texture lighting overexposed in Unity 5.3?

[Nystul]

anyone besides me who experiences texture lighting overexposure in Unity 5.3?

[Interkarma]

I haven't gone to 5.3 just yet, but I know what you're talking about. I've experienced some amount of this since 5.0 and Standard shader upgrade. I'll update to 5.3 and look closer over the weekend.

Sometime soon, I will re-tune lighting. The flats particularly aren't lit very nicely (mainly because they're completely flat) and need shader augmentation to look better.

[LypyL]

I just updated today, and I see what you mean!

[Interkarma]

Having spent more time with 5.3, I can see this now as well.

Update: This is likely a bug in 5.3. Other people are reporting very similar problems around the web.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/all-li ... -3.373905/

I won't take any action for now, as it will likely be fixed in a 5.3 point update. If this problem is still present by the time we're ready to release 0.2, I will roll back to 5.2 for build purposes.

[Interkarma]

Just a bit more news on this. I've rolled back to Unity 5.2 to correct this issue. I will remain at 5.2 until it's fixed or we have a workaround.

I've also performed a bit of a lighting review to improve feelings of brightness and warmth during the day by implementing an ambient scale (previously exterior ambient light remained the same at all times of day) and using an upward-facing directional light to create the illusion of light bounce from the ground. As before, overall lighting is scaled downwards in storms and in winter.

There's a lot more I want to do with lighting in the future, but these simple changes help a lot.

[Interkarma]

Some information provided by Aras from Unity on this issue, who very kindly helped me on Twitter.

https://gist.github.com/aras-p/4683338f9cd64068cf6a

I explained the use of Standard shader was an investment in future for modders to create HD material packs, and for when Unity supports fully procedural GI. It also makes my life a great deal easier to use just one shader almost everywhere rather than different shaders for diffuse, emissive, cutouts, etc.

So, the team behind Standard shader may not consider this a bug and the additional specular to be an intended consequence. Will just have to wait until after holidays to see. It might be a change we just have to work with.

In any case, it won't affect things moving forwards. I'll just stick with 5.2 for now and engineer a workaround if the behaviour is not considered a bug by appropriate team.

[LypyL]

That sucks! Hopefully Unity come to their senses and fix it

[Nystul]

so would a solution be then to have reflectivity/smoothness values/textures for every texture?
or would even that not improve the issue?

[Interkarma]

As Aras suggests, a small amount of smoothness does improve the issue ever-so-slightly, but the over-specular appearance remains.

I'd consider this one a bug personally. I've seen enough similar complaints while researching to believe it will probably be fixed later.

In any case, lots of ways we can work around this without really sacrificing anything. I just need to see what Unity do with the problem early next year then I can make a decision on how to proceed. Until then, I'll keep using 5.2. There's nothing in 5.3 that I consider a must-have for Daggerfall Unity.

[Nystul]

alright!

There's nothing in 5.3 that I consider a must-have for Daggerfall Unity.

i am waiting for 5.3.x with SSRR - although I expect issues with sprites like seen with Kode80's SSR shaders

edit: from unity Patch 5.3.1p1 patch notes: (none) - Shaders: Fixed a bug in Standard shader GGX specular term, introduced in 5.3. - that sounds related somehow