+4
Completed

Access to edge length information for tessellation purpose

Lionel Gallat 10 years ago updated by Cynicat Pro 10 years ago 9
As explained on this page: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/S... purely distance-based tessellation is not efficient, since meshes with small faces and ones with large faces would get the same amount of subdivision. Resulting in too much subdivision or not enough...

A much better way to do is to subdivide an edge as needed depending on its distance to the camera, rather than an entire mesh.That way, everything gets subdivided on a consistent, need-per-edge basis.

Please do consider adding the means to access edge length information into Shader Forge. Thank you.

Answer

Answer
Completed
Edge length tessellation has now been implemented in Beta 0.35 :)
Under review
This shouldn't be too hard to implement, but it will most likely be quite low priority, as tessellation is for quite a small audience, as well as it being a feature not really needed for the 1.0 release (Bugfixes are prioritized at the moment)
I understand. And I know that Unity is still widely regarded as an engine to develop little games for mobile phones. But I'm using it to develop a game called "Ghost of a Tale" and using Shader Forge to develop proper tessellation shaders is the reason why I bought it.

So I can only beg you to please not relegate that request to the bottom of the feature request list. Thank you!


Well, SF isn't aimed primarily for the mobile market, it is aimed for PC/Console titles aiming to push the visual quality, so don't worry :)
However, Tessellation is Windows only, which, these days, is quite a limiting factor to many developers nowadays with all the multiplatform initiatives, so they will simply avoid DX11 features for that reason.

For now, use the distance based calc I posted in the Unity forums - should work good enough if your mesh triangles are roughly the same size!
Yes, for now I'll use the distance graph you posted in the thread, thanks. And I just want to add that I really truly love SF. I wish it would have existed a year ago, when I was learning the basics of Unity.

If the Unity peeps have any clue they'll ask you to include SF as part of Unity, as it is in dire need of such an artist-friendly tool for developing shaders!
Thanks Lionel! It means a lot to me to hear. I'm glad you like it!
Just want to chime in and say this sounds like a really good idea! The Phong tessalation sounds interesting also!
I would also like to see this. i'm a programmer/3d artist and my art style can be best described if a final fantasy cutscene and dishonored had a lovechild. so edge tesselation would help a ton. allowing me some smooth detail scaling. while i understand the multiplatform initiative, most core gamers run on Windows(PC) and i would like to make my game look the best it can in unity even if that means some a few mac users cant run the feature.
Answer
Completed
Edge length tessellation has now been implemented in Beta 0.35 :)