Glow & other post processing - iPhone / OpenGL ES1.1 and ES2.0 performance / work arounds?

Question

I was planning on purchasing Unity Pro to use glow effects for iPhone on a game I am creating that uses Tron like visuals with sci-fi glow on the gameObjects.

I have just realized whilst changing the Graphics emulation settings, that ES1.1 does not support this effect at all and after reading this post: http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/26246/glow-and-bloom-effects-on-iphone I am wondering if these effects will be usable at all due to performance, even on the latest iOS devices?

Unity is my first hands on programming with 3d, so my knowledge of shaders and materials is limited at the moment, however I am keen to learn what I can achieve with them. Perhaps this effect can be faked without the need for post processing for example. Can anyone give me some advice on how to best make glows on 3d objects for mobile devices?

Thanks in advance,

Dave

Answer 1

Answer by Recluse · Sep 16, 2011 at 12:02 PM

Presumably you want to use ES1.1 because of compatibility with older devices, so perhaps you should try to approximate the effect within Unity itself.

I attach a Lens Flare or Halo to objects I want to emit a glow (like Pickups etc). It works well on iPhone, performance wise - even my old iPhone 3 can handle it. It's not quite your post-process glowing edge FX, but it does the trick well enough for the small screen.

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PrimeDerektive · Sep 16, 2011 at 01:23 PM 0

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You could also write a mobile-friendly shader for fake glow... basically just rim lighting from the light direction of the main scene light. I wrote this one: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14673841/toonramprim.jpg

Glow & other post processing - iPhone / OpenGL ES1.1 and ES2.0 performance / work arounds?

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