Shadow Softener - Official Thread

[Djiel]

Looks great. This should be in Unity by default, the vanilla shadows are horrible.
On my to buy list as well.
To be honest I was hoping for a little bit lower price, but it’s a must have…

[jcarpay]

Looks great, would be nice if the price was a bit lower though.

[PolyVector]

@Djiel

Looks great. This should be in Unity by default, the vanilla shadows are horrible.
On my to buy list as well.
To be honest I was hoping for a little bit lower price, but it’s a must have…

@jcarpay

Looks great, would be nice if the price was a bit lower though.

What would you two suggest as a fair price?

[pixelsteam]

$25

@PolyVector

What would you two suggest as a fair price?

[Becoming1]

Looks very interesting, do you have an idea if it would be possible to have the shadows sharper where objects are closer to the surface the shadows are cast onto. I mean harder at the contactpoint and softer with distance… that would rock even more

[brilliantgames]

Just want to say. I purchased this package. I am blown away man, great job. I am extremely excited to have better soft shadows in Unity free than in Unity pro!

Good job. On a side note, if you could figure out how to integrate this to work in forward rendering with any shader without adding code, it would be far more convenient.

[brilliantgames]

@PolyVector

Here’s the built-in TerrBumpFirstPass.shader, modified with PCF8x8. Everything in BOLD was added, which is mostly just comments because the process is very simple! I just tested this shader, btw, and it works flawlessly.

If you ever buy Pro and use Deferred Rendering, none of this is necessary… It just works!

Because the Terrain shaders use both a Base and Add shader, you would want to do the exact same thing to the TerrBumpAddPass.shader version referenced by the Dependancy at the bottom… Terrain/Tree shaders are pretty much the only time you’ll run into this sort of thing… Most shaders are one-off.

The Documentation goes over most of this in more detail!

I have an issue with the terrain shader you provided. It says “Shader error: include fall back failed at line 36”

I know pretty much nothing about shader scripting, so I would appreciate having my hand held until I have this terrain shader.

[PolyVector]

@Becoming1

Looks very interesting, do you have an idea if it would be possible to have the shadows sharper where objects are closer to the surface the shadows are cast onto. I mean harder at the contactpoint and softer with distance… that would rock even more

You probably want something like PCSS (Percentage Closer Soft Shadows). This should be possible to achieve, but I’ve never tried it to be honest… Maybe I’ll experiment with the technique some time.

@brilliantgames

Just want to say. I purchased this package. I am blown away man, great job. I am extremely excited to have better soft shadows in Unity free than in Unity pro!

Good job. On a side note, if you could figure out how to integrate this to work in forward rendering with any shader without adding code, it would be far more convenient.

Wouldn’t that be great!? If Unity ever adds some kind of Shader Asset Processor or ShadowMap API that can be hooked into I’ll be all over that!

[PolyVector]

@brilliantgames

I have an issue with the terrain shader you provided. It says “Shader error: include fall back failed at line 36”

I know pretty much nothing about shader scripting, so I would appreciate having my hand held until I have this terrain shader.

The #Include path is relative to where you place the terrain shader.
It would be great if Unity would search your project for cginc files, but c’est la vie!

[brilliantgames]

Alright thanks I’ll look into that. Also, you might be interested to know that I am also creating a lighting pluggin.

I already have your shadows in the demo scenes included with this package I am releasing soon. Just made the thread for it today.

Edit: Dont worry your shadows wont be in the actual version people buy. XD

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/200280-Efficient-Light-Probing-for-Unity-Free-amp-Pro!

[PolyVector]

@brilliantgames

I have an issue with the terrain shader you provided. It says “Shader error: include fall back failed at line 36”

I know pretty much nothing about shader scripting, so I would appreciate having my hand held until I have this terrain shader.

facepalm I’m on my tablet right now, I totally misread what you said! I think you forgot to create the other Dependent shaders.

Because the Terrain shaders use both a Base and Add shader, you would want to do the exact same thing to the TerrBumpAddPass.shader

I think you need to either create a Specular too, or set the dependency to the built-in “Specular”

[brilliantgames]

@PolyVector

facepalm I’m on my tablet right now, I totally misread what you said! I think you forgot to create the other Dependent shaders.

I think you need to either create a Specular too, or set the dependency to the built-in “Specular”

Yeah I figured it out. I took a look at Unitys source. Thanks.

[TechnicalArtist]

hi,

impressive work:o

Can work with DX11?

Dev

[PolyVector]

@TechnicalArtist

hi,

impressive work:o

Can work with DX11?

Dev

I’ve never used the DX11 renderer (I’m on a Mac, and I don’t think DX11 can run virtualized)…

The whole thing is designed for SM3.0, so DX11 should be able to run it… As to whether or not the new DX11 renderer changed the way shadows work is outside my expertise.

Edit: If anybody can confirm DX11 support, that would be awesome!

[stevenapolo7]

Hi, i´m really interested but i´m using Unity Pro 3.5.7, will it work?

[PolyVector]

Unfortunately I built the project in Unity 4.x, so I believe the Asset Store will require 4.x to download. There’s no reason it can’t work in 3.5.7, though it may require a tweak or two, I’ll put it on my TODO list.

[Zeblote]

How did you manage to get the built-in hard shadows in the demo this ugly?

[PolyVector]

@Zeblote

How did you manage to get the built-in hard shadows in the demo this ugly?

I’m not sure what you mean, they’re simply the built-in hard shadows? Maybe if you post a screenshot, I can see what you’re talking about.

On some platforms the GPU gives free PCF2x2 with “Hard” shadows, and on some platforms it does not… I don’t believe you can control that one way or the other.

The resolution is low, of course, to help visualize how the different filters look.

Edit:
I should have specified that my comparison screenshot includes both “Hard” and “Native” to visualize how “Hard” shadows look on platforms with and without the free hardware PCF I mentioned earlier.

[Zeblote]

@PolyVector

I’m not sure what you mean, they’re simply the built-in hard shadows? Maybe if you post a screenshot, I can see what you’re talking about.

Did you set them to the lowest possible resolution? They’re horribly jagged

[PolyVector]

@Zeblote

Did you set them to the lowest possible resolution? They’re horribly jagged

Hehe, as I said the resolution is low to show the different filters clearly, and all filters are running at the same resolution for fairness.

Again, in the comparison screenshot:

• Built-In “Hard” - Completely ordinary “Hard” shadows on a GPU that doesn’t natively support PCF. I believe that in Unity 3.5 ALL Hard shadows look this way, at least they do on my Mac.
• Built-In “Native” - Enhanced “Hard” shadows in Unity 4.x on a GPU that supports native PCF. This might be what you’re used to seeing.
• Built-In “Soft” - The “Soft” shadows we all know and love.
• PCF Filters - An assortment of Shadow Softener filters.

I hope this helps in your quest for terrible shadows.