#Help needed with custom rendering on Godot 4. Is it possible to implement my own rendering pipeline?

14 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

gritty glade
#

I started with godot about a year ago, but got back to Unity due to some things bothering me, specially with C# support on Godot.
Most, if not all of those problems seem to have been fixed on Godot 4 so i'm really considering coming back to it.

However, in the mean time i've found this: https://youtu.be/ZsMHY4LDyRE about rendering 3d objects as pixel art and following catlikecoding tutorials for Unity i've made a good progress on making my own rendering pipeline to achieve such effects. The only thing stopping me now from switching to godot(again '-') is being able to keep working on my own renderer on the engine.
I've seen a RenderingServer and RenderingDevice on the Godot API and they seem to do what i need but there's no usage examples on them so i'm not really sure what they're capable of and how would i do anything with them and also, the API on the RenderingServer states that it is "completely opaque" so i wouldn't even be able to customize it.

Also, I've seen some people on reddit say that with the Godot 4 API, a custom rendering pipeline should be possible, but there's no documentation for it. Can anyone help me understand the current state of this part of the engine?

YouTube
t3ssel8r
Pixel Art Shader Updates

Date of Recording: 2021-01-22

It's been a while since the last update from before the holidays. Several things have been in the works, including a fairly involved procedural terrain generator that deserves its own explanation video some day. Here we are showing off the improvement to the main pixel art shader including light-aware edge colorati...

▶ Play video
shadow junco
gritty glade
#

This is a great start and i've tweaked it a bit already for more satisfying results

But i still need more info on Godot shaders.
Some that come to my mind right now are:

  • Get directional, point and spot light information on shaders so i can implement my own lighting

  • Customize Shadow Sampling and/or custom render passes (i might need to defer sampling shadows to a later stage or add a new rendering pass for some objects. Still figuring some thing out)

  • Custom light sources and particle lighting

  • Custom post processings(the repo you linked is already a starting point for that, but better documentation would be great)

  • Edit scene view rendering. I will need custom tools and be able to preview some things

image.png
shadow junco
#

I've made my own implementation, looks like this :D

image.png
shadow junco
#

If you can fit all information within these 24 bits you can add all kinds of custom effects, including custom shadow and light processing

gritty glade
#

do you have resources to get started with it?

shadow junco
#

Im quite new myself, I've only began using the engine. The best resource by far is docs.godotengine.org, and if you want to take a closer look at the rendering function I recommend looking at the render server in the source code. Almost all C++ methods are accessible via gdscript, allowing you to interface with the lower layers directly.

#

Any form of multistage pipeline will use either of the following to apply effects: the material nextPass feature (allows you to run a second shader pass), full screen quads with low rendering priority that read screen space data, or subviewports

#

If there is any specific effect you would like to archive, feel free to tell me and Ill see how it could be implemented

gaunt dawn
#

@shadow junco - I've been following this shader (and other outline shaders in general) and I would love to see how this one could be modified to work the same, but without the pixel style processing. Something more crisp. My project is going for a very illustrative/cartoony style and we're hoping to find a shader/post-processing solution that gives us crisp, modifiable outlines at the outer edges and especially where meshes intersect one another.

#

Being able to also tune the minimum normal angle threshold that should produce an intersection/outer outline would also be awesome.

#

(Since we don't want outlines at really shallow/obtuse angles)