AMPLIFY IMPOSTORS
1-CLICK CREATION. Optimize your projects with ease by replacing complex geometry at a distance with next-generation Billboard Impostors.
Advanced techniques.
- Spherical, Octa and Hemi-Octahedron types.
- Full 3D representation (Rotate, Scale, Move and Intersect)
- Full lighting, receives and casts shadows.
- LOD Group and other systems.
- GPU Instancing
- Extreme Draw Call reduction.
- BiRP, URP, HDRP compatible.
Amplify Shader Editor Compatible:
- Create your own Bake and Runtime Shaders
- Add dynamic shader-based effects to impostors.
Behind the scenes with 1-Click Bake.
Amplify Impostors processes your meshes into an impostor set of textures that it then uses to display a “fake” version of your mesh using an extremely simplified mesh plane and a special runtime shader. Sounds complex but the process is made seamless with its 1-Click Bake Solution;
The "Impostor" Asset.
Impostors are camera-facing quads, or simple polygonal shapes, that replace complex geometry at a distance by rendering a fake 3D representation of the original asset. This is a fancy way of saying that unlike old regular billboards that could take a single front photo of an object and have it always align with the camera, Amplify Impostors instead captures multiple images around your object, with special data such as normals and depth, that it then uses to create the illusion of a 3D object while still having all the optimization benefits of a billboard and more!
Three types of Impostors.
Spherical Impostor
Simpler shader complexity, does not provide smooth blending between views.
Ocatahedron Impostor
Relatively more complex than Spherical, but performant. Capable of smooth blending between views.
HemiOctahedron Impostor
Hemi variant, ideal for top view games. Allows for higher resolution per view.
Going beyond traditional billboards.
In practice, unlike traditional billboards, this means you can rotate around an impostor, rotate/scale/move the actual impostor, and render full lighting. The special data processed into the Impostor asset even allows you to intersect it with other meshes, or other impostors, as you would with regular models.
Limitations and use cases.
Impostors are not meant to be used as a 1-1 replacement of your models, each technique has its own pros and cons that you should consider before using it; typical workflows involve displaying the actual mesh at close range and the impostor from a certain distance. This distance depends on the original model and what percentage of the screen it occupies; the larger the object, and the closer the camera is to the impostor, the harder it will be to maintain the illusion. Large buildings seem to be a common pitfall, they work but due to their size the impostor works best from farther distances.
Additional Technical Considerations:
- Standard baking, is only supported if the shader exposes a Deferred path, such as Unity Standard shaders.
- Impostors can be used in both Forward and Deferred modes. If the original mesh has a custom forward-only shader(e.g. Cartoon Custom Lighting) you’ll need to use a custom baking shader made with Amplify Shader Editor.
- A MeshRenderer component is required to bake a model; Skinned Mesh Renderer not currently supported.
- When using Amplify Impostors in the same projects as Amplify Shader Editor, be sure to use the latest versions available as not doing so will result in a few errors/warnings.