How to achieve this lvl of graphics quality?

[stark pollen]

I'm trying to achieve graphics like this image. It looks clean, with volume, great lighting/shadows, no pixelations or mesh artifacts. Is there some specific flow/shader/setting I'm missing? Or just hdrp with 8k textures that will make the pc explode?

[torpid temple]

90% is just good assets for that angle/zoom.

[nimble pine]

Resolution is not the deciding factor, even if those might be high resolution texture maps with a high poly mesh
What matters is that they're well made PBR maps/materials, rendered with properly set up lighting

The material might use tessellation, or the mesh matches the textured features very well which gives it good depth and self shadowing

Light is passing through the leaves so they're using subsurface scattering

Indirect light from the brightly colored floor can be seen illumating the shadowy side of the trunk, meaning global illumination has been set up for the scene
If light and exposure values or post processing in general are not set up right no material will look all that good

[torpid temple]

Yeah, the only special feature I see is subsurface scattering, which is available in the standard hdrp shader iirc.

[nimble pine]

Hard to say what you're "missing" without knowing what you have

[torpid temple]

Also, the screenshot is extremely blurry, which probably hides issues, so it's not entirely clear, but I think some textures are not all that high res. If you look at the moss on the tree, it looks pretty low res.

[nimble pine]

The screenshot also doesn't tell us at all how optimized that particular asset is
Oftentimes a lot of detail like these are lost when the game needs a whole forest of trees

[stark pollen]

Thanks for the replies, the specific example is from unreal but i guess similar rules apply. Is this achievable with realtime light? Is there a way to maintain this quality while optimizing for performance? I think unreal uses nanite for that

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnrealEngine5/s/bXhvZBlSjh

[lime pollen]

Unity doesn't have (out of the box) something like nanite.
You can use HDRP tessellation shaders to "add" geometric details to meshes though.
But yes, you can achieve this level of rendering with realtime lights and high quality assets.

[stark pollen]

thank u, is there any relative guide for setting up lighting for such a result?

[lime pollen]

Honestly, the lighting in the video is very basic, looks like a simple directional light and the basic environment from Unreal.

[stark pollen]

also, some shaders have slots for many different maps, is there a bare minimum needed for the realism? i usually go with base/normal/height/AO/smoothness

[lime pollen]

Well, that's bare minimum and what is required for PBR rendering, any other maps will add for more specific features (SSS, anisotropy, clear coat ...)
Maybe also look at the detail map to add higher frequency information when looking the object from very close.

[stark pollen]

i never understood what info the detail map has exactly

[lime pollen]

Depends of the render pipeline, but in HDRP : https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition@17.5/manual/Mask-Map-and-Detail-Map.html#detail-map

[stark pollen]

how do i decide if i should use the normal version of effects or their screen space version? like GI, AO, shadows reflections etc

as i understand the screen space versions look better but are heavier

[lime pollen]

Well, the big tradeoff from screen space effect is that ... they are ... screen space...
Meaning that they won't work for anything that is not visible on screen during the frame. Also usually they are based on the depth buffer information and won't work with transparent objects.

Usually they are used complementary with regular effects, SS falling back to regular if depth tracing fails for example in SSR. SS effects add more details to regular effect.

[nimble pine]

Compared to static GI, AO, shadows and reflections they are more expensive, but may fare better in small details and don't require baking, though being limited to screen space
Dynamic variants of those effects are significantly more expensive

[stark pollen]

why is it a trade off? why would i want them to affect things out of the screen? arent they culled anyway?

yea im on the dynamic side im just tryna figure if the visual diff is worth the performance drop

[nimble pine]

Reflections frequently need to reveal objects behind you or behind other objects, but instead they must cut off in screen space
Same problem with AO and GI

[stark pollen]

i see so AO and GI dont have the proper input to work properly?

but then why does raytracing need ss shadows

[nimble pine]

Not perfectly, but it may still be worth it

[stark pollen]

ok so ill just enable SS if the diff is enough to excuse the fps drop

[nimble pine]

I don't recall if it does but iirc ray traced GI is built on top of screen space GI, for technical reasons or otherwise
Could be that it's meant to work in tandem with screen space or contact shadows likewise

[stark pollen]

well all SS effects add a small bit of weigth but when i enable rtx it completely destroys the performance

[nimble pine]

RTX does, or SS effects together with RTX do?

[stark pollen]

70fps with SS only, 25fps when i add rtx

and although ive played alot with the settings the scene still looks like shit

the grass and trees are low quality ofc but i dont like the lighting at all

[nimble pine]

Ray tracing, and almost anything to do with dynamic realtime GI is super expensive
And inaccurate and slow on top of that

I would instead leverage baked GI to its full extent

The only thing that negatively sticks out to me about the lighting is that the trees don't occlude the ambient light or reflections at all

It's a very evenly lit dreary scene, so that aspect of it is not a technical issue

[stark pollen]

Everything is procedural so i cant bake anything. How do i fix the thing about the trees? I tried everything

Btw there are cloud shadows that might affect it

[stark pollen]

this is without cloud shadows

does unity have non-ss global illumination?

[lime pollen]

URP has surface cache GI, but URP only.
HDRP has raytraced GI, but as you've figured out, it's costly.
And like you've said that everything is dynamic, you can't use baked GI either 🤷

[stark pollen]

any idea if some custom solutions like HTrace can work?

[thorn quarry]

Try RTGI at half resolution

I don't know what kind of hardware you have but I have it running at 60fps on an RTX 3060...

[full escarp]

I think the fog is kinda bland and uniform and heavily contributing to the 'turok 2' vibes.

[stark pollen]

Any advice on how to fix that? Dunno if hdrp fog can be non uniform or whatever the opposite of bland fog is

[full escarp]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZnh69vUifk

Most important step is actually the 'looking at real photos,' funnily enough

[stark pollen]

very helpful thanks tons!

[stark pollen]

any idea why the shadows are so faded? ive disabled cloud shadows and set dimmer to 1 but they r still too weak

[stark pollen]

nvm it was the fog