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Depthy.me / Wiggle.js - 2D/sudo 3D Backgrounds
I have been scratching my head playing with "Look Development" for a game concept.
My first urge was for 2D Paintings + Depth Map for sudo 3D backgrounds.
My first urge was for 2D Paintings + Depth Map for sudo 3D backgrounds.
First I had to make a "depth map", and googled "Depth Map Generator", and quickly enough found the most amazing tool, Depthy.me !
I am not affiliated with Depthy.me, but if you try it out, basically you upload your background image, and paint whether image pixels should be far away or closer to view. With a little effort you can make your background look alive!
I am not affiliated with Depthy.me, but if you try it out, basically you upload your background image, and paint whether image pixels should be far away or closer to view. With a little effort you can make your background look alive!
So here's the details, its just rendering on a Quad with a custom .glsl shader. The full source code is available on GitHub. I tried getting the .glsl shader to work in Unity but while i'm pretty good at C#, I know nothing about writting / porting shaders.
Unity does run GLSL shaders IF rendering with GL instead of DirectX.
Ideally tho someone would port the shader to CG or standard Unity shader code.
Anyway, please check out www.depthy.me and try making your own image sudo 3D with the depth editing tools. You will find there is a auto camera movement option you should turn on that makes the camera move in small circles to show the effect, and you can even paint on the depth map while this movement is enabled.
Concerns : How would we sync walkable area and graphics you walk under instead of over?
If you just stare at your background with depthy's depth following your mouse or auto-rotating, I'm sure you'll agree it would be an awesome addition to Adventure Creator.
Anyway, please check out www.depthy.me and try making your own image sudo 3D with the depth editing tools. You will find there is a auto camera movement option you should turn on that makes the camera move in small circles to show the effect, and you can even paint on the depth map while this movement is enabled.
Concerns : How would we sync walkable area and graphics you walk under instead of over?
If you just stare at your background with depthy's depth following your mouse or auto-rotating, I'm sure you'll agree it would be an awesome addition to Adventure Creator.
The shader is in the source code, and the rest of the src is in javascript. Even without the source if anyone could code a similiar 2D shader. (I already tried displacing a 20,000 poly plane but I think rendering the effect like the website does on a quad would be better. (I had trouble lining up walkable areas with the perspective shifting.)
I also found a site that explains the same principal and it explains the math and also has source code : https://github.com/fulmicoton/wigglejs
I also found a site that explains the same principal and it explains the math and also has source code : https://github.com/fulmicoton/wigglejs
Basically if I could code the shader myself I'd pass the camera to player angle to the shader. I am unsure of the best approach for aligning the NavMesh but suppose some 'pinning' would do the trick.
Now that i've seen what depthy.me can do, I just dont know if my game would look as good without it. 
Please Everyone,
If you would like to apply "Depth Maps" to your flat backgrounds,
If you would like to apply "Depth Maps" to your flat backgrounds,
Reply in this discussion!
[In short the goal is to have 3D on a Quad with like a RenderTexture, the 3D perspective is renderered by the shader in the texture and the mesh is completely flat] (As compared to displacing a high polygon grid, using this perspective morphing keeps the image filling its dimensions and there are no holes like there would be with the displaced mesh if the sky was far away, there would be a hole in the upward direction revealing the camera background. This method keeps the image filling its rectangle perfectly.)
- MiLO
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Does anyone know where I can find a good Parallax Shader for Mobile (Android) platform?
I expect this may be an "expensive" task computationally so maybe Unlit or Vertex Lit / mobile specific.
Interesting find, I agree that it could give a game a unique feel. However, I'd call this outside of the scope of AC, at least so far as the base package goes. AC is also not a graphics tool - and is designed to work with the look that you give your game.
That said, I don't think that there should be much of a conflict between AC and this, given that AC leverages Unity's graphics engine for rendering. If someone was able to recreate this in Unity, I should think it could work with AC - and if not out-of-the-box, we could discuss how such an integration could be created.