Rocko Bonaparte posted:

Isn't there a _Time property I can use for that? Maybe I'll try that on some random mesh tonight just to see if I can make it work at all before even looking into trying to cram it into TextMesh Pro's thing.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

Check this poo poo out:

code:

fixed4 frag (v2f i) : SV_Target
{
	if (_Time.y % 0.1 > 0.05)
	{
		return fixed4(1.0, 0.1, 0.1, 0.5);
	}
	else
	{
		return fixed4(0.1, 0.1, 1.0, 0.5);
	}
}

I could post the whole thing but I don't see the point. I just used a blando vertex shader and then set up that disco inferno in the fragment shader. On any random cube this sets me up with some real fast red/blue flashing. I just wanted to do that to see if this whole _Time thing really could allow me to do time-based stuff in a shader.

Anyways, for this that may be playing along, there isn't anything in the "Text Mesh Pro UGUI" MonoBehaviour to tell it I'd like to sneak that script in. As far as I know, that addon's whole thing is that a lot of its coolness comes from the shaders it has implemented. I looked at the source tree for the plugin, found the shaders, and proceeded to melt off my face trying to figure out what was cooking in there.

Somebody's gotta tell me the bad news here, but I would have figured in YOOL 2018 you could stack up shaders and accumulate affects. I figured I'd like TextMesh Pro's SDF shader do its thing and then I'd come in afterwards and make it glitter. I still feel like I'm missing something there in the plumbing.

KillHour posted:

So I'm gonna kinda burst your bubble here, but the entire point of shaders is that they're slow but highly scalable. Meaning, doing math isn't as fast as on a processor but you can do that slow thing a whole bunch of times at once for "free". This would be very useful if each pixel had a different value, but when you're running the same equation a thousand times for the same answer, it's just a weird application for a shader. I know this is more of an "I want to do it this way because it's fun" thing, but you're kind of backing yourself in a corner - if you want to adjust the speed or the duration of the flashing you'll have to edit the shader (or pass a parameter in). Also remember that the time won't be offset from the start of the damage, it will be global so all flashing on screen will be in sync. I don't know if that's a positive or not though.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

I literally have the impression that the fixed-function pipeline was replaced with basically a default shader and there isn't much of a deal other than maybe some switch overhead in running a different one. This could be based on people that are literally assigning custom shaders to every surface in their game, which is definitely not what I'm doing.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

Yeah the end of this is I throw it out but I'm giving it a go. Especially the render texture thing. That's kind of dumb for flashing some text between two static colors, but it's good to know some crazy tricks sometimes.

Now assuming that I could have assigned a shader straight-on, is it really that much of a punch in the gut? I had thought this text would be run through something like a default shader anyways. When I change the material, I just replace it with a different one. Is that patently false?

I literally have the impression that the fixed-function pipeline was replaced with basically a default shader and there isn't much of a deal other than maybe some switch overhead in running a different one. This could be based on people that are literally assigning custom shaders to every surface in their game, which is definitely not what I'm doing.

Edit: I am also thankful for everybody putting up with the bullshit. I know this is an "X instead of Y" thing, but I hope you all can appreciate sometimes knowing how to cram X into something sideways is useful--even if it's just in being able to realize that's what you're doing.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

What Unity type should I use in some abstractions for drawing 2d icons? I am just using textures, but I wonder about animated icons and other effects. Should I just go for GameObjects? All I really need to do with them in the abstractions is show them, hide them, and move them around.

leper khan posted:

UnityEngine.UI.Image
?

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

I haven't played with any sprites in Unity but I'm going to assume I can have animated 2d icons with those. I mean, it's a sprite. That's probably the normal, good thing I should be using. Now let's say I'm stupid--a safe assumption--and wanted to superimpose 3d as 2d elements. First--is that just a pain in the rear end I should avoid? Second, ... what should I use as a base for that?

Suspicious Dish posted:

delaunay triangulation is O(n^3). and often times, a lot of triangles is a bad case for rasterization. there's other algorithms which might be faster (e.g. lorenzetto http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.11.4259&rep=rep1&type=pdf ), but r&d is ongoing.

and then you also have to do grid fitting / stem darkening for legibility at small sizes. honestly for lots of small shapes cpu rasterization extremely outperforms gpu rasterization, especially when you can do curve interpolation on the cpu.

Stick100 posted:

That means it will be integrated into the editor shortly.

xgalaxy posted:

This works really well FYI:
http://sluglibrary.com

Obsurveyor posted:

*sigh* 1 step forward, million steps back. They really should be integrating less stuff into the editor and pulling poo poo out, not more and more.

