Couple questions about ASE

[Hans77]

Couldn't find definitive answers to any of them in my google searches. Apologies if they've been covered, but I'd very much appreciate links and or answers to the following questions.

1) Is there a single seat trial version of ASE?
(afaict, it looks like ASE is the only product you guys make that doesn't offer a trial)

2) If there is no single seat trial version, is it possible perhaps to arrange an Enterprise Trial Version?
We generally purchase assets in bulk, but would like to verify if this is really what we want.

3) Is deferred supported? If it is, to what extent?
(I read some people had to do workarounds to get toon stuff to work. It'd be nice to see a list of all ASE's shortcomings in regards to deferred rendering, if any.)

4) Does this use the standard Unity License? I couldn't locate an answer to that specific question, so just want to make sure whether we

a) need to give credit to Amplify Shader Editor in our released game
b) are required to give a percentage of profits to Amplify Creations
(i.e., if we sell X units, we need to give X% of the profit to Amplify Creations).

Thank you for your time!
Hans77

[Amplify_Borba]

Hello Hans, thank you for getting in touch and for your interest, I'll be happy to answer your questions.

1 - Unfortunately we don't have a trial version available for ASE at this time, we currently only provide a single seat version through the Asset Store.

2 - For specific requests such as this, you'll have to contact [email protected] directly from an official company email with an estimate of how many licenses you're looking for.

3 - To our knowledge ASE does not have any shortcomings in regards to deferred rendering, ultimately it depends on the created shader. Shortcomings usually associated with toon shading stem from the fact that Custom Lighting in Unity is Forward only; this is not an ASE limitation. Are you looking for something in specific? We could provide further details if you're able to elaborate on this.

4 - Yes, the EULA is based on the Unity Asset Store ToS so it's compatible with any type of license, starting from Unity 5.5. Our full products abide solely by those terms, so you are free to sell any shaders that you create using ASE, either by themselves or included within an asset package or game.

4a - You don't have to give us any sort of credit or mention, but we encourage developers to share their creations with us so that we can help promoting them.

4b - No.

Please let me know if you have any further questions, thanks!

[Hans77]

@Amplify_Borba

Thank you very much for all the help and the speedy reply. Much appreciated.
You answered all of my questions perfectly!

Again, I apologize if these questions have already been answered.

Best regards,
Hans77

[Hans77]

@Amplify_Borba
Actually, sorry, one last question.

If I were to make the same shader, one in ASE and the other using standard shader files, would their performance be the same? Are there any benchmarks for shaders made with ASE vs equivalent shaders using standard Unity shader scripts?

[Amplify_Borba]

No problem, I'm happy to help!

Regarding performance, it ultimately depends on the type of shader that you build, since ASE is a visual editor that gives you the flexibility to build different types of shaders. If you're building a Standard Surface Shader through ASE you can expect the same performance as if you wrote that same shader by hand, for example, since it draws from what Unity provides.

You can, however, make your own custom shaders, either by using the Custom Lighting setup or a Shader Template, you can create extremely efficient and mobile friendly shaders, as you're effectively stripping them down of all the unnecessary options and features that exist within Standard Surface shaders.

In short, you get the convenience of having a visual node-based shader editor without a performance compromise, as ASE generates clean and optimized code.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

[Hans77]

Excellent. Thank you very much. I will relay this info to the involved parties at my company.