Progressive Lightmapper vs Enlighten vs Lightmass

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/free-lighting-box-released.475644/#post-3102635

 

I already compared Beast and Enlighten in the past with all different settings possible. But Unity 5 always has better Indirect lighting that's possible only with VRay

View attachment 238086

 

Beautiful... can't wait to try this out

 

How could i missed this thread.
Now we just need a proper shadow receiver for dynamic object with mixed lighting

 

It's probably a) unhelpful, and b) way too late, but could we get some of those tradeoffs configurable? I'd kill for render times on par with what Beast could achieve.

 

I think our hopes for fast render times will come with GPU and distributed LAN lightmapping . Although who knows if the LAN baking is still even being worked on - imo, GPU acceleration might make that not as useful in comparison, but we can always use more speed.

 

Does anyone know if these features can be achieved in 5.6 with PL?

1. Baking lighting for Skinned Mesh Renderers (not 100% sure about Enlighten, but it definitely used to work in Beast, when you marked the object "Static" during the baking process). Is that somehow possible with Progressive Lightmapping?
2. Objects that don't cast shadows, but receive them. It seems that with Progressive Lightmapping this setting is ignored. I've also tried making separate settings for these objects and mark "Is Transparent" for them, but that didn't do anything, as well. Am I doing something wrong?
3. Objects with transparency. Again, "Is Transparent" in the baking settings doesn't seem to do anything. Is there a way to tell PL to not drop shadows from transparent parts of the objects?

Thanks for any input

 

No. Maybe in the future (but don't count on it for any time soon)

This works in 2017, not sure if it was backported to 5.6.

"Is transparent" is only relevant to Enlighten. Otherwise transparency works for direct light, it doesn't work for indirect light. Not sure when it's going to be fixed/added.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

this thread is a gem .. i tell ya. Thanks Ali for all these tests and amazing visuals!

 

@aliyeredon2

In your tree baking scene, did speed tree get lightmapping? I tried to lightmap speed trees but they won't work! (neither did the unity tree)

If so , how did you managed to bake lightmap for the trees? Or trees just uses the light probes?

 

You must export tree's 3d model for baking purpose (using exporters)
Then generating lightmape UV for tree model

After that you can bake tree models like other geometries. But when you are using too many trees, you must use very low resolution for trees and needs much RAM for baking.

So the better way is using light probes for too many tree models

 

I use real time gi , but i get a very bad image . if i use bake gi and enable finalgather , this problem will disappear . i try change realtime uv option , still nothing to do . have you ever met?

 

By Realtime GI you mean Enlighten?

 

yes,Enlighten

 

Will this new Progressive Lightmapper be as default in Unity 2018.1 ?


How to set up volumetric lighting with PL ?

https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/VolumetricLighting

 

That has nothing to do with the progressive lightmapper.

 

When progressive lightmapper bakes, can volumetric lighting be rendered in the scene ?

 

Sure? I am not sure what you're asking.

 

For example, if we have object with emission material (say cube), and we set up volumetric lighting,
how does baked progressive lightmapper interact with volumetric ?

If we have some moving object through the scene, does it get affected by baked emissive light ?

 

It has nothing to do with volumetric. It is a lightmapper.

 

yes enlighten

 

I think I know what he's trying to say but this only makes sense if the scene uses only baked lighting as if it was mixed this wouldn't be an issue.

So when you have a scene with only baked lighting the lights you used to bake are off/don't affect the scene anymore, and volumetric lighting usually comes from a light source. With baked lighting, there is no light source so he's asking if the lightmaps would interact with volumetric lighting to produce the same effect.

I don't think this is possible by default may be a custom solution sampling light probes then doing something with that might create a similar effect. (Not a graphics programmer just a thought/idea)

 

they have FINALLY fixed PLM for outdoor medium/large urban scapes like environments. Prior releases it would simply stall. This time soon after bake start it was showing progress and after 3p mins I gst a clear idea on bow the bake would end up. Stimated 3 4hours for full bake. Sure there is room for optimization but at least Im getting a bake.