My Anamorphic Quest

[danimal']

Looks great, whenever you get the time to write up a general how-to, it'd be appreciated. I really don't care for many shaders/post process effects, but like the other people who have posted here doing sci-fi atm, it's a useful, cool effect! I have no shader experience so I'd be starting right where you did, so your perspective should be really helpful, good luck with grad!

[Dralex789]

Looks great, whenever you get the time to write up a general how-to, it'd be appreciated. I really don't care for many shaders/post process effects, but like the other people who have posted here doing sci-fi atm, it's a useful, cool effect! I have no shader experience so I'd be starting right where you did, so your perspective should be really helpful, good luck with grad!

I plan on starting as basic as I can, at least on the post effects front, but I will be assuming those reading will have a basic knowledge of the material editor and how that works.

For those who want to get to that point before starting (and I'll definately include this in the final write up) There are some great tutorials around the internet.

Eat3D has some amazing stuff
http://eat3d.com/

Epic's UDN has a few great starting videos as well as some of their udk gems
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/VtmMaterials.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitGems.html

Hourences site, as always is full of useful information
http://www.hourences.com/

Polycount's master UDK threat occasionally has some great material information pop up on it, but as usual that community is full of awesome intelligent people.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67290

UDKC has some great material tutorials
http://udkc.info/index.php?title=Main_Page

And finally you could always start where I started around a year ago with the mastering unreal volume 2. Not the best place given the wealth of information but it definitely walks you through some interesting techniques that might be useful to those who have learned a bit about terminology, etc.

*Edit* Mastering Unreal Volume 2 is a book

Rough draft of the final writeup almost done btw, it is coming.

[danimal']

Heh I think you misunderstood me, I've been developing in UE for years now, I'm just new to advanced post processing type shaders. I can make a basic chrome, water material, etc. Regardless, good post for general users and I know it was well intentioned Looking forward to your tut!

[Hiredicespecter]

Great work so far, keep it up. Are you still on it? I'm also interessted in a tutorial. ;-D

[GridlockShock]

Very Nice, I was wondering if there is a way to sample SceneColorTexture at a much lower resolution. or to be able to access some kind of Lowres scene Buffer instead of Scene Color Texture. I was able to create an animorphic bloom effect but it makes a big impact on performance because I'm sampling full resolution scene color.

anyone Know how to sample a lowres version of SceneColorTexture?

[Dralex789]

Hey guys. I am still alive. I ended up moving 2 weeks after graduation down to California (why is moving so crazy). I am still piecing together a document on my experience. Keep in mind it will be less of a tutorial on exactly what I did, more of an educational document for those who want to attempt what I made. To my knowledge there is no way to sample a lower resolution color sample, but there are ways to make the image look like its at a lower resolution so you don't have to blur it as much....

Alex

[Dralex789]

Hey guys. I am still alive. I ended up moving 2 weeks after graduation down to California (why is moving so crazy). I am still piecing together a document on my experience. Keep in mind it will be less of a tutorial on exactly what I did, more of an educational document for those who want to attempt what I made. To my knowledge there is no way to sample a lower resolution color sample, but there are ways to make the image look like its at a lower resolution so you don't have to blur it as much....

Alex

Hey folks. I know its been AGES since I posted, and for that I am really sorry. I ended up getting so sucked into work I had no idea how little free time I would have. On the plus side, I have indeed been learning, so I can add more of what I have learned, but the downside is what I had written before I moved is way out of date. E3 is passed, and I have a bit more time on my hands now, so I will be kicking out a series of posts to cover what I learned, and how I did what I did. Pretend I am starting from scratch with this (I essentially am, mostly due to the fact that I lost my copies of my work (well not lost, but the power cable for the backup hard drive has vanished)). Don't worry though it should go very fast.

I wanted to start things off by seeing if anyone had any specific questions while I started writing again. I can go ahead and jump on those quickly in a lame-ass attempt to make up for lost time

[Tom Shannon]

Wow, that's some commitment to this post!
I haven't had time to really dig into the post effects like you have so I'm really looking forward to seeing how you've accomplished what you have. it looks fantastic!

[mrcrocker]

Just wanted say the threads been a good read Dralex. keep up the good work and i hope you post a conclusion we can all learn from soon!

[Dralex789]

Alright folks. Its overdue, but its here, at least Part 1 of my writeup, with 2 and 3 to follow. Full screen link here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100172848/...eup#fullscreen

Link to the scribds page here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100172848/...Writeup#page=1

Feel free to fire away questions, or get ahold of me via email or DM's

[Dralex789]

Alright folks. Its overdue, but its here, at least Part 1 of my writeup, with 2 and 3 to follow. Full screen link here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100172848/...eup#fullscreen

Link to the scribds page here
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100172848/...Writeup#page=1

Feel free to fire away questions, or get ahold of me via email or DM's

[Razorb]

I haven't personally read it yet! but its very kind of you to do this!

[vluz]

Thanks for this, I can't wait for the next parts.

[Hiredicespecter]

Like it, can't wait for the next part.

