Glow and Bloom Effects on iPhone

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Hey,

Is it possible to create glow and bloom effects for the iPhone that aren't performance killers? I'm assuming this would be a Pro feature with RenderToTexture, but I haven't tried it. I was just wondering if anyone had any good tips!

Thanks!

Wes

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by equalsequals · Nov 04, 2010 at 07:49 PM

In short, not really.

Post-Pass stuff is a general no-no for mobile devices, they just aren't equipped to handle that load and maintain a bearable framerate. iOS Pro does support it, but I have yet to see an implementation that really runs well.

Cheers

==

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The 3D Ninja · Nov 04, 2010 at 08:57 PM 0

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Thanks! I known that iOS Pro supports RenderTexture, but I also haven't seen it implemented in a usable example. Thanks for the input.

Cheers!

Answer 2

Answer by Grzegorz · Nov 05, 2010 at 12:00 PM

You can experiment with faking the bloom effect by using particle emmiter with addictive material for the particles, or few semi-transparent planes with additive material if you can predict when bloom effect should be happening. If you have fixed camera and a large bright area this solution might work. Adding a halo effect on the light may work as well.

Overall the Bloom effect and other post-processing effects require to have the Pixel Shader support(so it won't work on old iPhone models), and aren't cheap to render on the new iPhones as well(because it needs to render luma of each frame and then blur it and add to the result image). Hope this helps.

---Edit---

Or you can use as well a lens flare with one or two layers with additive textures. So it stays always oriented at the camera and fades out when you're not looking at it.

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The 3D Ninja · Nov 07, 2010 at 09:13 PM 0

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Thanks!These are great suggestions.

Answer 3

Answer by srmojuze · Aug 11, 2014 at 10:35 AM

Hi all as of mid-2014 with OpenGL ES 2 and OpenGL ES 3 Antialiasing, Bloom and Glow are feasible now.

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Mishaps · Jan 04, 2015 at 08:21 AM 0

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I tried the Bloom image-effect with OpenGL ES 3 and it doesn't work at all - the screen just goes black. ES2 works but the frame rate on an iPhone 6 is only 15fps! (60fps without bloom). Any tips how you made it feasible?

srmojuze · Jan 04, 2015 at 08:24 AM 0

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@Mishaps Try the different effects eg. Fast Bloom, Bloom or Bloom & Glow (Deprecated) using Unity 4.6 latest. Then also try turning off the MSAA, I found that it caused some weird issue. I found that a combination of the right "kind" of Bloom and the right MSAA setting (0, 2, etc) makes things work. All the best!

Mishaps · Jan 04, 2015 at 08:33 AM 0

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@srmojuze awesome thanks! I am on 4.5.5.p5 so I'll try upgrading. If you don't mind me asking, where did get your image-effects from? Just the "standard packages" in unity, sample assets on the Asset Store or somewhere else?

srmojuze · Jan 04, 2015 at 12:43 PM 0

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@Mishaps Hey, no worries. Yes, mainly standard packages from Unity Pro. However if you want hardcore awesome Bloom check out https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/jp/#!/publisher/7069 ...Sonic Ether is still PC only I think. I haven't used https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/22217 but that looks interesting for mobile.

Mishaps · Jan 04, 2015 at 11:37 PM 0

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@srmojuze I tried them all in unity 4.6 with no luck. Same 15fps with OpenGL ES2 and same black screen with ES3. Thanks for your help anyways! I might try asking this in its own thread on the forums or something, cheers :)

iPhone 6 Plus with OpenGL ES3 in Unity 4.6 Fast Bloom - blank screen Bloom - blank screen Amplify Color - blank screen BloomPro - blank screen SE Natural Bloom & Dirty Lens - needs HDR and doesn’t work on iOS

iPhone 6 Plus with OpenGL ES2 in Unity 4.6 Fast Bloom - 17fps Bloom - 16fps Amplify Color - 15fps BloomPro - 15fps SE Natural Bloom & Dirty Lens - needs HDR and doesn’t work on iOS

btw, when I get a black screen with ES3 Xcode is showing this error every time. OpenGLES error 0x0502 in (my project)/Xcode/Classes/Unity/GlesHelper.mm:373

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