Unity Products:Amplify Bloom/Manual

Installation 1. Open AmplifyBloom###.unitypackage 2. After Unity loads it will display the “Importing package” window, select All and click Import 3. Amplify Bloom should now be installed in your Unity project and it should have the following directory structure: YourProject\Assets\AmplifyBloom\ YourProject\Assets\AmplifyBloom\Plugins YourProject\Assets\AmplifyBloom\Resources YourProject\Assets\AmplifyBloom\Samples YourProject\Assets\AmplifyBloom\Textures Workflow Overview 1. Select and apply “Image Effects/Amplify Bloom” to your camera 2. Main Bloom effect is always active. 3. Extra features can be used independently, each with specific customization parameters. Main Bloom This section contains the main parameters for the bloom effect. In most cases simply adjusting Intensity, Threshold and Bloom Intensity should suffice. Additional options are available for extra tweaking, pay special attention to Precision Mode, Blur Amount and Mip parameters. Using extremely high values may have an adverse effect on performance, particularly on older devices. For debug purposes each features result can be viewed separately through the Debug drop-down selection. 1. Technique used to calculate Bloom. Realistic technique provides better visual results, Natural is a faster, less robust technique. 2. Defines sources size scale [Full/Half/Quarter] which will be used to create initial threshold results. 3. Amplify Bloom offers two precision modes, Low and High. As the name hints, Low is less processing-intensive when compared with the High Precision mode and should be used on less capable GPU’s. When Low Precision mode is selected a LDR Range value is enabled and can be freely adjusted to approximate to the HDR results. 4. Overall bloom intensity affects all the effects bellow. 5. Luminance threshold defines which areas contribute to the bloom effect. 6. Texture to be used as a mask to analyze and create bloom only on specific areas. 7. Render Bloom results to a specified target texture instead of the cameras destination render texture, useful for AR and similar applications. 8. Visually debug each feature individually. Only visible if its specific feature is active. 9. Configurable settings for Mip creation. 10. Configurable settings for Mip usage NOTE: When toggled, the Show Warnings option will output any errors or warnings directly into the Output Log. Mip Settings Mip Count Amount of generated Mips, higher values provide smoother results but decrease performance. Upscale Blur Radius Radius used on the tent filter when upscaling to source size. Only active when Realistic Technique is selected. Features Source Id Specify Mip source for Lens Flare and Glare generation. Selecting a lower Mip provides better visual results but is more GPU intensive. Mip Weights The Bloom effect is generated by a weighted combination of each of the generated upscaled Mips. From high to low, you can individually control each Mip parameters. Blur Steps Step value for the blur process. Blur Radius Radius value for the blur applied Weight The value of the overall contribution by the Mip to the Bloom effect. Temporal Filtering Amplify Bloom is based on a common AAA technique which focuses on reducing flickering/firefly artifacts. On top of that it also offers additional temporal filtering to further improve final results. Filter Curve Set the curve range of values which defines temporal filter behavior. Filter Value Filter Value defines the position on the Filter Curve. Separate Features Threshold A second threshold layer can be activated which only affects Features ( Lens Flare / Glare / Dirt / Starburst ), this threshold is applied on top of the main threshold mentioned above. Threshold Adjust the threshold slider in order to fine-tune specific features contribution. Lens Dirt & Starburst Use a static texture or your own custom dynamic render-to-texture to simulate lens dirt and lens starburst effect, simply set the texture to be used and adjust the intensity. 1. Toggle to use. 2. Add a texture. 3. Adjust the intensity. 4. Influence/Weight from each Mip. Bokeh Filter A lightweight technique, Bokeh filtering simulates different camera aperture shapes allowing for more realistic results. 1. Toggle to use. 2. Bokeh filtering can either be applied on the bloom source or only affect the extra features (Lens Flare/Glare/Dirt/Starburst). 