Updates on SSR and SSGI?

[impheris]

Hi and good day
I know there are many bug fixes on those features and i also know about the unity 6 GDC’s video. But, are there any substantial updates like for example improving accuracy for SSGI or better reflectios on SSR or something really good on recent years?

I’ve been testing SSGI these days on 2023.2 and i don’t see any new thing from my last test on 2021 (some years ago)

I’ve been looking for those features here: GitHub - frarees/unity-changelog: Archive of Unity release notes. but it only shows bug fixes and 1 or 2 new things (in SSR) in years but nothing (new) really interesting. Now do not take me wrong, i think SSGI makes a more than “decent” work, SSR not that much tbh.

So, does that “Archive of Unity release notes” lacks information or there are not interestings updates on SSGI and SSR? Thanks…

[Misaki_eKU]

SSGI and SSR are two simple effect that don’t have too many thing can be added. What do you expect if they update these two features?

[mgeorgedeveloper1]

@Misaki_eKU

SSGI and SSR are two simple effect that don’t have too many thing can be added. What do you expect if they update these two features?

Feature Request - Small feature extensions to SSGI that will make it feasible to use - Unity Forum

[impheris]

@Misaki_eKU

SSGI and SSR are two simple effect that don’t have too many thing can be added. What do you expect if they update these two features?

SSGI: for some years now, the SSGI has been pretty slow compared to other game engines that produce better results with faster updates between areas, the other game engine i’m using produce even better GI
SSR: is not very useful, but i know is not useful on any other game engine either and it looks ugly on those games that use it

EDIT: Even with the basic inside cube, the SSGI is pretty slow. I can show you my basic tests compared with the other game engine i’m using, if you want but i’m trying to avoid bringing more comparison videos and hate over Unity -.-"

[chap-unity]

No updates on this side, sorry.

[valarnur]

@chap-unity

No updates on this side, sorry.

What about Unity 6+?

What is the state of realtime GI as Enlighten replacement?

[AcidArrow]

@Misaki_eKU

SSGI and SSR are two simple effect that don’t have too many thing can be added. What do you expect if they update these two features?

They are not that simple…

I haven’t really played with SSGI, but SSR has a lot of implementation room in general, but especially in the ways you can attempt to minimise the artifacts inherent to the technique, a place where Unity’s current implementation (and in fact all their previous attempts as well) is well below average.

[Misaki_eKU]

@impheris

SSGI: for some years now, the SSGI has been pretty slow compared to other game engines that produce better results with faster updates between areas, the other game engine i’m using produce even better GI
SSR: is not very useful, but i know is not useful on any other game engine either and it looks ugly on those games that use it

EDIT: Even with the basic inside cube, the SSGI is pretty slow. I can show you my basic tests compared with the other game engine i’m using, if you want but i’m trying to avoid bringing more comparison videos and hate over Unity -.-"

The performance of screen space effect like ssgi and ssr are not really affect by scene complexity, sample count and screen size will affect the performance a lot. The slow update may because of denoiser and TAA. If you disable the denoiser or TAA, the ghosting will reduce. The quality of SSGI in hdrp is not the best I every see, but I think it’s fine and useable.

[Misaki_eKU]

@AcidArrow

They are not that simple…

I haven’t really played with SSGI, but SSR has a lot of implementation room in general, but especially in the ways you can attempt to minimise the artifacts inherent to the technique, a place where Unity’s current implementation (and in fact all their previous attempts as well) is well below average.

As far as I know, the results of SSR in HDRP are very close to path tracing in some cases. I think it turned out OK, maybe I didn’t push it to the limit.

[Misaki_eKU]

In my opinion, no one should rely on SSGI to make the game look better. If you have the budget, use ray tracing, if not, then use baking or no bouncing light.

[impheris]

@Misaki_eKU

The performance of screen space effect like ssgi and ssr are not really affect by scene complexity, sample count and screen size will affect the performance a lot. The slow update may because of denoiser and TAA. If you disable the denoiser or TAA, the ghosting will reduce. The quality of SSGI in hdrp is not the best I every see, but I think it’s fine and useable.

i’m using medium quality preset/low quality sharpening mode on TAA (almost custom) on Unity while using a pretty high quality on the other game engine… On 2019 - 2020 unity’s SSGI was good imo but now is pretty aged, that is why i’m asking for updates, because is almost the same SSGI we have on 2019 (with some bug fixes)

@AcidArrow

SSR has a lot of implementation room in general

imho SSR has not much room in terms of artifacts for the nature of the effect unless you start using RT techniques

@Misaki_eKU

In my opinion, no one should rely on SSGI to make the game look better. If you have the budget, use ray tracing, if not, then use baking or no bouncing light.

