UE4 Post Process Effects on Mobile Platforms

Post Process Effects on Mobile Platforms

Mobile Game Development

Overview

Mobile postprocessing is implemented as a separate code path from PC/Console post processing. This is to reflect the slower dependent texture reads, missing hardware features, extra rendertarget resolve costs, and the slower performance in general. The following categories can be found in a postprocess volume (or a camera Actor).

Some options are in the Advanced properties and require clicking the  button to expands the category in the Details panel.

Post Process Categories

Film

Everything works the same as desktop/console.

For best performance, keep "Tint Shadow Amount" set to zero to disable Tint Shadow. Keeping "Channel Mixer" controls unchecked and keeping "Saturation" unchecked or set to 1 can also improve the performance of the tonemapper on mobile.

Scene Color

The following are unsupported on mobile:

• Fringe Intensity

• Color Grading

• Color Grading Intensity

For best performance keep, "Grain Jitter" and "Grain Intensity" set to zero to disable grain. Turning off Vignette by setting "Vignette Intensity" to zero can provide a small increase in performance if bloom is disabled.

Bloom

The following are unsupported on mobile:

• Dirt Mask Intensity

• Dirt Mask

• Dirt Mask Tint

Settings on the PC to best emulate mobile bloom are {4, 8, 16, 32, 64} for {#1 Size, #2 Size . . . #5 Size}. However, as the PC size values are in screen percentage, this only works for a specific viewport size. We intend to port the mobile bloom to PC to make it match better and to give the PC another more low spec option.

Light Propagation Volume

Unsupported. Set "Intensity" to zero to emulate mobile on desktop.

Ambient Cubemap

Unsupported. Set "Intensity" to zero to emulate mobile on desktop.

Auto Exposure

Auto exposure is not supported on mobile, however the "Auto Exposure Bias" setting is supported. Set "Min Brightness" and "Max Brightness" to 1 to emulate mobile on desktop (this clamps the range of auto exposure so that auto exposure will have no effect). The "Auto Exposure Bias" setting can then be used to lighten or darken the scene.

Lens Flares

Unsupported. Set "Intensity" to zero to emulate mobile on desktop.

Ambient Occlusion

Unsupported. Set "Intensity" to zero to emulate mobile on desktop.

Depth Of Field

To turn off Depth of Field, set "Scale" to zero, this is suggested as default to improve performance.

Mobile Depth of Field is currently not compatible with PC. There is no way to currently visualize on the desktop version what the mobile settings will look like except using an unsupported "-FeatureLevelES2" launch flag when starting the editor, or using the "Mobile Preview" option from the "Play" button drop down menu.

The following settings are not supported on mobile:

• Near Transition Region

• Far Transition Region

• Max Bokeh Size

• Near Blur Size

• Far Blur Size

Mobile Depth of Field provides two focal planes (one for the near and one for the far bokeh). The "Focal Distance" and "Focal Region" control those planes as they do on desktop. The "Scale" parameter goes from 0 (off) to 1 (full size) to 2 (faster transition to full size). Mobile Depth of Field has a relatively small maximum size.

Motion Blur

Unsupported. Set "Amount" to zero to emulate mobile on desktop.

Misc

"Screen Percentage" is unsupported. Only the 100.0 setting works. "AA Method" supports "None" (the fastest) and "TemporalAA" which provides a special mobile temporal AA which provides something around 2xSGSSAA with a little bit of judder in motion. Postprocess materials (through Blendables) are not supported on mobile.

Screen Space Reflections

Unsupported. Set "Intensity" to zero to emulate mobile on desktop.

General Performance Tips

• For best performance and quality, you should stick to Bloom and TemporalAA.

• Make sure Depth of Field, light shafts, film grain, color grading LUT, ambient cubemap, etc are disabled.

For better performance, we have implemented a special workaround which is controlled by the console variable "r.RenderTargetSwitchWorkaround". In BaseDeviceProfiles.ini, you can see it is enabled for several devices. Note that there will be a small change in appearance to the bloom effect on devices with certain performance characteristics. The console variables help text describes this in more detail:

r.RenderTargetSwitchWorkaround

Workaround needed on some mobile platforms to avoid a performance drop related to switching render targets.
Only enabled on some hardware. This affects the bloom quality a bit. It runs slower than the normal code path but
still faster as it avoids the many render target switches. (Default: 0)
We want this enabled (1) on all 32 bit iOS devices (implemented through DeviceProfiles).