[Dralex789]

Hey guys. So I was starting to write the new parts, but out of nowhere i made a huge advancement in how I do said post effects. I will be updating this thread over the next couple of days, but needless to say, I changed my methodology completely, giving me not 1, but infinite extra render buffers for lens flares, blooms, etc. I should add that this was with the help of a friend from my work, but more on that later, just want to make sure he is given credit as the original change in technique was his idea, and i was responsible for implementing it, as well as whatever use for it happens from here on out on my end. Also this new methodology is not good for real games but as a proof of concept it does work, in realtime, good for renders, etc. Here is a very very early screen. Basic shapes bloom, dirt on the screen effect, and image based lens flar

[Dralex789]

Hey folks. Another quick update. Starting to refine the process now. Instead of just hap-hazzardly blurring whatever I wanted too, I started separating things back out into passes. Eventually I will have 3 different blooms. A main one (That acts as just a normal bloom), the anamorphic effect (Shaped bloom), and a separate pass with the image based lens flare (which will also incorporate the dirt on the screen effect). Today I spent it refining the Anamorphic effect. Smoothed out alot of edges, added support for weighting, and tried to start figuring out how I need to taper the edges to get that true anamorphic pointy edge.

Image update:

[Private Tux]

Looks surprising. Glamorous one.

[Dralex789]

Added much better anamorphic shape. Also added initial support for my own bloom (a regular one)

[JessieG]

Have you downloaded the JWBathhouse scene that won the Polycount Brawl a while back? I believe there are similar effects in that on the lights that you could get some info from.

[Dralex789]

Have you downloaded the JWBathhouse scene that won the Polycount Brawl a while back? I believe there are similar effects in that on the lights that you could get some info from.

Yeah I have seen it. If I remember correctly it is using UDK's lens flare system. Which is great for individual sources, but I am interested in the post effects side of things.

[Fi5h1fishy]

I dont see why it isnt working for you, i have done exactly the same setup for my bloom aswell as the lense flare and it appears to work exactly the same. im not sure what the problem is, mine seems to work perfectly fine!

[Dralex789]

I dont see why it isnt working for you, i have done exactly the same setup for my bloom aswell as the lense flare and it appears to work exactly the same. im not sure what the problem is, mine seems to work perfectly fine!

Guess I am a little confused by your post. What exactly are you referring to when you said "it" in "it isn't working?". When you say you have done the same setup for your bloom and lens flare do you mean their bloom post effect, and their lens flare actor? Or do you mean you wrote your own post effect with bloom and image based lens flare similar to unreal 4, that other massive post effects post by independentSoul? I am doing the latter.

Nothing I have started yet "hasn't been working" it's just still a work in progress

[Graylord]

Just ignore him, all he does is post semi-irrelevant posts trying to force web traffic to his stuff.

Great looking post proccess though! As I am doing a Sci-fi game myself, I hope I could reacreate something like this myself at some point.

[Fi5h1fishy]

Just ignore him, all he does is post semi-irrelevant posts trying to force web traffic to his stuff.

Great looking post proccess though! As I am doing a Sci-fi game myself, I hope I could reacreate something like this myself at some point.

Actully, i have an understandment of what he is meaning, its just that i am not very good with my english, Dralex, to awnser your question, yes i meant the Bloom post effect, sorry for my bad english, my grammar and spelling is one of the things im not good at, Graylord, your negative reaction to my post wasnt the kindest, i do not post onto other peoples threads to advertise my work, i try and help them out, otherwise i would not bother in the first place, i dont want you to hate me, im just saying that i dont want you to be against me, becuase you think that im trying to advertise my work, sorry anyway if you had taken it the wrong way

[Graylord]

Sorry, it's just that 90% of the posts I see from you are either irrelevant to the topic, entirely generic or answering stuff that was answered long ago, and they usually come in a spree of multiple posts in quick succession.

But let's not spam this thread.

[Dralex789]

@Fish1fishy, Unfortunately I still don't know if you are referring to your own bloom effect, or the one in engine. Anyway folks I wanted to post another update, but there hasn't been one other than getting some per frame analysis done to figure out some performance things, making sure my technique was working as advertised. I am actually pleased to say it does work as intended, and in fact runs MUCH faster than I thought (The editor view is way slower than in game). I did a crappy fraps recording video below. I wanted to show it in motion, as well as the image based lens flare showing up correctly. Unfortunately some of the flickering that has happened because I didnt have time to tune things in for this video (I just threw everything together for fun) got way worse, and other aspects just didn't live through the compression. Anyway, its the real deal, not a bajallion instructions, and now with the speed improvements it would even work for a real game/environment



So yeah forgive the quality, and forgive the ****ty flickering.

It also clipped a bunch of the video off, so Ill fix that...

[stressless]

@ 0:10 BUUUuuuupppPPP

anyway, i do like the flare lens.

[Dralex789]

@ 0:10 BUUUuuuupppPPP

anyway, i do like the flare lens.

That whole vid was terrible. I regret posting it. Going to have to do proper renders from here on out lol. Too much subtlety was lost.

[Dralex789]

@ 0:10 BUUUuuuupppPPP

anyway, i do like the flare lens.

