Optimisations

Batching

Set in the general settings, this improves performance by performing the edge detection and distance field generation in batches. This reduces the number of texture samples required. It's important to test on a range of hardware as different values may perform better or worse than others.

The minimum batch size is 1, which effectively disables batching and the maximum size is 8.

There's no guarantee that outlines will be batched, this is because batching requires certain values to be the same.

For simple outlines these the following need to be the same:

• Resolution

  • Generally will be the same when viewed from the in game camera however this is also Impacted by the scaling settings.

• Depth Occlusion

• Stencil Texture

  • This referrers to the underlying stencil texture that will be used. All non-grouped stencils use the same texture.

Only used for stencil based outlines.

Process Mask

Found in the distance field settings. This works by down-sampling the initial edge detection result that gets used for generating the distance field and using that result to skip processing pixels that are too far away. It's recommended to use this if you don't need a distance field that covers the entire viewport.

This also gets used by the simple outlines but at a level that can't be changed and so it isn't exposed.

Only used for distance field generation.

Max Pixel Distance

Found in the distance field settings. This limits the number of passes performed by the Jump Flood Algorithm. The algorithm used to generate distance fields. You can expect full accuracy up to the distance specified - 1 and excellent accuracy at the distance specified. Useful if you don't need a distance field that covers the entire viewport.

Only used for distance field generation.

Scaling

The most basic optimisation. This scales down the stencil used for the outline. It can also be a quick way to thicken the simple outline a little bit. The only drawback to this method is that it sacrifices quality.