everything is way too dark.
OK fine, lets assume the default of 8.5 is “correct”. If I then add my fbx that was saved from 3ds Max where I use a linear workflow, all my material sample balls come in looking fine in the material folder where I saved them, however in scene, they are way too bright, bringing me back to the fact that 8.5 is too bright for a typical exterior scene.
Is HDRP not yet aligned to use physical sun, sky and camera values? If so, what would be the workflow then to get the expected results? I can’t make all my materials darker as that would make no sense. Only other option is to make the sun (default directional light) brighter?
For a typical day exterior EV of 14:
Increasing the default intensity from the default directional light from 10 000, up to something like 300 000, doesnt really work either. The scene’s exposure feels a little better, but the skybox doesnt seem to update and is very dark, almost black
Thanks @pierred_unity that makes sense
For a second there I thought I was going bonkers!
I’ll try out the values you mentioned.
Do you have a rough ETA for the new template?
I’m struggling to get good shadows on a larger scene. I’m using 4 cascades over a distance setting of 500 and getting some artefacts, mostly in the closer to the cam cascades. (This is actually visible also in the current HDRP template, when you look at the planks laying on the ground’s shadow, and also the legs of the table)
No worries. I understand it is indeed confusing. This template is however very old, and it wasn’t really designed with physical correctness in mind, hence the discrepancy.
I do not know the exact date for the new template release, but it will arrive eventually in 2020.2 (HDRP v10).
The shadowing issues you see at short range could be related to the contact shadows. In your volume, add a “Contact shadows” override, and tune them (or disable them), and see if it helps.
@pierred_unity I’m struggling with this. I can’t seem to get good, sharp looking shadows across my entire scene. Here’s my shadow settings:
I added the contact shadow override in my volume. With it enabled, the shadows look clearer, but very grainy and full of artefacts.
With contact shadows disabled, smaller thinner objects’s shadows fade a little, while the small building in the centre still has the same grainy edge artefact in it’s shadow
Here’s the shadow settings for my sun (directional light):
As you can see in this shot, the shadows in the distance quickly lose quality and is not clear and not sharp, and that is at a very short distance, maybe 50 or 100 meter. I need it to be sharp over 500 meter:
Yeah thanks @Yanus3D I saw your renders over on that thread and although looking awesome, I’ll repeat my comment I mentioned there: Your scenes hardly have anything in it. You are getting great reasults so far though. The scene I’m working on is huge. Think in terms of a shopping mall exterior size large (although not actually a shopping center) with planting around it. I need to show interior seen through the windows from the outside, as well as the other way around.
Also, I’d love to go RTX, but among the 1 FPS issue, the other plugins I need dont work with RTX yet is seems: Vegetation Studio Pro, MTree, Bakery.
That being said, it remains to be seen if those plugins work on HDRP 9.x in the 1st place!
(The guys from Mtree already told me they dont support alpha or beta versions)
@Yanus3D like you, I’m also coming from an offline rendering background. I’m using my current project as a test case for typical projects and so far things are not going very well. I’m needing to find workarounds in Unity for things that are pretty basic and simpe to do in 3ds Max and VRay
Since the project is now DXR, I’ll switch any further posts to the DXR thread for questions, comments, suggestions etc…
Now I need to figure out how to populate it with loads of vegetation!
You’re only using 1024 for your shadow map resolution on your sun: this is incredibly low for the quality you’re after. Try to push it at 4K or 8K for instance (you’ll need to bump up the max shadow res in the HDRP asset). Each cascade will lower the resolution, so if you start at 1024 for your first cascade, you can end up with a VERY low res shadow map for the last cascade.
Obviously, increasing the shadow res will have a cost, but if you’re already looking at DXR options, you’re probably not caring about performance and platform compatibility.
(also, DXR shadows from alpha materials, like trees, is not something trivial)
Btw, once you have visual noise: vegetation, actual materials, etc. it will be much harder to notice shadowing issues at long range. Carefully tuned cascades and contact shadows can still give you decent quality.
Thanks @pierred_unity I’ll take a look at increasing the shadow res to 4K or 8K. I’m still trying to get a hang of things, with million settings all over the place. There really should be a central location for overriding all these things from 1 central control panel type of thing. Feels like I’m chasing my tail looking for all the relevant settings
You need to make the distinction between your global project settings (that’s you’re HDRP settings in the Project Settings window, and that’s not something you’re supposed to change constantly during the production of a project), and then your local settings per scene and per area like hand-placed volumes and lights (these get changed frequently). This can’t be in the same location, just conceptually.
But sure, if you discover a new render pipeline (or any kind of new system) until you know which settings best fit your project, you’ll need to tune things frequently. There is no way around this.
Also, remember you can dock the project settings in the UI, so the global settings are always there. It’s useful when testing/profiling a project, to see how far you can push certain features. And the scene-specific settings like lights and volumes are still operated in the same way.
That’s the layout I use sometimes, so that I can see many settings in a glimpse, super easy.
Wow adjusting the Max shadow resolution and the Directional Shadow Resolution Tiers made a MASSIVE difference. Its looking much better than it was (not using DXR). Thanks @pierred_unity !
Setting up the workspace like your screenshot is a good idea also, thanks. Never thought I would need a 4K screen till now…
