Assets [Unity Awards 2018 - BEST ARTISTIC TOOL Winner] Aura - Volumetric Lighting

Give a dramatic look to the Village Demo Scene in 10 minutes :

 

Boy oh boy, I'm thirsty for this asset

 

What hardware is that running on?
And in editor or build?

 

GeForce Gtx960, in editor

 

Woah, that's awesome!

 

now that we have metal with compute shader support, will this work on a mac?

 

It was designed and made to be plateform and api independant, so I would say that I think it will work as long as there is Compute Shader.
I made successful tests on PS4 earlier in the development and everything was ok so it should not be Dx/OpenGl dependant either.

 

Very nice, any idea of a general timeframe for release?

 

I really work hard to fix and settle the last bugs (I rely on undocumented therefore unsupported and subject to changes features) and have a first version available, hopefully, in the next few weeks.

 

Aura will be submitted for publishing in the first weeks of 2018

Happy Holidays to everyone!​

 

happy holidays !

Does this work with multiple light sources? or only with one, thanks

 

Hi, good news! Would it be possible to provide some more information, I'm interested n the price you plan to ask for?

 

All the possible amount of lights allowed by Unity (I think 5 directional lights for example) and by the memory of the system.
No artificial/abstract/by-design limit (as much as I know ).

Around 40-50$.

 

Any chance I could get my hands on this early for use on Neon Challenge? Pm if interested

 

If anyone would like to try Aura for the Neon Challenge, PM me with the details and your project page for the challenge, so we can see if it would fit

 

no answer so i guess it does not fit!?

https://connect.unity.com/p/war-machines

 

Wooops, it seems I forgot to hit the "post reply" button... My apologies...
Check your pm

 

This is quite possibly one of the sexiest assets I've ever seen. How much is it going up for?

 

More information will follow on this Monday

 

Aura will be released in February 2018 for FREE

Stay tuned @raphernaelsten

 

Why free though? Not ungrateful merely curious

 

Long story short :

• I never thought of selling it, it was a personnal challenge (that I feel now accomplished), I just answered when people asked what Aura WOULD be worth
  
• I just want to make the Unity community thrive and make Unity better on my own level
• I am a self learner. Half of the knowledge I have is from dissecting sources from people that shared them. I wanted to give this opportunity back to the community. As a Teacher I really feel like this is a good deed.

 

As far as personal challenges go, you picked a hum dinger, and pulled it off brilliantly from what I can see! Have you considered a githib page for it so others might keep it going?

 

It will be released on GitHub (and hopefully the Asset Store if it complies) and I will be continuing the development.

 

Wow. Looks amazing. Fingers crossed for a quick Asset Store acceptance.
And congrats on achieving the personal goal.

 

wow - free!? generous!

 

Wow!!! Can't wait!

If I may, could you show a quick demo of the volumes? Does it support multiple volumes and more importantly, instantiated at runtime / moving volumes?

Here's what I'd like to reproduce (the rain shafts, not the clouds) :

 

The quality in the videos looks a little better than the hx volumetric lighting.
Why is that? Just higher sample count?

Also the "dust specs" in the air at 0:49, is that a particle system? Does it actually interact with the volumetric lighing?

 

Wow, amazing stuff, you are a shining example for the community!

 

Could Unity themselves add this into the product? Would make a great addition.

 

Thanks for making this !!!!

 

I'm super impressed both with the asset and your attitude to life and work. Much respect.

 

Thank you!

Yes! No hidden trick.

Yes, there is no limitation; and yes, everything is dynamic and can be created/destroyed at runtime

Just use a cookie or a volumetric texture injection

Their technique and mine highly differ and so will the output.
Aura is a physically correct volumetric lighting, which the one you mentionned is not. This leads to a more realistic result.
Besides, the design of the technique and the special optimizations I made allow to have a higher accuracy for even less performance cost, so yes this helps as well.

Yes this is just a "floating particles" particle system, and yes particles are lit by the volumetric lighting as shown at 1:02

Thank you! I think it is highly unlikely that Unity would integrate Aura in the editor by default, but who knows if you guys make enough noise about it

My pleasure! I want to contribute to the community, the quality of the games and to Unity.

Thank you for all your kind words on all the different website everybody

 

Thank you very much!

 

I'd love to see how it works. Are you saying I can use a texture and Aura will render noise / fog with the shape of that texture? like a mask? Sorry for my ignorance

 

I just found this through reddit and I can't believe it is for free.
You should at least consider some kind of donations.
Really it looks better than all paid solutions on the AssetStore. And it's so polished and well thought out. UT should hire you.

 

Agreed. Would donate.

 

@raphick Wow that's pretty awesome of you to make it free!

 

How is the light at 0:26 - 0:29 in the video made? Just using a cookie for the light!?
That looks extremely good, wow!

 

Yes

 

Many people ask for it, there will be a Donation button yes

Make some noiiiise!

 

Thank you!

Thanks! I now hope the community will use it and help me make it big and great

Yes, just the Unity Lights with the Aura component on them . And thanks!

 

This sounds as if you're interested in a job at Unity? while there are no shortcuts you can get noticed now you've done this asset - it is a perfect "hello" ! have you checked the careers page?

 

I've always liked to take part in making big things (Aura is a perfect example of me trying to help making Unity bigger) and be part of a solid pro team.

I would be honored to work with Unity as everyone here I suppose, especially that they now have people working there that motivated me in my career.
However, I have always felt weird about coming to someone and bragging "hi I made this, u interested now?"

 

will donate too! Awesome man.

 

Thank you I appreciate your support

 

Props raphick! What a clearly winning attitude - so many people ask first before giving; trying to monetize their first game etc... but this is the kinda S*** that really gets you places.

Can't wait to dig into the source! <3

 

Thank you.
I can't give them all a blame though... everyone has to eat...

 

I have a couple of questions about volumetric lighting in general. I want to understand its scope in terms of shadows.
For example, if I have a directional light pointing straight down, and two boxes, one in the air above the other, oriented the same way, does volumetric lighting prevent the bottom one from being lit by the directional light?

In other words, does volumetric lighting provide shadow functionality, or does it only light the 'space' between surfaces?

And your work looks really inspiring btw, I think I'll try it out for sure .