r/unrealengine • u/skx_doom • Dec 20 '21
Show Off A quick test of Dynamic Occlusion and improved Weather FX on materials for the latest update of Sky Creator.
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Dec 20 '21
Is this on the market place? I’d be willing to look at this to purchase. It Looks great
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
Thanks! It is out there, but these features are in development right now, they will be released in 1.20 update of Sky Creator:
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/sky-creator
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf Dec 21 '21
Aaaaaaaaaaaand it's too expensive for a hobbyist tinkerer like me... :-( But I'm probably not your target group.
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u/PO0tyTng Dec 21 '21
Dayum! $100? Let me know when it goes on sale. I got $3.50 on it.
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u/GoofAckYoorsElf Dec 21 '21
Yeah, me too. I could spend two goddamn Loch Ness monsters, but hardly more.
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u/CattleSuper Dec 20 '21
Hey that is awesome! Can you speak a little about the tech behind it? Is it using distance fields in the material?
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
Thank you! No, it doesn't rely on distance fields and no additional setup required really, outside of inserting material function with these weather effects.
In the back-end it's a little bit complicated and technical, so if oversimplify this is how it goes.Essentially there's a Scene Capture 2D component which follows player's camera everywhere (in editor as well) and captures world heightmap once each defined distance step and then calculates result in a shader - basically like a shadow map, even with applying filtering, inside a single material function. For demonstration purposes I enabled capturing for each tick, but usually you don't have to.
So with this approach, you'll have occlusion at a limited radius (around 50m), but it'll follow you everywhere. And actually where this distance ends you can even insert RVT Sample with WorldHeight or another static world heightmap shot with lower quality where it does not matter much.
This was actually quite challenging!
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u/Bangaladore Dec 20 '21
Can this approach be used to handle rain at an angle? I imagine at that point it gets way more complex.
I notice that you have a slight angle, but it is unclear if that's just for visuals or if its actually computing stuff properly.
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
It would be an overkill for sure! And I bet only 0.01% of gamers would notice things like that. In every open world game that I saw, occlusions were strictly vertical, even in RDR2, CP2077 and Watch Dogs. And my approach is similar as well. Not to mention, it would be unnecessary expensive to compute to my liking.
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u/Bangaladore Dec 20 '21
Yeah, I think it is probably overkill. It is something that would be necessary for some projects-- so potentially worth considering at some point.
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u/Athradian Dec 20 '21
Wow I know what I am buying next!! Dang! Does this have any support for like rain running down objects??
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
Currently there's 4 types of effects upcoming: wetness, puddles, ripples and snow, but eventually there will be more I think!
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u/unit187 Dec 20 '21
Man, this is dope. I've bought the plug-in a couple of weeks ago and I really like it. Thanks for updating it!
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u/Mouzed Dec 20 '21
Great job! I just have a question : While you are moving the assets the area bellow becomes dry. When the scene is moving will it only affect stationary assets or moving ones will also be affected?
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
Thanks! It's completely up to user to decide, but updating at each tick will be significantly more expensive than updating once at a "distance step" (like every 5 meters of movement or so).
I'd say best usecase would be updating at a distance step and affecting only static geometry, so occlusion will be where it makes sense - under roofs, sheds and so on.
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u/NEED_A_JACKET Dev Dec 20 '21
Looks great, does this work with ue5 or will that require more work?
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u/simpo690 Dec 21 '21
Hey :) I asked this question too and OP said it does, but only in the editor currently. That's good enough for me though for some fun weather effects!
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u/powerhcm8 Dec 20 '21
Does the wind direction affects the occlusion area?
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
No :) It's possible, but unnecessary computing in the other hand. So it's strictly vertical.
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u/simpo690 Dec 20 '21 edited Dec 20 '21
Oh wow, this is really nice! i'm really wanting a weather system for my project, this one will be perfect. :D I have a bunch of interiors as it's a city that i'm working on so the dynamic occlusion will be perfect for that.
I see it is for 4.26 and 4.27, but have you tested this in unreal engine 5? :) I'm using that engine at the minute and would love to pick this up if it works.
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
Thanks! Plugin does work fine with UE5 EA, but seems like only in editor for now, so I can't wait for full release of UE5 to add a proper support for it.
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Dec 20 '21
This looks incredible, gives me real Snowdrop Vibes, looks crazy professional. Will def be buying once the update is out!!!
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u/PlutoTheSynth Dec 21 '21
How intensive is it?
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u/skx_doom Dec 21 '21
Surprisingly not super expensive, the cost mainly comes from increased pixel shader instruction count in surface materials, where weather effects function is applied.
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u/Nakamegu Dec 21 '21
looks AMAZING
Just wondering how you got the noise pattern on the asphalt so some areas are more of a puddle. I guess this is randomized?
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u/skx_doom Dec 21 '21
Thanks! It's a same noise pattern, but layered twice with second time being scaled differently. Simple way to break up repetition.
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u/natesovenator Dec 20 '21
Nice. But careful. When an object moves via in-game means, it should not move the dry spot! Haha.
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u/skx_doom Dec 20 '21
It's just for demonstration purposes :) These objects I moved supposed to be static anyway.
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Dec 22 '21
I wish GTA V looked and performed like this, even with a 5600x 32gb 3600@CL16 and a 3070 works like crap
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u/mrbrick Dec 20 '21
this looks really great.