Light-Affected Particles

It seems like fairly old tech for Unity to not support particle lighting, but that... seems to be the case? Am I just missing something or does it not support lights affecting particle color?

(If it doesn't support it, is there anything on the asset store that would replicate the behavior?)

 

They do not react to lighting. I am currently working on set of shaders which accept ambient light and one, strongest affecting light correctly. They support self-shadowing and shadowcasting but they don't receive shadows (because Unity does not have transparent shadow receivers). Stay tuned.

 

If you ever want any testing... :]

 

I've also created an issue for this that people should upvote: http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/lit-particles

 

So I have created this sample scene to show off my product. You may check it out. Feedback is always welcome
http://goo.gl/6S3zO9

 

Looking good! I'll expect it on the asset store tomorrow.

 

They do if you use them with a shader that supports lighting (for example, vertex-lit blended works, but you could even use the standard shader etc).

 

Yea, but using vertex-lit will cause sudden "pop" due to forward rendering pass nature.

 

Use the standard shader then. Or write your own. In short, it's not a feature that's missing from unity. It's just that the default shader that doesn't support lighting.

(also, I'm not sure what you mean by "pop", I'm not seeing it, but I'll take your word for it)

 

I'd say it's a feature missing from unity with other engines specifically call it out as a feature they support.

 

I got it now, you meant that "soft particles" doesn't work with the vertex lit ones, right? Then yes you are right.

 

2x votes. This would be a very cool thing to have!

--IronDuke

 

The link doesn't seem valid anymore. How are the shaders coming along? Looking forward to seeing them on the Asset Store.

 

Although the Standard shader allows particles to be affected by direct lights and ambient light (but not point lights, and still doesn't allow particles to receive shadows), it sadly seems that it doesn't respect the "color over lifetime" feature, used to fade particles in/out at birth/death. A quite crucial feature!

 

Sorry. Old link is not active. New link to webplayer with working lit particles:
https://f7b68234c0a29922610b35d8270...wBSLUWrntTbcDRldm5GRmpnT2c/30032015_2254.html

I am hardly working on getting everythig as polished as possible. I also found a way to receive lightning from all lights, not only directional light. Unfortunately it is not possible for me to create lit particles accepting shadows from other object as Unity does not have built-in transparent-shadow receiver solution. Creating my own would be an overkill.

 

Do the shaders from CORE Framework help with this sort of thing?

 

Not really. From what I can see CORE Framework does not have transparent shadow receiving shaders. I've read a post by Aras (Unity Dev) where he mentions that Unity 5 will get transparent shadow receivers somewhere in post 5.0 release cycle.

 

Thanks! Demo looks great! When do you apprximately expect to be able to release the shaders?

Good to know!

 

Wonderful! Any ETA for Asset Store ?

 

I can't say for sure but it should appear on the asset store this month. I am currently testing which version of Unity 4 supports my shaders. I have already tested them with Unity 5 and they are working like a charm.

 

I have created separate topic for my package:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/particle-shaders-vol-1-including-lit-particles.320244/

 

Just to be clear, you are talking about more than simply turning off shadows in the Renderer portion of the particle system? Or is that all you need to do?

 

When you click on your particle system and view it in the inspector you should see something like this:



Go to the part at the bottom titled "Renderer" and click on it to expand ...



And make the necessary changes.