Project Rembrandt: Difference between revisions

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There is a number of additional options that can help to avoid these problems :
There is a number of additional options that can help to avoid these problems :


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|<tt>--prop:/sim/rendering/no-16bit-buffer=true</tt>
|<tt>--prop:/sim/rendering/no-16bit-buffer=true</tt>
|Some earlier card don't support 16 bit 2-components textures (RG16 internal format), or as a framebuffer object attachment when mixed with 8bit 4-components buffers
|Some earlier card don't support 16 bit 2-components textures (RG16 internal format), or as a framebuffer object attachment when mixed with 8bit 4-components buffers

Revision as of 18:17, 11 April 2012

WIP.png Work in progress
This article or section will be worked on in the upcoming hours or days.
See history for the latest developments.

Why this name ?

Rembrandt was a dutch painter living in the 17th century, famous as one of the master of chiaroscuro.

This project is about changing the way FlightGear renders lights, shadows and shades, and aims at making Rembrandt painting style possible in FG.

What is it ?

The idea driving the project is to implement deferred rendering inside FlightGear. From the beginning FlightGear had a forward renderer that tries to render all properties of an object in one pass (shading, lighting, fog, ...), making it difficult to render more sophisticated shading (see the 'Uber-shader') because one has to take into account all aspects of the rendering equation.

Main view with the content of buffers displayed at corners

On the contrary, deferred rendering is about separating operations in simplified stages and collecting the intermediary results in hidden buffers that can be used by the next stage.

First stage is the Geometry Stage
we render all the scene into 4 textures, using multi render targets, to do it in one pass: one for the depth buffer, one for the normals (lower left of the image), one for the diffuse colors (lower right) and one for the specular colors (upper right).
Next stage is the Shadow Stage
we render the scene again into a depth texture from the point of view of the lights. There will be one texture for every light casting shadows.
Then comes the Lighting Stage, with several substages
  • Sky pass: the sky is first drawn using classical method.
  • Ambient pass: the diffuse buffer is modulated with the ambient color of the scene and is drawn as a screen-aligned textured quad
  • Sunlight pass: a second screen aligned quad is drawn and a shader computes the view position of every pixel to compute its diffuse and specular color, using the normal stored in the first stage. The resulting color is blended with the previous pass. Shadows are computed here by comparing the position of the pixel with the position of the light occluder stored in the shadow map.
  • Additional light pass: the scene graph will be traversed another time to display light volumes (cone or frusta for spot lights, sphere for omni-directional lights) and their shader will add the light contributed by the source only on pixels receiving light.
  • Fog pass: a new screen aligned quad is draw and the position of the pixel is computed to evaluate the amount of fog the pixel has. The fog color is blended with the result of the previous stage.
  • Transparent objects pass: transparent objects (and clouds) are finally rendered using classical method.
All lighting computations are accumulated in a single buffer that will be used for the last stage, in addition of the one computed by the Geometry stage.
In the end, the Display Stage, with optional Post-Processing effect
The results of the previous buffers are pushed to the main framebuffer to be displayed, optionally modified to show Glow, Motion blur, HDR, redout or blackout, screen-space ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing, etc...

In FG, we end the rendering pipeline by displaying the GUI and the HUD.

All these stages are more precisely described if this tutorial that is the basis of the current code, with some addition and modifications.

Caveats

Deferred rendering is not capable to display transparent. For the moment, clouds are renderer separately and should be lit and shaded by their own. Transparent surfaces are alpha-tested and not blended. They would have to be drawn in their own bin over the composited image.

It also don't fit with depth partitioning because the depth buffer should be kept to retain the view space position, so for the moment, z-fighting is quite visible. Depth partitioning with non overlapping depth range might be the solution and should be experimented at one point.

The glow pass can make certain MFD (that use emissive color) unreadable because blurred. Should be treated as transparent.

Implementation

Repositories

Source code and data are available in gitorious repositories :

https://gitorious.org/~fredb/fg/fredbs-simgear
https://gitorious.org/~fredb/fg/fredbs-flightgear
https://gitorious.org/~fredb/fg/fredbs-fgdata

The code and data are in project/rembrandt branches

The code is not yet optimized
and may put the graphic card under pressure.

Rendering of transparent surfaces

Transparent surfaces drawn after opaque objects

Transparent surfaces are detected by OSG loader plugins and their state set receive the TRANSPARENT_BIN rendering hint. In the culling pass, the cull visitor orders transparent surfaces in transparent bin. In a cull callback attached to the Geometry camera, after the scenegraph traversal, the transparent bins are removed from the render stage and saved in a temporary collection. In a cull callback attached to the Lighting camera, after the scenegraph traversal, the transparent bins saved at the previous stage, are added to the render stage of the Lighting camera with a high order num. That way, the transparent surface are drawn on top of the scene lighted from the Gbuffer.

