Feature/postprocessing

[Anand-Ramnarain-27]

Post-Processing System

Implemented a fully editor-driven post-processing pipeline with runtime scripting support. All effects can be configured through the editor and controlled through the new PostProcessAPI.

Features

Exposure

Adjust the Exposure (EV) value to control scene brightness.

• Negative values darken the image.
• Positive values brighten the image.

This also verifies that the HDR → Tonemap → Gamma correction pipeline is functioning correctly.

Bloom

Enable Bloom and adjust:

• Threshold – Controls which pixels contribute to bloom.
• Intensity – Controls bloom strength.

For testing, set the threshold to approximately 0.7 and intensity to 1.0. Bright and emissive surfaces should glow and bleed into surrounding pixels.

Colour Grading (LUT)

Enable Colour Grading (LUT) and provide a .cube file path, you can download or use any cube file to test.

Example:

Assets/Textures/CUBE/Test.cube

and automatically fall back to a neutral grade.

Chromatic Aberration

Enable Chromatic Aberration and adjust CA Strength.

Higher values increase colour fringing toward the edges of the screen.

Heartbeat (Damage Effect)

Enable Heartbeat (Damage FX) and reduce the Health (test) value below 0.5.

Effects include:

• Animated red vignette.

• Pulsing screen effect.

• Faster pulse rate as health decreases.

• Critical state effects below approximately 0.25 health:

  • Additional edge darkening.
  • Subtle screen sway.

Increase Separation (test) to strengthen the blue vignette effect.

The effect updates live in the editor using unscaled time.

Death Fade

Enable Death Fade (test).

The viewport will:

1. Desaturate and blur to greyscale over Grey Duration.
2. Fade completely to black over Black Duration.

Disable the effect to immediately restore the scene.

Outline (Ink)

Enable Outline (Ink).

Recommended workflow:

1. Adjust Threshold first.

   • Lower if no outlines appear.
   • Raise if too much of the screen is outlined.

2. Tune:

   • Thickness
   • Intensity
   • Ink Colour
   • Wobble
   • Noise Scale
   • Break-up

These settings allow creation of a hand-drawn or stylized ink effect.

Scripting Support

All post-processing features are exposed through the new PostProcessAPI declared in EngineAPI.h.

Examples include:

PostProcessAPI::setExposure(...);

PostProcessAPI::setBloomEnabled(...);
PostProcessAPI::setBloomThreshold(...);
PostProcessAPI::setBloomIntensity(...);

PostProcessAPI::setLutEnabled(...);
PostProcessAPI::setLutPath(...);

PostProcessAPI::setChromaticAberrationEnabled(...);
PostProcessAPI::setChromaticAberrationStrength(...);

PostProcessAPI::setHeartbeatEnabled(...);
PostProcessAPI::setHealth(...);
PostProcessAPI::setSeparation(...);

PostProcessAPI::setDeathFadeActive(...);

PostProcessAPI::setOutlineEnabled(...);

[AndreuMiroSabate]

Good feature. I think the effects are really good and work very well. Also having the functions to change the values by script will let us upgrade the visuals of the game.
One thing that bothers me is that the skyboxes are brighter than before. This may cause some issues with the illumination of the levels since everything is more bright than is supposed to be. An example can be this images, where this image is supposed to be very dark, but has a bright bluish tone
For the rest good job.

[JorxPi]

Good feature. I think the effects are really good and work very well. Also having the functions to change the values by script will let us upgrade the visuals of the game. One thing that bothers me is that the skyboxes are brighter than before. This may cause some issues with the illumination of the levels since everything is more bright than is supposed to be. An example can be this images, where this image is supposed to be very dark, but has a bright bluish tone For the rest good job.

It is important that things don't change if there are no postprocess effects being applied, this is something important to look into before accepting the PR

[Anand-Ramnarain-27]

So the skybox should be darker again now, please test to make sure and check if this way is better, it just was like thaat cause tone-mapping was included for the hdr sky was it would effect the entire scene but now its changes not the skybox stays the same but only the objects within the scene get tone-mapping

[MiquelBarbara]

I’ve tested the post-processing effects and came across a few things that seemed off. First, the bloom looks like the attached image when enabled, and then there’s the depth fade, where strange artifacts appear. Otherwise, it works well. Good job.

[Anand-Ramnarain-27]

Fixed it, please check again, so now with bloom there is a clamp the lower the value will reduce the brightness/glow that was coming out and the spliting effect should also be less like particles for the fade as it bluring by pixel now should be by radius like blob of defocus

[AndreuMiroSabate]

The skybox now looks as it should good job.