NVIDIA GameWorks Integration

[MaximeDupart]

@GeneralD;690821

I am new to Git but managed to figure out the process ( another post in one of the early pages helped a lot ).For anyone interested in merging the Gamework builds, knowledge required is basic knowledge of Git commands.
As Nvidia has released all of their Gameworks tech in 4.15, so integration is easier than it would have been when a tech might have required to be ported to a newer version of engine.
For starters

1. Download and install Git
2. Create a folder for the engine in a drive with plenty of space
3. Right click and run Git Bash while in that folder
4. Type and run “git clone .git”

Now you need to set-up tracking for all the branches you want ( a branch in case is a different gameworks tech for a version of unreal ) eg VXGI-4.15 is one branch and VXGI-4.14 is another branch. Type “git branch -a” anytime to get a list of all the remote and local branches.
Create tracking for all the branches you require in your Unreal build.
5) For local tracking of a remote branch “git branch -t VXGI-4.15 origin/VXGI-4.15” ( VXGI-4.15 is a name you set for your own tracking purposes whereas origin/VXGI-4.15 is the branch present on Github that contains the VXGI integration , you can always get the name of the remote branches through “git branch -a”)

Repeat the above step for all the branches you want to merge.

Now switch to any branch you have created tracking for:
6) “git checkout VXGI-4.15” where “VXGI-4.15” is the same name as you set for tracking purposes above.
(Some people might prefer switching to the “release” branch, but worked for me)

Next step is to create a new branch from any of the above tracking branches. branch will be used to merge all the gameworks tech. You can name it eg AllGameworks.
7) “git branch AllGameworks” will create a new branch named AllGameworks from the last branch you did checkout on. In case VXGI-4.15.

Before we start the merging process, we need to switch to the AllGameworks branch ( which in case already contains VXGI as its a copy of it )
8) “git checkout AllGameworks” sets the AllGameworks as the current branch we will start the merging process upon

Now starts the tricky part. When a branch is merged into another various conflicts occur. But fortunately for us, all the gameworks tech are on 4.15 so resolving the conflicts is relatively easier.

Next merge a branch ( eg Hairworks ) into AllGameworks branch
9)“git merge HWorks4.15” where HWorks4.15 is the name of the local tracking set up for origin/HairWorks

On the screen will be shown many conflicts. Each line starting with “CONFLICT” means that a conflict has occurred in the merging process in a specific file. The path and name of the file will be mentioned in the same line. Now the conflict will have to be resolved. At point donot close Git.

How to resolve a conflict : Open the file mentioned in CONFLICT in Visual Studio. Search for “<<<<<<< HEAD” in the file. where the conflict starts. Some conflicts might require some code addition or removal but in most cases just delete or comment out “<<<<<<< HEAD” and then search/look “=======” and delete/comment it and then search/look for “>>>>>>> (Gameworks tech name)” and delete/comment it. In one of the “.cs” file conflict file look for a extra “}” in the end, you might need to remove it. Make sure there arent other conflicts present in the same at other locations through a thorough search for “<<<<<<< HEAD”. Save the file when its done.
Do the above for all the conflicts.

10. Now add the changes with “git add .” command.

11. Finally commit the changes “git commit -m “random comment””

Now you have merged two branches. Want to add more branches to AllGameworks then goto Step9 and merge another branch.

When its all done, run setup.bat , run generateprojectfiles.bat , open the .sln file in Visual Studio and right click on “UE4” and click “Build”. If all the conflicts been resolved then it will compile successfully after some time.

I am no expert but hope there arent any errors in the steps mentioned above.

Personally whenever I merged a tech then a created a new branch from it and switched to it. way can always go back to a branch that did compile successfully eg VXHW ( VXGI + Hairworks ) , a branch from VXHW called VXHWF ( VXGI + Hairworks + Flow ) , a branch from VXHWFVL ( VXGI + Hairworks + Flow + Volumetric Lighting ).

let’s make a sticky post shall we? ^^

[anonymous_user_c9d39d50]

@VItorEAFeliciano;692585

You right,

Tessellation can’t be done with VXGI Voxel’s in the same material,

// NVCHANGE_BEGIN: Add VXGI
	if (RHIIsVoxelizing() && !MaterialRenderProxy->GetVxgiMaterialProperties().bVxgiAllowTesselationDuringVoxelization)
		{
			return false; // not allowed
		}
// NVCHANGE_END: Add VXGI

. said he issued a fix for problem to Epic if I recall correctly. So I think it’s not related to VXGI?
It happens even when VXGI is turned off. Also, it does work when using Flat Tesselation without the flickering, which still is Tesselation?