Memory consumption

For each camera defined in the camera group, there is a separate shadow map, so the video memory usage is :

  • G-buffer and Lighting buffer: 20 bytes per pixel. For an HD screen (1920x1080) memory requirement is 40 Mb
  • Shadow map: 3 x shadow_map_size x shadow_map_size bytes (if size is 8192, whole map size is 192 Mb

Not counting textures, display list or vertex buffers for models and terrain

3 HD screens require 120 Mb of memory for the buffers (shadow excluded), you're asking 3x8192x8192x3 = 576 Mb (megabytes) of memory for the shadows alone.

If you are seeing error messages during startup or FlightGear doesn't start up properly, it's probably because you don't have enough free video memory. Reduce the size of the shadow map in preferences.xml by locating

 <map-size type="int">8192</map-size>

And put 4096 or 2048 instead. You can also use a startup parameter: --prop:/sim/rendering/shadows/map-size=2048

Configurable pipeline ideas

Running Flightgear with Rembrandt

The Rembrandt renderer is now integrated in the main repository but needs to be enabled to run. Use the --enable-rembrandt option to start Flightgear with this new renderer.

Rembrandt is quite demanding in GPU resources and may fail to run with the default options. The more frequent symptom is an OSG message in the console :

RenderStage::runCameraSetUp(), FBO setup failed, FBO status= 0x8cd6
Warning: RenderStage::runCameraSetUp(State&) Pbuffer does not support multiple color outputs.

Some card also exhibit messages like this :

glLinkProgram "" FAILED
Program "" infolog:
Fragment info
-------------
0(37) : error C6013: Only arrays of texcoords may be indexed in this profile, and only with a loop index variable
0(36) : error C6013: Only arrays of texcoords may be indexed in this profile, and only with a loop index variable
0(35) : error C6013: Only arrays of texcoords may be indexed in this profile, and only with a loop index variable
0(34) : error C6013: Only arrays of texcoords may be indexed in this profile, and only with a loop index variable

There is a number of additional options that can help to avoid these problems :

--prop:/sim/rendering/no-16bit-buffer=true Some earlier card don't support 16 bit 2-components textures (RG16 internal format), or as a framebuffer object attachment when mixed with 8bit 4-components buffers
--prop:/sim/rendering/shadows/enabled=false Disable shadows altogether. This setting is changeable at runtime in the rendering option dialog.
--prop:/sim/rendering/shadows/map-size=<power-of-two> Set the shadow map size. Useful values are 1024, 2048, 4096 or 8192. Few cards have the resources to support 16384.

Guidelines for shader writers

Predefined uniforms

These glsl uniforms don't need to be declared in the effect file.

Name Type Purpose
fg_ViewMatrix mat4 In fullscreen pass only, view matrix used to transform the screen position to view direction
fg_ViewMatrixInverse mat4 In fullscreen pass only, view matrix inverse used to transform the screen position to view direction
fg_ProjectionMatrixInverse mat4 In fullscreen pass only, projection matrix inverse used to transform the screen position to view direction
fg_SunAmbientColor vec4
fg_SunDiffuseColor vec4
fg_SunSpecularColor vec4
fg_SunDirection vec3
fg_FogColor vec4
fg_FogDensity float
fg_Planes vec3 Used to convert the value of the depth buffer to a depth that can be used to compute the eye space position of the fragment
fg_BufferSize vec2 Dimensions of the buffer, used to convert gl_FragCoord into the range [0..1][0..1]
osg_ViewMatrix mat4 Defined by OSG, used only when working on actual geometry
osg_ViewMatrixInverse mat4 Defined by OSG, used only when working on actual geometry

They still have to be declared in the fragment or the vertex shader to be used.

Geometry Stage

The Geometry Stage is there to fill the G-buffer. Shading doesn't occur at this stage, so light or fog computation should not be part of the shader. The required operation in the Fragment Shader is to fill every individual buffer with sensible value :

depth (gl_FragDepth) GL_DEPTH_COMPONENT32 Fragment depth
gl_FragData[0] GL_RG16 normal.x * 0.5 + 0.5 normal.y * 0.5 + 0.5
gl_FragData[1] GL_RGBA8 diffuse.r diffuse.g diffuse.b material id * 1/255.0
gl_FragData[2] GL_RGBA8 specular.l specular.s emission.l pixel valid if != 0

This is the default layout expected by the sunlight shader. material Id can be used to detect a different layout


Additional light pass

There would be a single shader for each light type used. The plan is to create lights like animations in the model XML file. The light shader will retrieve scene geometry by combining screen space position converted in view space ray by the inverse of the projection matrix (an helper function should be provided), and the fragment depth at that screen position read from the depth buffer. With the help of the fragment normal, the diffuse and specular color and the properties of the light the shader implements, it will be possible to add to the lighting buffer the contribution of the light rendered.

