I have to say i have been watching uinreal tutorials for the last 4 years, and this youtube series is the most comprehensive fundamental ground building foundation i've found. Ive had to unlearn years of bad habit from hobbiests online, and i wish i found this earlier because wow, this makes everything so achievable
This is a highly valuable video, incredibly well explained. Just as I was about to click away because I thought you weren't going to explain the vertex normal 'gotcha', you did! Thanks for this.
I found this technique in games like Battlefield and I didn't know how they did it and you really solved this :) Thanks for your final thoughts on shaders for mobile optimization. Keep up the good work.
I am curious that since normal already bent in 3D software...the tangent space should are different from original ...the normal map cant work well and correct??
Ben Cloward you are perfectttt, really great!!! Words are not enough to convey my appreciation as a UE4 beginner. In the future subjects, I wish we also have some grass material , performance optimization and scattering tutorials as well . I always wanted to have a grass like in Lumion3D where the grass has cull distance but also it is unnoticable when grass dissapears because the flat grass texture (texture,color everything) of the surface material matches perfectly with scattered grass.So its impossible to notice grass culling. Also sometimes the grass texture uses diferent texture when camera is far away like using a large scale grass texture that slowly gets visible as camera goes far from the small scale grass texture. But I couldnt figure these out by myself. I also wonder if trees has a feature for disabling the visibility of trees far away just for viewport performance. Best Regards,
Using this method when I was bake lighting the lights gets pass through the plane mesh and creates way to much light. Is there any way to bake better lighting with this method?
Baking lighting on tree leaf planes is tricky because it usually makes them look like planes instead of like a volume of leaves. Rather than using baked lighting, I think it's better to use the ambient occlusion technique I talk about in episode 34 - ruclips.net/video/CptpQ5vSy0U/видео.html
Hello Ben ! Thanks a lot for this tutorial which helped me understand new shader functions. I have one question in case you see it : how do you handle cast shadows in this case ? Wouldn't the constant change in opacity value of the leaves create flickering cast shadows which are also constantly changing ? Thanks again for this video !
It depends on how the shadows are created. Worst case scenario the leaf shadows won't move at all (which is probably fine) and best case they'll move right along with the leaves, which is also good.
@@BenCloward Thanks for your answer Ben. I've tested this in Unity, and in my case the shadows are realtime and move along with the leaves. But as this motion doesn't physically make sense (like wind does), it results in the leaves cast shadows on the other leaves weirdly flickering when I rotate around the tree when the planes disappears and re-appears. However I can't see this issue in your video, I don't really know why at the moment.
Do you want static shadows of moving leaves? This effect is animating your leaves so that they're constantly moving. If they cast shadows and the shadows don't move, is that what you want, or do you want dynamic shadows that move like the leaves are moving?
@@BenCloward Yes, but I've figer out it becouse of leaf culling function with dither temopal AA node. When camera goes through , shadows disappears. Also they are only realtime and I want them to be static and to not cull when leaves are culled. Any idea?
Hi, Ben,I saw your video talks about DDX,DDY: ruclips.net/video/1HTMoCaY0xw/видео.html You also computed the individual face normal ,at the end, the cross product was converted from world space to tangent space, while in this Foliage video,you just used 'Normalized' instead. why no need to convert from world position to local position? any different? I am a beginner on shaders. Thank you.
That's a really good question and it show that you're paying very careful attention! When you pass a normal into the root node so that it becomes the normal for the shader, it has to be in tangent space, so that's why I transformed it there for the DDX DDY video. For the foliage here, I wasn't passing the normal into the root but instead using it to calculate the foliage fade angle. In that case, I needed the normal in world space, so I did not transform it. Hope that helps.
@@BenCloward I did't expect you will reply, cause you already contribute so much time to make tutorials, Thanks for replying :D. I didn't know the root shader need a tangent space normal until you pointed out. I 've tried a tree, if I converted to tangent space, it did looked wrongly. This information is very valuable to me. I will remember it.🙂
Thanks! I'm glad you like my work! I've had people ask about several different platforms - mobile and VR, etc. I hope that I'm presenting general enough principles that they can be applied across a lot of different platforms. I think the main difference with VR is that you have to be a lot more careful and conservative about performance. Other than that, you should be able to use most if not all of the things I've presented here whether you're experiencing it on a TV with a controller or with a headset on.
Thank you man, I've been trying to figure out how to do this for a while. Ever thought about a donation thing? maybe starting a patreon? I'd love to be able to give something back for your efforts!
Thats really kind of you, Chris. I don't have immediate plans to set up a Patreon, but I may do it in the future. I'm really glad you found the solution you were looking for!
Yep, I’m not really sure what happened. I was watching the levels during recording and they didn’t go too high, but it still sounds bad. I’ll do some experimenting to make sure it doesn’t happen next week.
One of the best shader teachers out here, this is awesome!
I have to say i have been watching uinreal tutorials for the last 4 years, and this youtube series is the most comprehensive fundamental ground building foundation i've found. Ive had to unlearn years of bad habit from hobbiests online, and i wish i found this earlier because wow, this makes everything so achievable
Finally someone who explained what ddx and ddy do in a simple way. Thank you!
This is a highly valuable video, incredibly well explained. Just as I was about to click away because I thought you weren't going to explain the vertex normal 'gotcha', you did! Thanks for this.
Glad it was helpful!
I found this technique in games like Battlefield and I didn't know how they did it and you really solved this :) Thanks for your final thoughts on shaders for mobile optimization. Keep up the good work.
