Unity Video Output

Unity Video Ouput is a plugin for Unity that allows wiring cameras to other Applications using Syphon-Spout and NDI.

DOWNLOAD THE PLUGIN HERE

Motivation

This project aims to gather all techniques of frame video sharing for Unity in a single plugin. Its main goal is to bring all advances from the community in a common plugin that can be maintainable in the long term.

Features

• Share camera using: NDI or Syphon-Spout
• Switch between techniques in one click
• cross-platform (Windows, MacOS) and cross-pipeline (Standalone, HDRP, URP)
• Works in Play mode and in Edit mode (for Edit Mode, game view window must be visible and Unity in focus)

System Requirements

• Unity 2019.4
• Windows or MacOS, 64-bit only

Installation

Download and import in Unity one of the .unitypackage from Releases page.

Known Issues

• Some exotic resolutions can cause problems with NDI (For example 499x312)
• in URP, post process volumes are not taken into account (Unity's fault?)
• The linear color space and changes between linear/gamma color space are not properly supported
• Syphon colorspace can be mixed up between linear and gamma, causing too constrasty or too flat images on the receiver. Workaround: remove line n°18 on SrpMetalBlit.shader (see comment in the source file)
• Something else ? Tell us by creating an issue

Developers corner

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

Technical Overview

The code is split in two parts :

• A C++/ObjC nativePlugin, completely separated from Unity context and built as a .bundle (MacOS) or .dll (Windows)

• A C# Unity Package

• We are using a custom Syphon Framework that works with Metal and allows to create custom server implementations.
  The fork is available here Syphon Framework Fork

How To build

Software Stack

• For MacOS and Windows, Visual Studio
• Unity
• For MacOS, Xcode 10
• You might need to manually download the .NET Framework

Build instructions

• Create a Unity project and load the package as a local package
• Open a script file from your Unity project to access the code in VS Studio
• Code & Save. your Unity project will live-reload

For the Native plugin:

• Open the Xcode project or VisualStudio project inside the NativePlugin folder and run the build (make sure to choose 64bit build)
• .dll/bundle files are automatically updated in the package folder Editor/Native
• Don't forget: it is mandatory to restart Unity when updating a Native Plugin DLL

Credits

This plugin was made possible thanks to :

• The folks behind Syphon
• The folks behind Spout
• The folks behind NewTech NDI
• Keijiro Takahashi for his work of bringing all of these technologies in Unity

License

See the licence file for more details