Fog Pass

Using the fragment depth, it will be possible to compute any fog distribution. For the moment, the simple fog equation is implemented.

Bloom Pass

This is a two-pass effect that blurs the lighting buffer in a small texture. This texture is then added to the lighting buffer at the display stage.

Required Effects

Several pass are implemented using the effect system. For this purpose, some effects are referenced in the core code using reserved names. these effects are:

Name Kind Purpose
Effects/ssao Works on a full screen quad Compute ambient occlusion from the normal buffer and the depth buffer
Effects/ambient Works on a full screen quad Copies the diffuse color buffer multiplied by the ambient light to the lighting buffer. Ambient Occlusion can also affect ambient light.
Effects/light-spot Works on real geometry of the light volume Computes the light contribution of a spot light defined in a light animation having a light-type of spot
Effects/fog Works on a full screen quad Computes the fog from the G-buffer and the lighting parameters
Effects/display Works on a full screen quad Renders the composite final image from the G-buffer and the lighting buffer

Guidelines for modelers

Porting aircraft

  • Rembrandt computes shadows => no more fake shadows in the model
  • Rembrandt computes ambient occlusion => no ambient occlusion baked into textures
  • Rembrandt has light => static lightmap are not needed, emissive color to see models at night is not needed and would interfere
  • Rembrandt has glow => incorrectly used emissive colors may blur displays and make some text unreadable. Light size may have to be adjusted
  • Rembrandt has strict needs with shaders => shaders need to be adjusted to comply with the new framework otherwise the view will be plain wrong
  • Rembrandt can't do transparent surfaces => transparent surface need to be properly registered to render them with the classical path

Registering all translucent surfaces

Every model is, by default, rendered using the Effects/model-default effect. This effect initialize the G-buffer, ignoring transparent surfaces, by doing alpha testing and rendering all the geometry in the default bin. It is not possible to redirect rendering to transparent bins when the associated texture has alpha channel because most models use a single texture atlas and even opaque parts are rendered with texture with alpha channel.

If a model needs to have transparent or translucent surfaces, these surface objects need to be assigned a different effect that sets explicitly the render bin to "DepthSortedBin", or sets the rendering hint to "transparent". This tells the renderer to render this object using forward rendering, so lighting and fog need to be enabled, and if a shader program is used, they should be computed in the classical way. The Effects/model-transparent can be used to register simple transparent/translucent surfaces.

If opaque surface need to have special effect, for example to apply bump mapping, this effect should use the "RenderBin" bin, or the rendering hint set to "opaque", and the G-buffer needs to be initialized correctly in the Geometry stage.

Adding lights to a model

There are two things to consider: the appearance of the light source and the illuminated area. For the appearance of the light source (what you see when you look at the bulb), you need a model with an emissive material that will produce the glow effect and that is visible at night.

For the effect of the source on its environment (the lit area), we must have in the 3D model (the .ac file) a volume that includes the effect (Light Volume). It can be a large cone for spotlights or a sphere for point light. It's important that the light volume is closed, convex and it's normals are oriented outward.

The light volume must be part of the geometry of the model and be referenced in the animation file. No need to add a color or an effect to this volume. Light calculation is only done on the fragments covered by the light volume, but has no influence on the color or the attenuation of the light.

All available animations are possible on the light volume, except material and texture. It is not possible to change color of lights for the moment, except switching to another animation. Axis and position are in object space and are transformed by the subsequent animations.

Spotlights

<animation>
   <type>light</type>
   <light-type>spot</light-type>
   <name>LightSrcRight</name>
   <object-name>LightRight</object-name>
   <nopreview/>
   <position>
     <x>0.169</x>
     <y>0.570</y>
     <z>0.713</z>
   </position>
   <direction>
     <x>-0.9988</x>
     <y>0.0349</y>
     <z>-0.0349</z>
   </direction>
   <ambient>
     <r>0.03</r>
     <g>0.03</g>
     <b>0.03</b>
     <a>1.0</a>
   </ambient>
   <diffuse>
     <r>0.7</r>
     <g>0.7</g>
     <b>0.6</b>
     <a>1.0</a>
   </diffuse>
   <specular>
     <r>0.7</r>
     <g>0.7</g>
     <b>0.7</b>
     <a>1.0</a>
   </specular>
   <attenuation>
     <c>1.0</c>
     <l>0.002</l>
     <q>0.00005</q>
   </attenuation>
   <exponent>30.0</exponent>
   <cutoff>39</cutoff>
   <near-m>3.5</near-m>
   <far-m>39</far-m>
 </animation>
Name Purpose
type Install the light animation
light-type This is a spot light
name Name given to this animation
object-name Name of the light volume in the 3d model (typically a cone with an apex at position, along direction axis if cutoff is lesser than 90 degrees, or a sphere centered at position if cutoff is greater than 90 degrees )
nopreview Hide light volume in fgrun 3d preview
position In object space, position of the light
direction In object space, direction to the center of the spot
ambient Ambient color of the light
diffuse Diffuse color of the light
specular Specular color of the light
attenuation Three element vector. <c> element is the constant factor, <l> element is the linear factor and element is the quadratic factor.

