What is this blog post series about?

When we made FSR 2.1 available, we also updated our FSR 2 Unreal Engine plugin. This update not only brings significant improvements to the plugin generally, but we’ve also provided two patches with the package which can increase visual fidelity. FSR 2.2 further improves the plugin and adds Unreal Engine 5.1 support.

This five part blog post series – this is the final part – highlights the issues these patches address, and how you can use them in your own Unreal Engine projects.

Part 1 – Improving foliage appearance: Introduction and using the base pass for velocity generation.

Part 2 – Improving foliage appearance: Improvements via content changes.

Part 3 – Improving foliage appearance: Applying the ImproveStaticWPO patch.

Part 4 – Making materials reactive: How to make a specific shading model write to the reactive mask.

→  Part 5 – Making materials reactive: Applying the LitReactiveShadingModel patch. 

Introducing part 5

Back in part 4, we showed how to improve the visual quality of animated materials by making shading models write to the reactive mask.

Here in part 5, we show you how to apply the LitReactiveShadingModel patch, and the results.

Additional shading model patch

For projects where it is not possible to repurpose a shading model in the fashion outlined in part 4, there is now an optional engine patch file, LitReactiveShadingModel.patch , provided with the FSR 2 plugin that adds a new Lit Reactive shading model. This new shading model operates identically to Default Lit except that it also allows developers to write a value to the CustomData0.x channel which will then be consumed by the CreateReactiveMask pass in the FSR 2 plugin.

Applying the patch

For developers building from source the patches can be applied using the following steps.

Git

At a terminal supporting Git:

  1. Download the FSR 2 plugin and unzip.
  2. Clone the Unreal Engine Repository:
    • git clone <repo-url> where <repo-url> should be replaced with the URL to the source repository.
  3. Navigate to the root of the Unreal Engine:
    • cd UnrealEngine
  4. Checkout the version of Unreal Engine to be patched:
    • git checkout <version> where <version> should be replaced by the version number such as 4.26, 4.27 or 5.0.
  5. Install the appropriate FSR 2 plugin version to Engine/Plugins/Runtime/AMD .
  6. Apply the patch with Git:
    • git am <path/to/patch> replacing <path/to/patch> with the path to the LitReactiveShadingModel.patch file appropriate for the engine version.
  7. Build the engine and check that the patch functions correctly.
  8. Push the change upstream:
    • git push origin HEAD

Other SCMs

  1. Download the FSR 2 plugin and unzip.
  2. Clone the Unreal Engine from the SCM and setup the correct Unreal Engine version as needed.
  3. Install the appropriate FSR 2 plugin version to Engine/Plugins/Runtime/AMD .
  4. Navigate to the root of the Unreal Engine:
    • cd UnrealEngine
  5. Patch the files using the ‘patch’ command-line tool:
    • patch -p1 < <path/to/patch> replacing <path/to/patch> with the path to the LitReactiveShadingModel.patch file appropriate for the engine version.
  6. Build the engine and check that the patch functions correctly.
  7. Submit to the SCM.

Using the patch

Once applied and the engine is rebuilt it is then possible to select the Lit Reactive shading model in the material editor:

Once selected it is possible to pass a value to the Custom Data 0 output:

You then must select the Lit Reactive as the Reactive Shading Model in the FSR 2 settings and disable the Force value for Reactive Shading Model by setting it to 0.0 .

Select Lit Reactive as the Reactive Shading Model in FSR 2 settings
Select Lit Reactive as the Reactive Shading Model in FSR 2 settings
Disabling force value for Reactive Shading Model by setting it to 0
Disabling force value for Reactive Shading Model by setting it to 0

In this configuration only the specific assets using the new shading model will write into the reactive mask and write the value specified in the material graph, while still providing the improved rendering of the obscured animated material.

Lit Reactive Off Lit Reactive On

Below: 1:1 pixel comparison of the 4K screenshots above.

Lit Reactive Off Lit Reactive On

Thank you for reading!

We hope you have found this blog post series helpful with improving the visual quality of FSR 2 in your Unreal Engine game.  If you’ve found it useful, why not share it on social media so other game developers can benefit too?

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Before you go, feel free to take a look back at any parts you’d like to read again:

Part 1 – Improving foliage appearance: Introduction and using the base pass for velocity generation.

Part 2 – Improving foliage appearance: Improvements via content changes.

Part 3 – Improving foliage appearance: Applying the ImproveStaticWPO patch.

Part 4 – Making materials reactive: How to make a specific shading model write to the reactive mask.

→  Part 5 – Making materials reactive: Applying the LitReactiveShadingModel patch. 

Get the Unreal Engine FSR 2 plugins now!

The package linked below contains the latest version of all our currently available UE 4/5 plugins [~600MB]

  • Includes the patches referred to in this blog series.
Download FSR 2 Unreal Engine plugin

Find out more about FSR 2 and our Unreal Engine plugin

Learn more about FSR and Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine

Develop for Unreal Engine on AMD hardware with our plugin, performance and feature patches, including FidelityFX support.

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