Blend Cubemaps in reflection probe

Question

I am trying to make a reflection probe render once every second, and blend between the old render and the new one. See how it looks like in Zelda BOTW: https://twitter.com/brainchildlight/status/937439281890467840

.

I am currently only able to render once every second, but not blend between the old and new cubemap. It instantly swaps to the new one. I found the ReflectionProbe.BlendCubemap function but have had no success with it. Most attempts I make crash Unity, and since there are a grand total of zero examples of it being used online I have a hard time even figuring out if it is the way to go.

I am hoping not to have to rely on blending the cubemaps inside the shader since I want this to work on all objects with all kinds of materials, not just certain ones which are blend-approved...

Here's some of the code I've tried, which in my mind should probably work. All it does is render a new reflection every second with no blending. But as I said there isn't really that much information available about this stuff so I have a hard time to figure out what I am doing wrong.

 public class PlayerReflectionProbe : MonoBehaviour
     {
         private float timer;
         public float updateTime = 1f;
         private ReflectionProbe thisProbe;
         public Texture oldCubemap;
         public Texture newCubemap;
         private RenderTexture finalCubemap;
         public float blend = 0.5f;
         public RenderTexture render;
 
         void Awake()
         {
             // Set up reflection probe component.
             if (thisProbe == null)
             {
                 thisProbe = GetComponent<ReflectionProbe>();
             }
             // Set up final texture diplayed by render probe.
             render = new RenderTexture(128, 128, 0);
             render.dimension = UnityEngine.Rendering.TextureDimension.Cube;
             render.useMipMap = true;
             thisProbe.customBakedTexture = render;
         }
 
         // Update is called once per frame
         void Update()
         {
             // Blend between old and new.
             ReflectionProbe.BlendCubemap(oldCubemap, newCubemap, blend, render);
 
             // Assign final render to probe ???
             thisProbe.customBakedTexture = render;
 
             // Update blend
             blend -= Time.deltaTime;
             if (blend <= 0f)
                 blend = 1f;
 
             // Render new once every second, and save old render.
             timer += Time.deltaTime;
             if (timer >= updateTime)
             {
                 oldCubemap = thisProbe.texture;
 
                 thisProbe.RenderProbe();
                 newCubemap = thisProbe.texture;
 
                 timer = 0f;
             }
         }
     }

Any help at all is greatly appreciated

Answer 1

Here is some code I made a while ago that I forgot about that basically does what you asked, and also has a bunch of features. I forget how exactly you use it, but I tested it and it works fine for me. When set to medium, it updates the cubemap every n seconds, and interpolates to it smoothly. At high, it just updates every frame. At low, I think it just uses the skybox.

 public class ReflectionProbeBlender : MonoBehaviour {
 
     public ReflectionProbe outputProbe;
     public ReflectionProbe samplerProbe;
     public ReflectionProbe previousProbe;
     public LayerMask cullingMask;
     public ReflectionRes lowReflectionResolution;
     public ReflectionRes mediumReflectionResolution;
     public ReflectionRes highReflectionResolution;
     private ReflectionRes currentReflectionRes;
     public float updateReflectionEveryNSeconds = 1f;
     public WaterReflectionQuality reflectionQuality;
     private float updateTimer;
     private RenderTexture blendedTexture;
     public enum ReflectionRes
     {
         _16,
         _32,
         _64,
         _128,
         _256,
         _512,
         _1024,
         _2048
     };
     public enum WaterReflectionQuality
     {
         Low,
         Medium,
         High
     };
     private int resolution;
     private int GetReflectionRes(ReflectionRes res)
     {
         switch (res)
         {
             case ReflectionRes._16:
                 return 16;
             case ReflectionRes._32:
                 return 32;
             case ReflectionRes._64:
                 return 64;
             case ReflectionRes._128:
                 return 128;
             case ReflectionRes._256:
                 return 256;
             case ReflectionRes._512:
                 return 512;
             case ReflectionRes._1024:
                 return 1024;
             case ReflectionRes._2048:
                 return 2048;
             default:
                 return 16;
         }
     }
 
     private void Start()
     {
         
         if (!UnityEngine.QualitySettings.realtimeReflectionProbes)
         {
             reflectionQuality = WaterReflectionQuality.Low;
         }
         samplerProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Realtime;
         previousProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Realtime;
         switch (reflectionQuality)
         {
             case WaterReflectionQuality.Low:
                 currentReflectionRes = lowReflectionResolution;   
                 samplerProbe.cullingMask = 0;
                 previousProbe.cullingMask = 0;
                 outputProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Custom;
                 samplerProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Realtime;
                 previousProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Realtime;
                 samplerProbe.refreshMode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeRefreshMode.OnAwake;
                 previousProbe.refreshMode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeRefreshMode.OnAwake;
                 outputProbe.customBakedTexture = samplerProbe.texture;
                 break;
             case WaterReflectionQuality.Medium:
                 currentReflectionRes = mediumReflectionResolution;
                 samplerProbe.cullingMask = cullingMask;
                 previousProbe.cullingMask = cullingMask;
                 outputProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Custom;
                 samplerProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Realtime;
                 previousProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Realtime;
                 samplerProbe.refreshMode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeRefreshMode.ViaScripting;
                 previousProbe.refreshMode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeRefreshMode.ViaScripting;
                 break;
             case WaterReflectionQuality.High:
                 currentReflectionRes = highReflectionResolution;
                 samplerProbe.enabled = false;
                 previousProbe.enabled = false;
                 outputProbe.mode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeMode.Realtime;
                 outputProbe.refreshMode = UnityEngine.Rendering.ReflectionProbeRefreshMode.EveryFrame;
                 break;
         }
         resolution = GetReflectionRes(currentReflectionRes);
         blendedTexture = new RenderTexture(resolution, resolution, 0, RenderTextureFormat.ARGBHalf);
         blendedTexture.isCubemap = true;
         blendedTexture.useMipMap = true;
 
         outputProbe.resolution = resolution;
         samplerProbe.resolution = resolution;
         previousProbe.resolution = resolution;
     }
 
     private void LateUpdate()
     {
         if(reflectionQuality == WaterReflectionQuality.Medium)
         {
             updateReflections();
         }
     }
     private void updateReflections()
     {
         updateTimer += Time.deltaTime;
         if (updateTimer >= updateReflectionEveryNSeconds)
         {
             updateTimer -= updateReflectionEveryNSeconds;
             //samplerProbe.RenderProbe();
             ReflectionProbe temp = previousProbe;
             previousProbe = samplerProbe;
             samplerProbe = temp;
             samplerProbe.RenderProbe();
         }
         //Debug.Log
         ReflectionProbe.BlendCubemap(previousProbe.texture, samplerProbe.texture, updateTimer / updateReflectionEveryNSeconds, blendedTexture);
         outputProbe.customBakedTexture = blendedTexture;
     }
 }

Blend Cubemaps in reflection probe

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