3. Type of bokeh filter that will reshape the bloom results. Advanced Settings Rotation Filters overall rotation. Sample Radius Bokeh imaginary camera DOF’s radius. Aperture Bokeh imaginary camera DOF’s aperture. Focal Length Bokeh imaginary camera DOF’s focal length. Focal Distance Bokeh imaginary camera DOF’s focal distance. Max CoC Diameter Bokeh imaginary camera DOF’s Max Circle of Confusion diameter. Lens Flare Pseudo Lens Flare with procedurally generated Lens Ghosts and Halo from bloom results. 1. Toggle to use. 2. Defines the overall intensity for both halo and ghosts 3. The amount of blur applied on generated halo and ghosts. 4. Dynamic tint color applied to both halo and ghosts according to their screen position. Left most color on gradient corresponds to screen center. Ghosts Intensity Ghosts intensity. Count Amount of ghosts generated from each bloom area. Dispersal Distance between ghost generated from the same bloom area. Chromatic Distortion Amount of chromatic distortion applied on each ghost. Power Factor Base on ghost fade power function. Power Falloff Exponent on ghost fade power function. Halos Intensity Halo intensity. Width Width/Radius of the generated halo. Chromatic Distortion Amount of chromatic distortion applied on halo. Power Factor Base on halo fade power function. Power Falloff Exponent on halo fade power function. Lens Glare Simulate a vast amount of Anamorphic Lens Effects, select from a Preset Shape list or create and tweak your own glare effect. 1. Toggle to use. 2. Defines the glare intensity. 3. Overall glare streak length modifier. 4. Tint applied uniformly across each type of glare. 5. Tint along each ray for spectral glare types, leftmost color on the gradient corresponds to sample near bloom source. 6. Available glare presets. Custom Shape Type Anamorphic Glare effects shape are customizable by selecting the Custom item on the preset list. After that, simply define the amount to use and adjust the values below. 1. The amount of custom glare effects. 2. Currently selected custom glare from the array bellow. Individual Custom Glare Values Name Custom glare name. Initial Offset Star angle initial offset. Chromatic Amount Amount of influence from chromatic gradient. Star Lines Count Amount of generated rays. Pass Count Amount of passes used to generate rays. Sample Length Spacing between each sample when generating rays. Attenuation Attenuation factor along ray. Camera Influence Amount of influence camera rotation has on rays. Custom Increment Custom angle increment between rays. They will be evenly rotated if specified a value equal to 0. Long Attenuation Second attenuation factor. Rays will alternate between Attenuation ( Odd numbers) and Long Attenuation ( Even numbers). Only active if specified value is greater than 0. Advanced Settings Per Pass Displacement Distance between samples when creating each ray. Max Per Ray Passes Max amount of passes used to build each ray. More passes means more defined and propagated rays but decreases performance. Dynamic Masking and Augmented Reality This sample demonstrates how to generate dynamic masks when using Amplify Bloom. To download the Amplify Bloom Mask Sample project, click here. Note that the masking sample relies on a second camera that renders the objects mask using a very simple unlit color shader, e.g. white on black background (or vice versa), into a Mask Render Texture, the RT is then used to define which objects should have the bloom effect applied. Detailed instructions can be found in the Readme file included in the package Assets folder. Vuforia Augmented reality and similar applications such as Hololens or Magicleap usually require a somewhat similar setup in order to mask real world footage. We prepared a functional Vuforia package that should serve as a basis for your project requirements, to download the Amplify Bloom AR Mask Sample project, click here. You will need to download Vuforia Unity Plugin, detailed instructions can be found in the Readme file included in the package Assets folder. Technical Considerations Mobile Devices For performance reasons we recommend extensive testing on your target mobile platforms before licensing it. Mid-High end devices recommended, consider using the Natural technique. Bokeh Filtering Keep in mind that the Bokeh Filtering available in AB is not a replacement for DoF Bokeh effects, it’s a simple and lightweight complement for fast bloom based bokeh shape effects. Technique Realistic technique provides a robust method on preventing temporal stability, however it its more GPU intensive. Natural technique uses a simple bilinear upscale for each of the Mips, making it faster but not as good on preventing temporal stability issues. Consider using Natural technique on mobile platforms.