Built-in Render Pipeline Post-Processing

In Unity, the Post-Processing Effects stack is an important step in making your Looking Glass content look great. The Looking Glass Unity Plugin (v1.2 or greater) includes a fork of the Unity Post Processing v2 (PPv2) Effects Stack that is compatible with the Plugin.

NOTE: Unity's native PPv2 is not compatible with the Looking Glass Plugin. Any native instance of PPv2 must be removed to use this Plugin.

Supported Effects

• Ambient Occlusion

• Auto-Exposure

• Bloom

• Color Grading

• Depth of Field

• Grain

• Screen-Space Reflections

Unsupported

• Chromatic Aberration (Only works on MacOS)

• Lens Distortion

• Motion Blur

• Vignette

Review the Example Scene

The Plugin includes an example scene found in LookingGlass/Examples/3 - Post-Processing.unity. Open this to see an example of Post Processing in the Looking Glass.

Setting up Post-Processing

Add a Post-process Layer

First, you'll need to add a "Post-process Layer" to your Hologram Camera:

1. If you don't already have a Hologram Camera in your scene, right-click in the Hierarchy Window and select "Hologram Camera"

2. With the Hologram Camera selected, in the inspector, select "Add Component" -> "Rendering" -> "Post-process Layer"

3. Under "Trigger" press the "This" button

4. Select a Layer (for testing "Default" is fine, though in production you should select specific layers)

Add a Post-process Volume

Once you've done this, you'll need to add a Post-process Volume:

1. Right-click in the Hierarchy Window and select "Create Empty"

2. With the new Empty selected, in the inspector select "Add Component" -> "Rendering -> "Post-process Volume"

3. Check the "Is Global" box

4. To the right of the "Profile" field, click "New"

5. Then add effects at the bottom of this component

Post-Processing Effects

Our experience has found that the following effects to tend to have the most impact on the final visual quality on your Looking Glass experience.

Bloom

Bloom makes bright spots in your scene seem to bleed. Here are some tips specific to this effect on the Looking Glass

• A good place to start with threshold is about 1.

• Bloom looks best when it's only affecting true HDR values in the scene.

• Keep diffusion low to prevent haziness.

• Anamorphic ratio should be kept above 1 to play off of horizontal multiview.

• Do not use a dirtiness texture.

More info on the Unity Docs.

Color Grading

This effect color corrects the scene, allowing you to change the dynamic range of the lighting as well as change the overall tone with hue adjustment.

ACES tonemapping tends to look best. No matter what, always adjust the following to get good white balance:

• post-exposure

• saturation

• contrast

Color grading requires Linear Color Space, which we suggest trying experimenting with in general anyways. To modify, go to Edit > Project Settings > Player, where you can change Color Space to Linear.

More info on the Unity Docs.

Depth of Field

Objects become blurry depending on how far away they lie from the focal distance.

The Looking Glass Unity Plugin fork of PPv2 allows you to choose a DOF framing that best coincides with the optics of the Looking Glass associated to the Hologram Camera game object. To use this, ensure that Snap To Focal Plane is checked.

More info on the Unity Docs

Vignette

This effect adds darkness to the corners of the image. This effect shouldn't be applied for scenes or cameras that move, but it can be effective in guiding focus on stationary scenes.

More info on the Unity Docs.

Troubleshooting Note

Sometimes PPv2 effects to not activate until after Unity begins running the game. If post-processing effects do not seem register, try resetting things by disabling / re-enabling Hologram Camera, then pressing the play button.