HDRP volumetrics and artistic control

Lets say i want to use volumetric lighting similar to overwatch - super wide barely visible "foggy lights", that arent physically correct (because they are linear, not inverse square) but give me the feel and mood i want.

Lets see how i can achieve it.
I want this light to give a wide effect visible from the corridor


Cranking up volumetric dimmer does nothing.
Cranking up range does nothing as well.

Lets go into debug mode an manually crank up dimmer


great! Just what i wanted.
Wait whats this:


Oh right there is no way to control it linearly/manually its only physically accurate.
Please guys, give us control over volumetrics. Give us linear ranges, support for gradients. Leave physically correct as a default, and add artistic controls as an option.

Also why do they look so bad?


How did PlayDead manage to pull off perfectly smooth volumetric with 3 samples that works on all platforms?

Video above uses HX Volumetric lighting from asset store.
It's impossible to do anything close in hdrp.

 

I would totally go for faking this like overwatch does.

 

I'd like to know of a way to make a volumetric spotlight, where the effect fades off outside of the cone.
Tried several methods and none gave me what I wanted...

 

Can try the old flipped normals mesh trick with rim light ish shading.

 

Good idea @hippocoder - I might try something model based (I know we used to draw the rays on alpha'd poly's 'back in the day' - but was hoping to use the volumetrics for it)

 

There a thing called "Emission radius" exist



Density Volume also useful.

 

Thanks for the reply @id0 - really appreciated - I'll need to play with these settings and see what I can get.
But... if you look at your first example, I'd like to get a much more gradual fade perpendicular to the sides to the light - look for example at where it hits the ground and gives such a harsh/strong lit edge. I'm really wanting that to be a soft fade and over a wide area.
I'll look into it though and thanks again for the suggestion.

 

Thanks for pointing it, i woudnt imagine emission had anything to do with volumetrics.
Looks pretty bad tho, compared to alternatives.
No need to bolden the text btw, i can read.

 

It's because everything connected in hdrp.
For better look you can switch on HiQuality in Volumetric HDRP settings, but it high cost for performance. I don't know why they can't just blur volumetric effect.

HDRP works on a different principle. HX Volumetric simply makes the rays from the light, and the HDRP Volumetric works in global surroundings, along with fog and lighting. The Aura does the same, but there are other problems.

 

They do blur it and add noise, but in editor mode it is not temporal, press play for best results. You also should use the Volume controller to adjust the maximum range. I would suggest 30 units being quite high res, with a distribution further to the right.

This gives us mostly perfect volumetrics and on top of that just allow it to fade before it's max range to avoid any noise issues.

 

Yeah, I notice that after my message.