There’s one other thing I wanted to ask you:

Since you are going to share only the compiled version of your super-unreal-engine, could you bump it to 4.15.1?
The changes are quite minor and also only about 15-20 changes total, yet there is a rather gamebreaking one amongst them
which prevented something (I don’t recall right now what it was, related to materials) from working in the final baked game.

I really appreciate the work you put into , and that you are going to share with the community what you achieved.

[Nigkdo]

@KenshiHH;692961

can someone help me getting a flow emitter to work?

the sample project works fine, but i cant get a new emitter to work.

i add a grid asset, i create a blueprint actor with a sphere and add an emitter component. whats next?

Same .

[VitorEAFeliciano (DevelVitorF)]

@buzzdx;693866

. said he issued a fix for problem to Epic if I recall correctly. So I think it’s not related to VXGI?
It happens even when VXGI is turned off. Also, it does work when using Flat Tesselation without the flickering, which still is Tesselation?

There’s one other thing I wanted to ask you:

Since you are going to share only the compiled version of your super-unreal-engine, could you bump it to 4.15.1?
The changes are quite minor and also only about 15-20 changes total, yet there is a rather gamebreaking one amongst them
which prevented something (I don’t recall right now what it was, related to materials) from working in the final baked game.

I really appreciate the work you put into , and that you are going to share with the community what you achieved.

I updating to the last version of UE4.15 git repo based and Epic’s UE4.15 binary release, always.

About VXGI and tessellation, in the code the VXGI do not voxel’s light, or apply the light in the material, wen tessellation it’s applied in the same material.

Having trouble at compile time, related to runtimes, striping some things of, for testing and fixing, getting crazy with UHT, hard to find related problems.

I will post everything.

[anonymous_user_a8150b0f]

@KenshiHH;692961

can someone help me getting a flow emitter to work?

the sample project works fine, but i cant get a new emitter to work.

i add a grid asset, i create a blueprint actor with a sphere and add an emitter component. whats next?

If is a new project, first add a Flow collision channel:

On the emitter blueprint actor, set the collision to overlap on the Flow channel:

[anonymous_user_7e946687]

hello .Reidmeyer ,

is it possible to some how generate a grid which has smaller cells in the center and to the outside bigger cells? so we have a greater resolution from the outside of the grid to the Center. thx

[overfuze]

@GeneralD thank you for the tutorial on how to merge the branches, however I came accross an error at the very last step (I think atleast). I merged VXGI, Volumetric Lighting, Flow and Flex and when I did the setup.bat part it went fine but when I open generateprojectfiles.bat I get message https://i.gyazo/e098a38dfe7f045b15f56917e02421ff.png

I checked if VXGI.Build.cs is in “\UnrealEngine\Engine\Source\ThirdParty\GameWorks\VXGI” and it is there, as you said I should check if there are extra “}” but there are none. Would appriciate if anyone could help.

[VitorEAFeliciano (DevelVitorF)]

@GeneralD

Move
\Engine\Source\ThirdParty\GameWorks\NvVolumetricLighting.Build.cs to \Engine\Source\ThirdParty\GameWorks\NvVolumetricLighting\NvVolumetricLighting.Build.cs regenerate projects.

Recommend, if You run setup.bat after merge’s
NVAPI and AMD_AGS are overwritten, merge that two again. and overwrite with the libs from NVIDIA branches.

[overfuze]

@VItorEAFeliciano thanks, I did that and I could generate projects, compiled the engine and got 72 errors XD

Will try it all over again with just VXGI and VolumetricLighting.

EDIT: Succesfully merged VXGI and VolumetricLighting. Since CPU transparent particles won’t render with VXGI enabled, is there a way to get same results with GPU particles? https://gyazo/4baed2267fd0705b9863e9ff3a798897 You can see that the texture seems to be scaled down or something else is happening.

[SRain1920]

the link doesn’t work.

[overfuze]

I pushed my VXGI+VolumetricLighting 4.15 branch on GitHub ( https://github/overfuze/UnrealEngine/tree/VXGI+VL-4.15 ), I am not 100% sure if it will compile for you guys, but you are free to try it

There is also a build with Flow but when I tried to compile it it gave like 29 errors, so don’t download that I guess.

My friend also made a 4.14.3 VXGI+VolumetricLighting branch ( https://github/1suky1/UnrealEngine/tree/vxgi+volumetrics ), you can try that aswell, I am also not 100% sure if that one will compile.

If you download any of these and compile them, please let me know

[WindyStrife]

@overfuze;695347

I pushed my VXGI+VolumetricLighting 4.15 branch on GitHub ( https://github/overfuze/UnrealEngine/tree/VXGI+VL-4.15 ), I am not 100% sure if it will compile for you guys, but you are free to try it

There is also a build with Flow but when I tried to compile it it gave like 29 errors, so don’t download that I guess.

