Next-Gen Soft-Shadows
NGSS, enhances scene shadows with new tools, algorithms, and optimizations. Used in top titles, it offers cinematic quality shadows in real-time without performance issues. Supports up to Unity 2023+.
The next iteration of the smoothest and fastest dynamic soft-shadows solution for Unity is here. Easier to integrate, faster to render, prettier than previous versions! Featuring powerful new tools, shadowing algorithms, optimizations and user friendly self-descriptive light components to improve the quality of your scene lighting. NGSS is the complete shadows replacement plugin for Unity, being used in top open world titles such as Facepunch Rust, Amplify Creations Decay Of Logos and many others. NGSS is the one stop go to skyrocket your projects shadows quality to cinematic CGI levels without any performance drawback, real time! Everyone agreed, this is how Unity shadows should look like!
Shadows algorithms:
A PCSS filter (Area-like soft-shadows) and a PCF filter (uniform soft-shadows). A powerful denoiser that skyrockets the base filters, acting as a separable filter and features screen space infinite Frustum Shadows with bilateral filtering and edge tolerance. Chose between blue noise or dithering. Samplers are stabilized at screen-space thus the shadow samplers jitters less while being Temporal friendly.
Optimizations:
NGSS uses the least amount of sampling to filter out shadows while skipping fully lit or fully shadowed areas making it one of the fastest solution on the market for realistic penumbra shadows.
Inspirations:
NGSS features a ground-breaking combination of kernel filters mainly based on Monte Carlo. The result is a high quality smothered dynamic penumbra shadows similar to raytraced shadows with superior banding and aliasing removal, making extremely tiny shadowmaps look outstanding.
The package
Comes with one Wizard tool to install NGSS internal shadow libraries and is one click to install and one click to uninstall. Both Local shadows and Directional shadows provides it's own libraries, they are independent from each other. NGSS provides shadow components to attach to your scene lights (all lights) that allow you to tweak shadow properties such as quality, softness opacity, etc at runtime.
Finally, NGSS replaces Unity shadows libraries internally, this allow NGSS to behave the same way as Unity shadows while being compatible with any packages on the AssetStore that uses the Standard (built-in) renderer.
Shadow Features:
- Frustum Shadows (screen space traced) with bilateral filtering for all lights types
- A powerful denoiser that act as a separable shadow filter on top of the base filter (multiplying the quality for free)
- PCSS (area-like soft-shadows) and PCF (uniform soft-shadows) filtering for all lights
- AR/VR support for all shadows
- Full Shadows on all platforms where Unity supports shadows (requires SM3.0 or up)
- Cascade Blending on all shadow projections
- Inline sampling support. Avoids duplicating RenderTextures, uses built-in lights depthmaps
- Filter Quality Set: from 4 up to 128 samplers (scales from mobile up to cinematic CG)
- Fast Shadows. Using custom aggressive early bailing out algorithms. Soften shadows only in the penumbra area, skip fragments that are fully lit or fully occluded.
- Fall back do built-in Hard-Shadows without uninstalling libraries
- Bonus, custom shadows bias for all
Supported platforms:
Works locally by installing NGSS libraries or with remote cloud builds system by including the libraries directly into your shaders. Easy and quick setup.
Not compatible with DX9 and GLES1/2!
Compatible with AR/VR, DX11, DX12, PS4, XB1, SWITCH, GLCore, GLES3.0, Metal, Vulkan or equivalent APIs.
Requires a minimum of SM3.0 on supported APIs.
Supported Unity versions:
Unity 2017 up to 2023 (Built-in Renderer only). HDRP & URP support coming in the future.
Support:
- Stellar customer support. Custom inquiries and code modification for free. Most requests are answered almost instantly. Three years ago v1 launched, many updates and features implemented since then and lot of happy customers!