I always wondered whether or not the branches were also just planes. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing these amazing techniques with us! 😀
This series is awesome!
Thank you for making this channel! These videos are an incredible resource!
You're welcome! I'm glad they're useful for you.
A most interesting and helpful video! Thanks! )
My indie gamedev journey would have been very boring without you!!
Hah! Glad I could help. The example you shared on Instagram looks really great! Nice work.
@@BenCloward ohhh my gawwwwd!! Thanks you sir!
This is what I was looking for to fix a project. THANK YOU. You saved my ass
I am curious that since normal already bent in 3D software...the tangent space should are different from original ...the normal map cant work well and correct??
Ben Cloward you are perfectttt, really great!!! Words are not enough to convey my appreciation as a UE4 beginner.
In the future subjects, I wish we also have some grass material , performance optimization and scattering tutorials as well . I always wanted to have a grass like in Lumion3D where the grass has cull distance but also it is unnoticable when grass dissapears because the flat grass texture (texture,color everything) of the surface material matches perfectly with scattered grass.So its impossible to notice grass culling. Also sometimes the grass texture uses diferent texture when camera is far away like using a large scale grass texture that slowly gets visible as camera goes far from the small scale grass texture. But I couldnt figure these out by myself. I also wonder if trees has a feature for disabling the visibility of trees far away just for viewport performance.
Best Regards,
thanks for the tutorial
You can use also use a dither node to allow for smooth fading effects instead of a hard clipping with masked alphas.
Shh, don’t spoil it! That’s what I’ll be talking about in the video that comes out on July 9th.
@@BenCloward Oops!
Using this method when I was bake lighting the lights gets pass through the plane mesh and creates way to much light. Is there any way to bake better lighting with this method?
Baking lighting on tree leaf planes is tricky because it usually makes them look like planes instead of like a volume of leaves. Rather than using baked lighting, I think it's better to use the ambient occlusion technique I talk about in episode 34 - ruclips.net/video/CptpQ5vSy0U/видео.html
Hello Ben ! Thanks a lot for this tutorial which helped me understand new shader functions.
I have one question in case you see it : how do you handle cast shadows in this case ? Wouldn't the constant change in opacity value of the leaves create flickering cast shadows which are also constantly changing ?
Thanks again for this video !
It depends on how the shadows are created. Worst case scenario the leaf shadows won't move at all (which is probably fine) and best case they'll move right along with the leaves, which is also good.
@@BenCloward Thanks for your answer Ben. I've tested this in Unity, and in my case the shadows are realtime and move along with the leaves. But as this motion doesn't physically make sense (like wind does), it results in the leaves cast shadows on the other leaves weirdly flickering when I rotate around the tree when the planes disappears and re-appears. However I can't see this issue in your video, I don't really know why at the moment.
I am so lucky that i found the right mentor i wanted.🧡🎃
Now that we got Custom Interpolator in Unity, can we do the calculation in the vertex stage then pass it down to fragment stage?
Yes!
Ben I need your help. I followed the tutorial and my leavws doesn't cast any static shadows when lights are baked. Any solutions? Thank you.
Do you want static shadows of moving leaves? This effect is animating your leaves so that they're constantly moving. If they cast shadows and the shadows don't move, is that what you want, or do you want dynamic shadows that move like the leaves are moving?
@@BenCloward Yes, but I've figer out it becouse of leaf culling function with dither temopal AA node. When camera goes through , shadows disappears. Also they are only realtime and I want them to be static and to not cull when leaves are culled. Any idea?
Thanks again!
Hi, Ben,I saw your video talks about DDX,DDY:
ruclips.net/video/1HTMoCaY0xw/видео.html
You also computed the individual face normal ,at the end, the cross product was converted from world space to tangent space,
while in this Foliage video,you just used 'Normalized' instead. why no need to convert from world position to local position? any different? I am a beginner on shaders. Thank you.
That's a really good question and it show that you're paying very careful attention! When you pass a normal into the root node so that it becomes the normal for the shader, it has to be in tangent space, so that's why I transformed it there for the DDX DDY video. For the foliage here, I wasn't passing the normal into the root but instead using it to calculate the foliage fade angle. In that case, I needed the normal in world space, so I did not transform it. Hope that helps.
@@BenCloward I did't expect you will reply, cause you already contribute so much time to make tutorials, Thanks for replying :D. I didn't know the root shader need a tangent space normal until you pointed out. I 've tried a tree, if I converted to tangent space, it did looked wrongly. This information is very valuable to me. I will remember it.🙂
really awesome.. any plans for VR AR content in the future?
Thanks! I'm glad you like my work! I've had people ask about several different platforms - mobile and VR, etc. I hope that I'm presenting general enough principles that they can be applied across a lot of different platforms. I think the main difference with VR is that you have to be a lot more careful and conservative about performance. Other than that, you should be able to use most if not all of the things I've presented here whether you're experiencing it on a TV with a controller or with a headset on.
@@BenCloward thank you so much for all the work you do, wish you lots of success.
awesome!
Thank you man, I've been trying to figure out how to do this for a while. Ever thought about a donation thing? maybe starting a patreon? I'd love to be able to give something back for your efforts!
Thats really kind of you, Chris. I don't have immediate plans to set up a Patreon, but I may do it in the future. I'm really glad you found the solution you were looking for!
Your audio is clipping in this video :(
Yep, I’m not really sure what happened. I was watching the levels during recording and they didn’t go too high, but it still sounds bad. I’ll do some experimenting to make sure it doesn’t happen next week.
in unrean engine 5.3 it creates weirt artifacts