My friend also made a 4.14.3 VXGI+VolumetricLighting branch ( https://github/1suky1/UnrealEngine/tree/vxgi+volumetrics ), you can try that aswell, I am also not 100% sure if that one will compile.

If you download any of these and compile them, please let me know

I will try your custom build

[TX_LOSER]

@VItorEAFeliciano;691135

Think I will finish UE4.15 Gameworks integration with all or Turbulence off, and with AMD LiquidVR, and some fixes and improves. weekend.
I will post and share compiled one, because I don’t have Graphics for VR, but one OSVR hacker dev kit in standby till I can afford new PC for VR.
I will make it version compatible with Epics Binary release as well, to support UE market plugins and assets.

Added:

Gameworks:

CataclysmDemo Yes
FleX Yes
Flow Yes
HairWorks Yes
HBAO+ updated to the last version Yes
Turbulence Yes or No ?
Volumetric Lighting Yes
VRWorks Yes
VXGI Yes
WaveWorks Yes

AMD LiquidVR and updated Yes

With Simplygon ready Yes

LIBS:
NVIDIA AnselSDK updated Yes
Steamworks 139 updated Yes
NVIDIA API R378 updated Yes
AMD AGS_SDK updated Yes
Intel TBB 2017 version updated Yes
-3.4 updated Yes or No ? (dependency for Turbulence)
updated Yes
FBX 2017.1 Yes
Windows 10 SDK 10.0.14393.0 working in , i have failed before but already know why! Importing some knows from Microsoft.
.
.
Cleaning VXGI macro predefs, that in packaged builds has conflits.
So always with VXGI in compile time.
And NO: Win32, HTML5, Mac, Android, IOS, TVOS, Linux, PS4, XboxOne, Switch, builds.
Only for Win64 builds. for all the UE4.15 compile time and builds.

I cant afford killing my time trying to debug like crazy UHT for others platforms.

shout some names for ‘Community Edition’ for in editor an release build, like ‘GPU Fanatic’s Community Edition’ or ? shout …

Hello, thanks for your work! When will we see it? Would you publish on thread?

[bcv]

Does anyone know if Flex particles colliding against skeletal meshes with convex colliders is something planned for the future ? I can see FleX particles colliding against static meshes using complex collision and it looks great but for skeletal meshes it seems that only the basic colliders are allowed (box, sphere, sphyl), not convex, thus breaking the immersion of the game. Cheers

[anonymous_user_52a14607]

Does vxgi work with Flow? i.e. I’ve been waiting for some way to get color bleeding onto smoke - eg. having smoke particles reflect indirect lighting from a red wall.

[overfuze]

Hey guys can anyone confirm strange behavior with VXGI and Planar Reflection actor (Planar reflections not catching any shadows and GI)

https://gyazo/6bb2de9b08839186c12d5e81f532a573

https://gyazo/153ba127635aeacf813d09f46a276ab0

[MaximeDupart]

The most stable VXGI is on 4.14.3 right now. On 4.15.X there’s some black magic happening, involving the usage of ‘computevisibility’ in vxgirendering.cpp .
All sprites, dynamic mesh, gets corrupted and are either disappearing or glitching all over the screen.
It seems to all come from there?! Not quite sure tbh.
Need to dive quite a bit into the implementation of VXGI to figure it all out i’m afraid.

On video below, which is VXGI/Volumetric light, you can see all the water , smoke, fire are all gone and there’s artefacts and glitches visible:

v=otuHpPouROk

[SHIFTYY_777]

Does anyone know how to get all those to just one UE4 thing… please help me… (i dont wanna use Galaxyone15 thing) its old… so anyone?

[overfuze]

@. oh yeah I have seen some of my geometry dissapearing which was really strange. I fixed the particles just by converting them into GPU particles. Anyways I have encountered a bug in my branch while using Volumetric Lighting and Depth of Field which I guess is because Volumetric Lighting is blended on top of everything, but it actually should be below stuff like Depth of Field.

https://gyazo/b8d6b204fa25cf518dde259d084d81fd (VL off)

https://gyazo/6f038945d05b19f7cd9ca2d46c3066ce (VL on)

Can anyone confirm if is also a bug in original Volumetric Lighting branch?

[MaximeDupart]

@overfuze;696320

@. oh yeah I have seen some of my geometry dissapearing which was really strange. I fixed the particles just by converting them into GPU particles. Anyways I have encountered a bug in my branch while using Volumetric Lighting and Depth of Field which I guess is because Volumetric Lighting is blended on top of everything, but it actually should be below stuff like Depth of Field.

https://gyazo/b8d6b204fa25cf518dde259d084d81fd (VL off)

https://gyazo/6f038945d05b19f7cd9ca2d46c3066ce (VL on)

Can anyone confirm if is also a bug in original Volumetric Lighting branch?

It appears i can reproduce the DoF, need to check further.