Area Lights in Unity 5.4?

Hi

I read that area lights are being used as experimental implementation in Unity 5.4. Is this already implemented in Unity 5.4.0 Beta 10 that is available on the site?

Do this area lights cast shadows?..., Area lights with its soft casting shadows is hugely important for me, i hope Unity Area Lights will have this..

Thanks

 

Static ones do.

For dynamic ones you will have to wait.

There was a sneak peak here

(go to roughly 30:00)

Note: It seems the Unity solution that they are showing doesn't have shadows though.

 

If they're using an area light for that main green light (which I think Lucas implied) then it is casting a shadow for the metal beams onto the ground. Regardless, this is described as an early feature, so don't hope this is going to make it into 5.4. It could be years before it is integrated into Unity proper. (See nested prefabs)

 

Fair point. Not sure if that is a realtime shadow or a baked shadow though.

 

The area lights are command buffers, while the volumetric fog is something done in the past (see http://robert.cupisz.eu/post/119949491421/volumetricfog). Judging by the inspector they support shadows but aren't enabled for the current demo (most likely except for the main green light).

Regardless, they are planning to release all the tech behind the Adam demo soon and the notes/slides behind the tech after part 2 (sometime in June). They also mentioned it's all real time, which is I think was one of the points they wanted to showcase with the demo, being able to run the demo all in fully real time.

 

Area light: http://docs.unity3d.com/uploads/Examples/RenderingCommandBuffers.zip

 

Thanks guys.

So those area lights are experimental and not close to shipping., but if they are going to release the tech used for the Adam demo can they also release those area lights even if they are experimental?...

I`m new to Unity and i don`t know all of it`s features, but it would be very nice to have area lights with casting shadows for objects with animation/deformations running in real time.

 

That Area Light that Laurentlavigne linked is a script?..., can you Laurentlavigne or anyone else tell me please how to use that..? as i said i`m new to Unity.

Thanks

 

You open the scene "lighting" and copy paste the lights over to your scene, also copy the ScenePlance hierarchy over and reparent your objects under it, it'll get you started.

 

Thanks Laurentlavigne.
I attach this area light effect to a point light or other light, right?
Is there a way to activate shadows for this area lights?... not the sharp shadows of a point light or a spot light that can have this area light attach, but the soft shadow that normally an area light has..?

 

no

 

Thanks for the info.

 

The area lights in de GDC video looks as a new technique (script atached to a quad) not the command buffers that use empty objects and only can make box and sphere ligths, but in the Unity roadmap nothing says about area lights.

 

I think i've read in twitter that it do Unity custom technique, not a new one but basically an improved version of already existing tech.