That whole vid was terrible. I regret posting it. Going to have to do proper renders from here on out lol. Too much subtlety was lost.

[Hiredicespecter]

If that's terrible, I want to see a good one ;-) Seriously, it's not that bad... Like the flares.

[Farseer]

Yeah, don't be so hard on yourself, it actually looks pretty awesome considering the lack of access to real downsampling in UDK, really curious what route you took to implement that.

[Dralex789]

Was wondering if anyone has programming experience in high end post effects in other engines (have you programmed your own bloom). If so would you mind messaging me? Looking to solve a few problems, and run ideas past others who have done this before

Alex

[Dralex789]

Quick update. Really polished and optimized bloom. Running into image accuracy problems with the larger stuff, so I took a really close up look at how UDK does their bloom. Now my bloom has weighting between a large and small version, and has the anamorphic. All three are controllable separately. Here is a screenshot of what it looks like on its own (before the threshold is applied. Hopefully it gives you guys a better view of the individual blooms (large, small, and shaped). I may do a 3rd in between at some point.

[awakeningfromobliv]

Quick update. Really polished and optimized bloom. Running into image accuracy problems with the larger stuff, so I took a really close up look at how UDK does their bloom. Now my bloom has weighting between a large and small version, and has the anamorphic. All three are controllable separately. Here is a screenshot of what it looks like on its own (before the threshold is applied. Hopefully it gives you guys a better view of the individual blooms (large, small, and shaped). I may do a 3rd in between at some point.

That is pretty awesome, was this all done with material nodes, your own hlsl code or both?

[Dralex789]

Both. Almost all of it (there are multiple materials involved in the entire process) is a combination of mostly material nodes, though all of my blur passes have HLSL since setting up any kind of loop in the material editor is a complete pain in the ass. Using HLSL custom nodes also allows me to easily adjust any part I want. I can set up a box blur pass to automatically configure and adjust itself based off of how many passes with a single value. That is not possible with just expressions.

[Hiredicespecter]

Looks awesome, keep going.

[Dralex789]

Big update time (probably the last for a while). I am officially done with how far I am taking this project (minus writeups).

Going to post some features and notes, then some images

-True Anamorphic (shaped Bloom) Giving that awesome JJ effect on the screen
-3 Separate bloom passes at various strengths (small large, and medium, the last of which is kinda hard to see but is there)
-Image based lens flares. Everything that blooms, can give a true across the screen flare
-True image based Dirt on the screen. The bloom dictates what dirt appears and where

Some other notes
- How customize able is it? Very. Every Bloom can be controlled, weighted, tinted, and magnified. Every aspect of the lens flare can do the same, as well as move up and down the line from source to the opposite side of the screen. Every Influence on teh dirt on the screen can be controlled individually or separately. So if you want just the large bloom to affect the dirt, but not the flares, you can do that, and vice versa. Each element when compiled can be also controlled by itself. (Want less bloom overall? you can do that).
- How optimized is it. Not that much. It should run ok (the final material is around 15 textures, 160 instructions) but there are over 25 other materials that all form up this process, each varying between 5 and 40 instructions (most on the lower side). There is a delay if I fraps footage but I will be taking a closer look at that and gettinga nice render video out for everyone to see. I should note that I could probably optimize it down farther but I went for customizablility over anything. If you understood what I was doing and was tweaking it yourself you could easily drop the cost in half, maybe far more.
- Is this the same effect that Unreal 4 and Killzone 2-3 have? Yes.
- Can I use this with my own scene? Yes, the entire thing can be copy pasted into other scenes. However....
- What are the downsides? Mostly difficulty to set up. There are around 40 scalar parameters (all clearly named) and 10 Vector 3 Paramaters for tinting. There are 2 HUGE downsides to this post effect though. First, it only works from a Camera placed in the scene, not from the main player camera. This could be tweaked in code I have no doubt. Second, it (as far as I know) cannot read values over 1. This means that if you balance your lighting it will be fine, but if you blast everything out, cough cough foliage demo map cough cough then it will fall apart. There is also, at this point, only 1 threshold for the entire set of effects. Separating them out could be very expensive.
-Will you share? Hell yes I will. I want to document this, and explain how I am achieving this in a future post, then post a basic how to use document to fall into my previous writeups. I will also be editing part 1 of my writeup for this new technique.
-Whats left? Possible optimization, documentation, and maybe some minor tweaks. I may separate the final compilation into more than 1 material. Also making a better dirt on the screen texture.

Anyway guys this has been an awesome path. Thanks to everyone who supported me. Post effects rock. Below are some images with the threshold, and then the full image. Some are for showing functionality, some are for fun

[Hiredicespecter]

Looks great. Can't wait for your write up.

[vluz]

This is something that I would really like to see how it works. I've been following this for while, can't wait for the write up.

[Dralex789]

This is something that I would really like to see how it works. I've been following this for while, can't wait for the write up.

I just wanted to hop on and say I havn't given up, or stopped. Work just dictates how much free time I have, so this has had to move to the back burner. Should be a priority again within a week.

Thanks for the patience, and if anyone has specific questions, feel free to email me or PM me

Alex

alexdracott@digitaldracott.com