Defold 1.9.4 BETA

[Pawel]

@Mathias_Westerdahl

Model components can now use hardware instancing!

Is this similar or same as “GPU instancing”? (Unity - Manual: GPU instancing)

[jhonny.goransson]

Yes, there’s a manual entry for how this works here: Defold materials manual

[britzl]

@WhiteBoxDev

I don’t think it would be particularly difficult either. Since each bullet point links to its respective GitHub issue already, this addition would just require looking at the commits for each issue and noting if there are any names that aren’t on the Defold team.

It’s easy to do. We can grab it from the GH data like you suggest. How should it be presented? Next to the issue title? Or after the description? Example:

---

NEW: (#9474) The physics contact_point_event now returns the correct contact point (authored by JCash)
This is a bug fix for the contact_point_event, where the position is now the contact point itself.
This makes it similar to the contact_point_response event, which was the intention.

If you need the old position (the world position of the object itself), you can use either message.a.instance_position/message.b.instance_position.

Authored by JCash

[d954mas]

Thanks
Example work. Instancing in my game also worked.

I have question. If i make material with instancing, I need to use new predicate for every unique model?

So if i have 3 different stones. When i use single predicate i get same draw call number with instancing and without it.

But with 3 predicates(unique predicate per model) it worked.

So when rendering, if mesh is not same will break batching instancing?

[jhonny.goransson]

No you should be able to use the same predicate. As long as the render state is the same (same textures and meshes) all instance models will be included in the same draw call. In general, you shouldn’t have to think about it, the renderer should separate the instances into their bucket automatically.

Could you share your example?

[d954mas]

I I will share later.
The collection use 3 different models(stone1,stone2,stone3)
If every model use same material with instancing.
For example in scene I have 6 models.
stone1,stone2,stone3,stone1,stone2,stone3.

Will instancing group models automatic. So it draw stone1,stone2,stone3?

Or it will draw, stone1, stone2,stone3, stone1,stone2, stone3?

[d954mas]

How many predicates I can use? 32?

[d954mas]

Also is it good or bad to enable instancing for all models?
For example I have some modelsz that used once, or few times.

It is bad for once model to use instancing?

[Mathias_Westerdahl]

No, it’s not inherently bad in any way.

[jhonny.goransson]

It will be grouped automatically

[d954mas]

I think this not worked(

I will try to make small example, later today

[d954mas]

I try but find something strange.
instancing_groups.zip (1.7 MB)
1)For default model.material i get same dc as for instancing
2)For default model.material i see modelVertexCount in profiler. But for instancing i don’t see it.

Also i can’t reproduce that:(

@d954mas

I have question. If i make material with instancing, I need to use new predicate for every unique model?

So if i have 3 different stones. When i use single predicate i get same draw call number with instancing and without it.

But with 3 predicates(unique predicate per model) it worked.

@jhonny.goransson

[d954mas]

This is my game in 1.9.3.

And in 1.9.4

I am happy to see smaller dc number. But why? is it expected behavior? I don’t enable instancing

[jhonny.goransson]

Yeah hold on, I’m investigating this. I think the batch key is getting calculated a bit strangely in some cases that include instancing. It is supposed to work as I proposed, but I might need to make a small change on our end.

[jhonny.goransson]

Right, this is how it’s supposed to work:
This scene has 6 model componens - 3 with one .glb file and 3 with another .glb file. Each model is referencing multiple meshes (~10 meshes per glb file). With instancing this means that we should be able to render all sub meshes for each model in one draw call:

Here you can see that the heads of one of the model is getting rendered all in one go, which is what is expected.

There is a PR currently for the batch key change, so I’ll let you know once it’s been merged to beta

[AGulev]

@ross.grams

Oh…was this not completely intentional? Debug text in GUI space and lines in world space? It makes sense to me. Won’t it be much more confusing to have debug text in world space, particularly in 3D, where odds are it will be completely off camera or rotated at some odd angle? Now if you want the old behavior you’ll have to do some advanced word-to-screen calculations, or modify the render script.

Also isn’t this a pretty big backwards-compatibility breakage? Anyone using the built-in render script will have completely broken, probably invisible or unreadable, debug text now.

I realize that anyone can simply change the render script to revert this, but it seems like an odd and sudden change. What about deprecation?

You right here. I investigated it, and it seems like we don’t have enough parameters for draw_text message to draw it nice in a 3d world.
I’m reverting these changes.

[Dragosha]

@jhonny.goransson

There is a PR currently for the batch key change, so I’ll let you know once it’s been merged to beta

is it done already?

I also tried turning on instancing on one project with a lot of repetitive geometry like a selected block on the screenshot:

My results:

1. Whole project before changes. The world vertex space in the model material is used. 19 draw calls, huge modelVertexSize.
   

   

2. Just turn on the local vertex space in the model material. (mtx_world as uniform)
   

   

3. and mtx_world as attribute:
   

   

I don’t see a reduction in the number of Draw calls, but I do see other changes.
When instancing is used how are models ordered by distance from the camera?

ps. tested with beta sha1 40a62943dd9c72d3544bcfa368838d5ee79204fb

[jhonny.goransson]

@Dragosha

40a62943dd9c72d3544bcfa368838d5ee79204fb

The build is stuck currently on CI. I’ll let you know

[jhonny.goransson]

There is a new beta now with a fix.

[Dragosha]

Seems, it works ! )