The Seven Voyages Of Steve
Refined my camera "occlusion cutout" shader a bit more, happier with the results now. This is surprisingly difficult to do well, there are all sorts of edge cases for every technique. I use an approximation of a projected capsule using screen space and depth, with some noise to make the edges more interesting #indiegame #unrealengine
Dec 3, 2024 at 2:25pmWeb
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveDec 3, 2024

Although in our lobby where it's all hand designed meshes, I'm using the cutout to eliminate occlusions, in the game itself I'm not doing that because it's a mining game, and you need to see all the walls you can mine! So I have a "behind geometry" silhouette for that. We may still use the cutout for other kinds of non-mineable / decorative geometry, they can work together

Edit: oops forgot to strip the audio I was listening to out, that's not the game soundtrack 🤣

Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveDec 3, 2024
And of course everyone gets their own silhouette colour! This is derived from chosen player skins (4 players but 6 colour variants to choose from with each skin)
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveDec 3, 2024
Here's an example of both occlusion effects working together - the outer wall is cut out using one effect, and the occluded part of the character is highlighted in silhouette with the other. This way we can choose what to chop out of the way and what to leave in but still let the player know where they are.
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveDec 3, 2024
(You can also tell objects not to generate this outline when in front of characters, eg small objects that would produce weird effects passing in front quickly or something)
Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveDec 4, 2024
I've refined my silhouetting a bit more, it was a bit "busy" to have it on for all characters (and special objects) all the time when they were behind walls, so instead it now does a slightly subtler version for *only* the local player character when they're behind geometry. There is also a "ping" button, which highlights other players and important objects in a much less subtle outlined silhouette (used for locating stuff)
Show threadCalicoday Dec 3, 2024
@sinbad Love this, both the occlusion cutout and the behind geometry outline.
Show threadMathieu AgopianDec 3, 2024
@sinbad this looks NEAT! Very well done, congratz! So much eye candy <3
Show threadJeremiah FieldhavenDec 3, 2024
@sinbad That looks great!
Show threadLRDec 3, 2024

@sinbad nice.

some nintendo games do this on an object-level basis (simple dither-based transparency) to avoid the cases where they look hollow, which is also sometimes evident in your demo.

if you wanted to avoid the hollowing-issue completely you'd have to lead your "cone" exactly parallel along the ray lines... but idk if that wouldn't look too flat... some dithering at the edges could be used to make that cone smooth out more... it could work as a 2d z-buffer pass in NDC. just a stencil.

Show threadThe Seven Voyages Of SteveDec 3, 2024
@lritter Yeah I'm ok with the hollowing, it looks OK I think. Object-based dithering limits you to smaller objects than we need
Show threadsimonoliverDec 3, 2024
@sinbad looks amazing! 🤩