Everything my newbie-level google fu is turning up says this can’t be done - well I call shenanigans! Surely something like this can be done with a little hoodoo… right?
My as-of-yet uninformed approach (for getting figure 2 from figure 1) would look something like this:
Figure 1 and 2 both utilize 3 layers.
Trail layer has trail renderer + a circle for that rounded nose, both with unlit pure white textures.
Create child camera of main cam which only renders the trail layer.
Get a render texture of all the trail objects within the frustum.
Use re-purposed blur image effect algo to soften edges (or otherwise make their alpha taper off to 0 beyond mesh edges).
Additional magic might recolor, or could just use trail material RGB.
Slap the result in place directly after object layer gets drawn, and right before background, as a fullscreen quad.
Dispose of this camera and effect!
That way the object / background camera knows diddly about the Blurry Trail Cam, and everything plays nicely. Are these the fevered dreams of a madman? It seems a simple thing to a humble beginner.
Thanks for taking a look, a swift kick in the right direction would be lovely!
Got a prototype working in one scenario, but still not quite able to say it’s working 100%
Thanks for the reply! I’m having difficulty finding Unity-specific information about even general principles of coding image effects. I’ve also found nothing thusfar which describes attempting a similar scenario, but it’s likely I just don’t know how to properly phrase my search. Being autodidactic is all well and good, but it’d be lovely to locate an article or post which discusses the basics in greater detail than Unity’s documentation.
Could you or someone in the know please analyze my theory to point out obvious fallacies, potential issues and workarounds I wouldn’t yet be aware of, and so on? Hiring someone isn’t as desirable as learning this myself, but I could sure use some free advice!
Any progress on this? Seems like an interesting idea. I tried something similar but ran into trouble because some of the things I wanted on the middle (blurred) layer were using additive shaders, so there were just black blotches behind everything. (They had nothing to add with because they use their own framebuffer when rendering to texture).
You’ve just described the issue I was never able to overcome. It may well be possible in edge cases, which I’d love to hear about if you find success! Even armed with a layman’s understanding of why this isn’t trivial to do, I confess I feel a little cheated. This and other shortcomings seem to limit the usefulness of every image effect I drooled over as an Indie user.
Perhaps we’re meant to treat the stock image effects as demonstrations, just like the other StandardAsset resources? I’m quite confident that the “impossible” issues which manifest for me are overcome by every middling or high-end modern game that employs post fx. Am I wrong?
Check the Camera functions, like Camera.Render() you will need to manually render a sequence of 2-3 render textures with a final composition image effect that utilizes these textures. Not complicated.
Not sure I understand the intent, aubergine. If the background is composited into the render texture along with the blurred middle layer, then the background will be blurred as well (which is not the intent). Perhaps I misunderstand.
1- You render the trail on a black background or anything smiliar to.
2- Do your blur on this render.
3- Render the normal scene.
4- Render the cube which will be on top of the trail (optional, if you dont want this object to be blurred)
5- Composite all of the above using the trail renders black background (or its alpha, or whatever)
Which doesnt sound a good idea now when i read it, why not use a custom mesh for trails with custom blurred edges, that could be much simpler to control.
EDIT: Simply save the positions of the object, and extrude a planar object with a spline along these positions and use a transparent gradient material on this plane, it would be much better.