Obsurveyor posted:

*sigh* 1 step forward, million steps back. They really should be integrating less stuff into the editor and pulling poo poo out, not more and more.

Strumpy posted:

Shipped via package manager so it's basically optionally there and can be updated out of stream with Unity main product.

Rocko Bonaparte posted:

I wonder if the rest of the ProTools suite will be included in that. IIRC I think it's ProGrids that keeps me from going nuts.

Brownie posted:

1) Build a small game using Unreal/Unity/Godot
2) Try building my own "engine" and render some small, barely interactive area
3) Contribute to an open source project and try to grab tasks related to rendering

More background:
I've already written a few WebGL projects and stuff using a high-level wrapper library that provides a scene graph implementation and abstracts away almost all the actual WebGL API calls. I have a physics background and I've taken a graphics course at the local university so I'm pretty comfortable with the math involved (although if you asked me to write the projection transformation matrix I'd still have to look it up).

Brownie posted:

Hey guys, I'm interested in switching careers from Web Development (which I've been doing for ~2.5 years professionally) to graphics/engine development. Hopefully this is a good place to ask for some insight into how best to do that.

I'm trying to figure out what sort of project I should take on that would be both an effective way to force myself to learn and results in something I can show off as a portfolio piece. The types of things that get me really excited are things like: subsurface scattering, GPU particle systems, deferred rendering of glass etc. I'm currently just trying to learn a bit of Vulkan and OpenGL (I also have to decide which one to commit myself more fully to ).

The options to me are basically:
1) Build a small game using Unreal/Unity/Godot
2) Try building my own "engine" and render some small, barely interactive area
3) Contribute to an open source project and try to grab tasks related to rendering

The problem with #1 is that my impression of Unreal/Unity is that their rendering pipelines are largely out of your control and already come with stuff like PBR, post-processing etc. so I wouldn't actually be able to learn/demonstrate the things I'm most interested in. But maybe that's just incorrect, or is less important than having familiarity with the game engine.

On the other hand, the problem with #2 is that game engines are huge and even creating a minimal example is a ton of work, especially once you want to do anything other than load all your buffers onto the GPU and move the camera around. I'm still happy to do the work but I'm just afraid of spending a lot of time re-inventing the simplest wheel instead of actually producing more current and interesting effects. The other problem is that I'm not sure what people would be most interested in seeing -- a scene graph implementation? A solid post-processing pipeline? A working deferred renderer? With enough time I'd love to do all of these things but I feel like I need to manage my goals and time, especially starting out.

With #3 it feels like it'd be premature to become a domain expert in some OSS engine instead of having more experience with all the different parts of a GL/Vulkan pipeline.

More background:
I've already written a few WebGL projects and stuff using a high-level wrapper library that provides a scene graph implementation and abstracts away almost all the actual WebGL API calls. I have a physics background and I've taken a graphics course at the local university so I'm pretty comfortable with the math involved (although if you asked me to write the projection transformation matrix I'd still have to look it up).

Brownie posted:

Love Stole the Day posted:

I spend a lot of time with Unreal. A lot of the technical employees for the company that makes Unreal are non-American, and they strongly encourage people who contribute pull requests to the open source repo on Github (https://github.com/EpicGames/UnrealEngine) to apply to their engineer job openings whenever they're hiring for them. Maybe get started trying to contribute to the Unreal Engine instead of trying to make your own is what I would do if I were in your shoes and wanted to do that stuff.

It seems like it would sort of combine all 3 of your options into one.

Brownie posted:

Thanks a lot for the help everyone. I think I'll look into unreal and try to make a nice looking demo and aim to eventually help out with a PR.

Really appreciate the insight.

Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:

I recently came across a guy who streams art tutorials, and creates free assets for people to use. He has a Patreon, but it isn't getting any love. I'd like to spread around $50 or $100/month to support things like that. Can anyone here suggest good graphics and programming streams/tutors/content creators that I can donate to? I am especially interested in supporting people who are creating free-to-use graphics assets, but I love all kinds of programming and game/utility-themed content.

Is there a graphics-specific thread where it might also be appropriate to post this?

Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:

I recently came across a guy who streams art tutorials, and creates free assets for people to use. He has a Patreon, but it isn't getting any love. I'd like to spread around $50 or $100/month to support things like that. Can anyone here suggest good graphics and programming streams/tutors/content creators that I can donate to? I am especially interested in supporting people who are creating free-to-use graphics assets, but I love all kinds of programming and game/utility-themed content.

Is there a graphics-specific thread where it might also be appropriate to post this?