Official Global Illumination updates in 2022.2 and beyond

Hi, will the new precomputed GI support APVs or manually placed light probes only?

 

Whats the difference between this new precomputed realtime gi and enlighten realtime gi? Afaik, enlighten realtime gi also bakes some geometry data, not like the traditional lightmaps ofc. But whats the pros and cons of this new approach?

 

It sounds a lot like DDGI / RTXGI or whatever they were working on but then supposedly abandoned (in favour for a technique that sounds very similar?).

 

DDGI is not pre-baked IIRC. But BLAS can be baked for raytracing world representation, though Idk how Unity handles BLAS-TLAS stuff under the hood.

Given the target of a larger platform reach, I presume it wouldn't require hardware raytracing then?

 

@Jesper-Mortensen
@StevenK_Unity3D

1. Any chance that it will be possible to run the precompute phase on demand in runtime for 'The new probe based Precomputed Realtime Global Illumination'? According to this post by @StevenK_Unity3D it wasn't planned for the first iteration but could be considered as a future update.

2. It was mentioned here by @SebLagarde that there is a plan for a fully dynamic solution too. Can you share if it will be based on the same system as the precomputed one?

3. It wasn't mentioned in the opening post but maybe you can tell if there is a chance that this fully realtime solution will be released (at least as experimental) in the 2023 release cycle?

Thanks.

 

Hi,

The word "Prebaked" seemed a little thought-provoking to me. Will we be able to use this method you are currently working on in a game with the following features?

- Building structures with random objects (Prefab) added by players during the game or dynamically changing ready-made structures.
- Application of all hours of the day with different weather conditions.
- Ability to observe light propagation in huge open worlds. (For example, GI can be applied to a rock 5km away)
- Individual spawning of all objects in the open world instead of huge Prefab molds.

I don't even want to question how the installation is handled anymore. As long as we can see a real quality Realtime Global Illumination.

Frankly, we are all aware that there is now a clear need for a system that can be a complete alternative to RTX GI, since what we call Realtime GI can cover all these and other dynamic factors.

By the way, the Realtime Reflection system is also really necessary. I realize that the Reflection Probe system is off topic, but we are aware that it now remains a rudimentary solution for high-end projects.

Hopefully this process won't take too long. I wish you good work.

 

Will it have improved anti light leaking compared to current APV? If the quality is the same as current APV, it'll be a challenge to get it working well and will require a ton of manual work placing touchup volumes to invalidate bad probes, and you'd have to increase APV's normal and view-bias, both of which will reduce GI quality. Especially for interiors.

 

The question is...will baking the data take ages like with Enlighten? It will be annoying if u make changes to scene that u have to wait LONG times before its baked again.

 

Precomputed Realtime GI in HDRP with APVs sounds nearly ideal for my game. Do you think there is any way of somehow supporting simplified dynamic occluders? I'm thinking "simply" the ability to open and close doors and windows, (or similar simple portals) would be a sufficient amount of dynamism for my game. Perhaps somehow you could define an "influence volume" for a "PCRGI Portal" which would effectively just bake both versions and crossfade between them (similar to the way the currently in development multiple baked APV lighting scenarios would work). I think this would be sufficient to support reasonably high quality interior and exterior lighting with openable doors. I'm working on an open world game with seamless indoor and outdoor environments ideally and dynamic time of day. But the main GI issue seems to be doors.

 

in Unity 2023 now there's a progressive baker and a new Lightbaker 1.0, What is this LightBaker 1.0? where can i get more info about it?

 

Oh i see, so it basically a base for new Baker?
Thanks for the info

 

Please please please support additive scenes properly.
I don't know why behavior is inconsistent with the current GI. If it works on editor, its not guaranteed to work the same in build.
I use additive scenes a lot for bootstrapping, and currently what you see isn't what you get, even with the same lighting settings.

And please support additive probes baked into prefabs? (Honestly this would still be frustrating too)

And why not just make it easier and use SDF instead of probes for GI & RTGI? You already have an SDF baker built into Unity (VFX Package). Just have a tickbox that says "Bake SDF" on models. Please just stop with the probes going forward. SDF yields better baking workflow, and will arguably be faster in distance calculation. Stop being impractical and please just use SDF. Even if you want to use probes, at least make it support SDF. And did I mention SDF support?

Please just separate SDF Baker from VFX Package and use it as a dependency for GI as well.
Like stop being unconventional and impractical, stop being so stubborn for your pride, just support both. Please. The SDF Data can then be re-used for more than just GI. This includes Shadows, VFX, Shaders, Gameplay, Physics, etc. Stop tunnelscoping and think this is only for GI. No, its important for every other things too, stop making it redundant to have both Probes/SDF.

Can you imagine what kind of static shadows would we have with SDF? BAM NO MORE PIXELATED SHADOWS. We could've had better shadows since long ago.

I want to be civil, but global Illumination has been THE ONLY THING frustrating about Unity. FRUSTRATING.

My GI bug report takes 3 MONTHS for QA to reproduce and approve. Now it will take 3 MORE MONTHS if I were to report additive scenes. Seriously you guys are frustrating, GI team is frustrating, just stop it please.

 

Sad... i needed that for a project i had in mind and i was happy to try it with unity and not learn other engine

 

The thing we expect the most from Unity right now is a real-time Reflection/GI system. Also much more accurate AO and Shadows. For years, these things have been delayed and ridiculous technologies have been developed. But the systems that are being developed are still being developed with a lot of incompatibilities (because none of them are full-time like RTX and Lumen), while using extremely unnecessary methods and undermining the workflow. Let's please focus on the important features that need to meet the needs in 2023.

Of course, I should point out that there are more important issues, but let me share with you an important idea on this topic.

 

I'm glad to see the consensus is pretty much entirely focused on just having a good real-time solution. For a long time it's been aggravating having Unity basically brush real-time under the rug and just focus on baked static solutions. Having real-time support is a massive deal for me and my team. I'm cautiously optimistic reading this thread, as there does seem to be more transparency than before about what's being worked on, but certain things are still vague or left up in the air for future Unity to deal with... Guess that tends to be because things are still WIP or a final decision has yet to be made.

Regardless, I look forward to the first release of the new real-time solutions (maybe in 2024 LTS?), and hopefully at that point more clarity about the roadmap for expanding it to support "real" real-time global illumination

 

You can combine APV with SSGI which is 100% realtime to solve your scenario (either using a local or even a global volume because SSGI and APV blend very very well together in my opinion ).

 

Hi, is there any chance to see this feature as experimental in 2023?