koobas.hobune.stream
Is it possible to alter the shadow rendering pipeline?
I'd like to implement this: http://www.vrvis.at/publications/pdfs/PB-VRVis-2009-022.pdf
tl;dr: It's a technique of rendering accurate soft shadows with very little cost. Instead of rendering multiple shadow maps with different offsets every frame, it renders them over time, accumulating the result in a buffer, which is then used for the lighting pass. This results in high quality shadows with dynamic lights that don't move rapidly, such as the sun crossing the sky.
So, is it possible, targeting for deferred path, to modify the Unity's rendering pipeline to allow me to store a persistent buffer to accumulate the shadows? I'm aware of the Hidden/Internal-PrePassCollectShadows shader, but how can I pass it such a buffer, and more importantly, store the output so it can be passed to it again the next frame?
Thanks for any and all help!
Alright.. I'm a bit disappointed.. one would think such a powerful engine allows for some amount of control over the backend for those who understand it. What if I want to fiddle with the insides to optimize the rendering for my user case or go with a completely custom rendering path altogether? What if a new faster / better algorithm is revealed and I want to implement it, but whoops, I can't, because this engine has zero level of control? You can't just assume things.
I'm afraid what you're asking will never become reality.
(I$$anonymous$$O) Unity will never release access to stuff like the rendering pipeline etc. For what you're asking means that basically Unity would become "Open Source".
Saying that this engine has "zero level of control" is just bs. Unity is a very high level tool, and you have to treat it as such! If you want more control, feel free to use an open source game engine, and build from there :P
Hope this helps,
Benproductions1