The problem is not our budget, the problem is player’s budget, you are not making a game for your pc. Also, i think we are done with lightmaps at least for pc/console games, something that Unity wants to ignore or make us feel that “lightmaps are still cool”

I’m not saying Unity’s SSGI is useless, it was good some years ago but now is pretty aged

[mgeorgedeveloper1]

@valarus

What about Unity 6+?

What is the state of realtime GI as Enlighten replacement?

Unless I’m mistaken, Unity 6 has exactly the same SSGI as we have in 2022.3 LTS. If you mean something else by real-time GI, I’m not sure what the options are.

[mgeorgedeveloper1]

@impheris

Also, i think we are done with lightmaps at least for pc/console games, something that Unity wants to ignore or make us feel that “lightmaps are still cool”

I think that some static corridor games are suited just fine for some light baking - but all the truly massive indie games out there (in popularity) recently have been open and dynamic. We just want to do real-time GI properly. It’s a fundamental and core requirement right now and for the future. I’m just so baffled why SSGI has been standing still for 2 years or something. I love you Unity - I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed

[valarnur]

˝I’ve found this for better performance of refection probes : https://portal.productboard.com/unity/1-unity-platform-rendering-visual-effects/c/1888-reflection-probes-relighting

This is post Unity 6.

I would like fixes for SSGI no traces when characters are moving in the scene with ~60 FPS in Unity 6.

[AcidArrow]

@impheris

imho SSR has not much room in terms of artifacts for the nature of the effect unless you start using RT techniques

It has room in terms of what tricks to employ to better hide the artifacts.

[Onigiri]

Does SSR has importance sampling?

[Misaki_eKU]

@impheris

Also, i think we are done with lightmaps at least for pc/console games,

Lightmaps is still a very common technique in games.

@mgeorgedeveloper1

We just want to do real-time GI properly.

We recently got APV in Unity 6, which other AAA titled games already use this technique 6 years ago. DX12 was released almost 10 years and it just out of preview recently in Unity. You should not expect unity to make those fancy tech for you as their goal are build a multiple platform game engine. If those features like realtime-gi are important to you, you should try implement those features by yourself, or let lighting artists do their magic.

[Kabinet13]

@Misaki_eKU

Lightmaps is still a very common technique in games.

We recently got APV in Unity 6, which other AAA titled games already use this technique 6 years ago. DX12 was released almost 10 years and it just out of preview recently in Unity. You should not expect unity to make those fancy tech for you as their goal are build a multiple platform game engine. If those features like realtime-gi are important to you, you should try implement those features by yourself, or let lighting artists do their magic.

Exactly. Lightmaps are common and absolutely still valuable, I just wish Unity wasn’t so slow to implement everything, APV is only partly finished, and we still don’t have a good way to manage lightmaps at scale (no lighting scenarios, everything is stored in the scene file and extremely rigid, etc).

[impheris]

I was just talking about SSGI and SSR, I tried SSGI again today and i think they need to improve the update on this systems because is almost not usable, too much ghosting, there is also a problem with blue lights at least in my test is almost invisible. SSR is not the worst i’ve seen for sure! but it can be better and also -.-" too much ghosting

@Misaki_eKU

Lightmaps is still a very common technique in games.

Lightmaps were created by the limitations of that time, we always have limitations and yes, lightmaps are still relevant but for how much longer?
Godot has its rtgi systemS that are not SSGI afaik, i believe you can even generate levels at runtime while using SDFGI, without baking, i think unity can not do that, they also have SSIL.
There is also Unreal, Unigine has invented theirs (which is not SS either). Everybody is moving forward from lightmaps, what would be the reason? being relevant in the future maybe? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I still prefer Unity over godot tho, is way better.

Afaik Unreal’s lumen is going to replace lightmaps (i believe that is their vision or goal, correct me if i’m wrong) and rtgi IS the future, if you believe, that, is many years away, you have been living under a rock.

@Misaki_eKU

you should try implement those features by yourself

Yeah, that is easy for any game dev out there with limited time and budged xD. Our frustration is that we want unity, to be better… someone said “we want unity to succeed”, maybe because many years ago we were in love with unity.

@Misaki_eKU

or let lighting artists do their magic.

sadly, I think those artists have their hands tied

@Kabinet13

APV is only partly finished

Like many other features, experimental/beta forever…

Godot GI systems:
https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/3d/global_illumination/introduction_to_global_illumination.html

[Qleenie]

I guess the easiest way to make advanced lighting possible would be to put some more effort into RTX. But this would mean to fix DX12 first. There were some efforts last year, but it seems come to a halt, and GPU performance and memory usage is by far not sufficient yet.