Attenuation of color at distance d is Spotlight attenuation.png

exponent Attenuation is multiplied by pow( dot( lightDir, <direction> ), <exponent> ), lightDir being vector from light position to point, in camera space.
cutoff Point is lit by this source if dot( lightDir, <direction> ) > <cutoff> , lightDir being vector from light position to point, in camera space.
near-m Minimum distance of influence, from position, in meters
far-m Maximum distance of influence, from position, in meters

Point lights

<animation>
   <type>light</type>
   <light-type>point</light-type>
   <name>LightSrcRight</name>
   <object-name>LightRight</object-name>
   <nopreview/>
   <position>
     <x>0.169</x>
     <y>0.570</y>
     <z>0.713</z>
   </position>
   <ambient>
     <r>0.03</r>
     <g>0.03</g>
     <b>0.03</b>
     <a>1.0</a>
   </ambient>
   <diffuse>
     <r>0.7</r>
     <g>0.7</g>
     <b>0.6</b>
     <a>1.0</a>
   </diffuse>
   <specular>
     <r>0.7</r>
     <g>0.7</g>
     <b>0.7</b>
     <a>1.0</a>
   </specular>
   <attenuation>
     <c>1.0</c>
     <l>0.002</l>
     <q>0.00005</q>
   </attenuation>
   <near-m>3.5</near-m>
   <far-m>39</far-m>
 </animation>
Name Purpose
type Install the light animation
light-type This is a point light
name Name given to this animation
object-name Name of the light volume in the 3d model (typically a sphere centered on position, with a radius of far-m)
nopreview Hide light volume in fgrun 3d preview
position In object space, position of the light
ambient Ambient color of the light
diffuse Diffuse color of the light
specular Specular color of the light
attenuation Three element vector. <c> element is the constant factor, <l> element is the linear factor and element is the quadratic factor.

Attenuation of color at distance d is Spotlight attenuation.png

near-m Minimum distance of influence, from position, in meters
far-m Maximum distance of influence, from position, in meters

Initial TODO List

  • Fix shadow rendering when using multi threading in OSG
  • Implement Cascaded Shadow Map (need to be optimized - frustum calculation and night)
  • Honor <noshadow> animation directive
  • See what happens with glow in fog
  • Test multi-screen
  • Restore splashscreen
  • Draw transparent objects with forward rendering (may need to capture the transparent bin from the geometry stage and move it in the display stage) (OK - needs model contribution)
  • Add spotlights as animations (nearly finished)
  • find a solution for ambient and emissive color of material (may need an additional buffer)
  • implement strength of glow (in the emissive buffer alpha channel)
    • provide levels 0 to 5 - we are currently at level 5
    • level 0 should be ok for MFDs that are currenly unreadable because blurred
  • Provide a shader for transparent objects that could render to the emissive buffer too (using MRT)
  • Use stencil buffer to limit light range(no - done in light shader)
    • needed for cockpit light to implement fake shadows and avoid lighting the runway from the cabin through the airframe
  • Use effect system instead of hard-coded shaders (mostly done)
  • Convert existing shaders to deferred rendering
    • Modify shadows to allow multiple casters (limited list)
    • Implement a priority list of light sources, based on priority and distance from the viewer
    • Add new animation to link a light source to a model (need to provide point light animation duplicating spot light)
  • Tidy up the architecture
  • Restore depth partitioning using depth ranges
  • Restore stereo and other options currently available in CameraGroup
  • Implement quality vs performance user control

"Merge in next" TODO List

  • Design and implement a configurable pipeline
  • Implement lightfield shader

Gallery

Model modification log

c172p
Add an effect to the propeller disk (object Propeller.Fast) to put it in a transparent bin
Models/Airport/apt-light.xml & Models/Airport/apt-light-ba.ac
Add a spot light animation and a light volume
Scenery/Objects/w130n30/w123n37/942050.stg
Change KSFO_light.xml to apt-light.xml
Aircraft/followme/Models/followme.xml & .ac
Add light volumes and spotlight animations for headlights

Effect/Shader modification log

Default shaders
render to the G-buffer
Urban effect
render to the G-buffer
Spot light effect
new effect to render spot lights from the animation file
model-transparent
new effect to classify transparent surfaces (those that are not bound to the glass shader or other shader that use explicitly the transparent bin )
References