Well, in my current hobby game project me and my friend are at the point of improving the visuals. At the moment we are trying to utilise some outline shaders to push the art in a more stylized direction. Outline shaders are always controversial, so one of us is more or less against them, the other thinks that it helps improving the available assets.
We agreed on letting some other folks take a look at it and help us with some crits. Comments and crits on the following comparision shots would be appreciated (the shots are without any AA applied yet).
That outline is subtle enough- but anything more than that typically looks like garbage. So keep it subtle.
I think this looks good though, so screw that one guy, and just use the outline shader, haha.
good luck once you add some particles
unless they are alpha tested and therefore get a sorting, all your outline will render in front on them, or whater, or anything with a transparent shader
With the way your lighting, texturing, post effects and everything are set up it looks fairly blurry and gooey without the outline defining the forms. It looks good in my opinion.
EDIT: As Axios said, there should be a lot more definition in your textures.
I'm gonna agree with axios and jmt on the definition of textures, But i'll have to say outline. Feels like a bit more "strength" in the pictures with outline. Feels like your plants should be falling over in the non outlined pictures. Feels less rubbery with outlines. JMO
With the way your lighting, texturing, post effects and everything are set up it looks fairly blurry and gooey without the outline defining the forms. It looks good in my opinion.
EDIT: As Axios said, there should be a lot more definition in your textures.
If you're going to do an outline (which I think could really help the scene provided it's subtle), you should have it a shade darker and possibly even a slightly different hue than the texture it outlines.
Not exactly sure how you would make a shader or whatever for it but... that's how it should be done! :icon15:
Edit: of course it's not always this simple, but you have to think of what kind of material is going to be outlined. For example, some outlines might need to be brighter, or a completely different color depending on the lighting in the scene or just the nature of the material. For simple stuff like planes with alpha channels you could just create the outline in the texture (for example grass).
@Neox:
Yes, I know what you mean. I fought this by using an alpha mask of the rendered particles to smooth down the outline effect.
Here's a comparision shot (the fire effect has been pushed up for demonstration purpose), the upper shot is without considering particles, the bottom shot is by using the alpha mask shown in the bottom-right corner:
@nordahl154:
Instead of using a simple color I use a darkened, blurred version of the scene to take my outline from. This has the benefit of fitting much better with bloom (the outlines get even brighter). An other feature is to fade out the outline effect with distance.
Here's an other comparision shot. In the upper image I just use black as outline color without distance tuning, in the bottom shot you can see the effect on bloom (left arrow) and distance (right arrow). In the middle is the darkened, blurred version of the scene.
I like the outline. Just comparing the with and without, I think with the outline improves the readability of your scenes a lot. It's probably true that with more texture work you might not need the outlines, but, as things are now, if you don't have time to change a bunch of assets then the outline seems like a smart thing to go for.
@Neox:
Yes, I know what you mean. I fought this by using an alpha mask of the rendered particles to smooth down the outline effect.
Here's a comparision shot (the fire effect has been pushed up for demonstration purpose), the upper shot is without considering particles, the bottom shot is by using the alpha mask shown in the bottom-right corner:
@nordahl154:
Instead of using a simple color I use a darkened, blurred version of the scene to take my outline from. This has the benefit of fitting much better with bloom (the outlines get even brighter). An other feature is to fade out the outline effect with distance.
Here's an other comparision shot. In the upper image I just use black as outline color without distance tuning, in the bottom shot you can see the effect on bloom (left arrow) and distance (right arrow). In the middle is the darkened, blurred version of the scene.
uh nice trick, how do you generate - ah nevermind i thought you've been using udk, i assume you are using a custom engine?
on the coloured outline, you could blur the image and slightly add this on top of your outline to give it a tint
uh nice trick, how do you generate - ah nevermind i thought you've been using udk, i assume you are using a custom engine?
on the coloured outline, you could blur the image and slightly add this on top of your outline to give it a tint
Yes, I've written the engine. And yes, I'm doing exactly this, adding slightly the blurred image on top of the black outlines (the blurred image is infact a bright pass ).
Outline! Adds a little more definition to the objects. Would it be possible to use thick and thin lines depending on the objects view? For example put a slightly thinner outline on the object and a thicker one around the silhouette. Also agree about colouring the outline to match the objects diffuse colour
Replies
I think this looks good though, so screw that one guy, and just use the outline shader, haha.
unless they are alpha tested and therefore get a sorting, all your outline will render in front on them, or whater, or anything with a transparent shader
EDIT: As Axios said, there should be a lot more definition in your textures.
Without OL the textures look boring. But WITH them it really gets some interesting style.
+1 outline
this
Not exactly sure how you would make a shader or whatever for it but... that's how it should be done! :icon15:
Edit: of course it's not always this simple, but you have to think of what kind of material is going to be outlined. For example, some outlines might need to be brighter, or a completely different color depending on the lighting in the scene or just the nature of the material. For simple stuff like planes with alpha channels you could just create the outline in the texture (for example grass).
@Neox:
Yes, I know what you mean. I fought this by using an alpha mask of the rendered particles to smooth down the outline effect.
Here's a comparision shot (the fire effect has been pushed up for demonstration purpose), the upper shot is without considering particles, the bottom shot is by using the alpha mask shown in the bottom-right corner:
@nordahl154:
Instead of using a simple color I use a darkened, blurred version of the scene to take my outline from. This has the benefit of fitting much better with bloom (the outlines get even brighter). An other feature is to fade out the outline effect with distance.
Here's an other comparision shot. In the upper image I just use black as outline color without distance tuning, in the bottom shot you can see the effect on bloom (left arrow) and distance (right arrow). In the middle is the darkened, blurred version of the scene.
uh nice trick, how do you generate - ah nevermind i thought you've been using udk, i assume you are using a custom engine?
on the coloured outline, you could blur the image and slightly add this on top of your outline to give it a tint