Feature Request Volumetric fog blocking light too much

On level design phase of work I found that it is hard and even impossible in some situations to configurate volumetric fog area (min max and attenuation).
On tall levels bottom part become too dark and have no light shafts... it seems Unity by default render volumetric fog more like sand dust (with strong sun block) rather than light water fog.

is there any settings should I ckeck?
i found that UE have "Extinction Scale" (Controls how much the participating media blocks light.) param and cant find it in unity... it seems its hardcoded for some reason...

 

while testing I also notice that light will be blocked even without volumetric fog...

 

Do you mean high density fog but not block the light?

 

no its really about blocking the light.... in bottom of fog min height light parts will be almost same dark as in shadows from directional light.

 

for example i have this scene... for third person shooter.. i turn off fog to better understand what it its...


so i enable super hard fog for scene and now i can see only upper part:



but now when i trying to go to bottom level i see this:



only after I increase sunlight 1000 times light can pass through fog light blocking and i can see this:



but upper part become totally white from ultra powerful sun =)
so fog is blocking sun light in constant value that cannot be changed.

so editing sunblock power can add more realism because natural hard fog never blocks 100% sunlight as Unity do it by default.

 

Adjust the fog attenuation value, the higher the less dense fog is, the lower the denser it'll be.
There's also a base height value, and max height value, and other parameters you can change in your fog override.

All lights also have a volumetric intensity value, you can find it in your sun.

 

yeah but none of that params cant beat black shadow from fog. Light volumetric intensity value also make it bright only above black shadow. Only increasing light power intensity will start to fill light through fog.
That's why this topic is Feature Request, missed light blocking parameter in HDRP fog settings. (i also check in visiblity of additional properties)

maybe there is HDRP source code of fog shaders that can be modified manually?

 

You can use APV (probe volumes), new probe system for HDRP in 2022.2 and up.
When using APV, it will feed correct color info/indirect lighting to volumetric fog.

 

My general opinion on this... it is tricky in Unity (HDRP) to make strong sun shafts or god rays, without having the fog look super "thick". Maybe the values are realism based and quite accurate, but artistically if you just want to see a bunch of exaggerated rays coming through the tree tops, you have to do quite a few hacks and adjustments to get close the desired outcome.

 

@Ava42

You could always blend a local Volume with a fog override for the lower level. what i am not fully realising is your set-up.

It looks like you're using anisotropic backscattering ( negative numbers on the slider) and increasing the volumetric contribution of your sun to increase the visible god ray scatter, but unsure why you're getting an exposure difference like that.
are you updating the ambient sky probe or is it set to static?

what is your scene scale?

i can't see much visible difference of exposure with vertical scale, I just lose the sun vis.

my test scene was only 500m verticle for the objects and ground, but i get absolutely nothing similar to this.

i'd maybe take a step back and look at your ambient probe contribution and general exposure, it looks like you're using a very dark HDRI sky, so check its contribution too.

i highly recommend using the Rendering debuggers lighting tab under Window as well, you'll be able to see your current contributions on all lighting types.

 

You can always use the config package to do so; https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/c...finition@14.0/manual/HDRP-Config-Package.html

After installing it, head over to ...YourProjectPath\Packages\com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition-config\Runtime, open up ShaderConfig.cs.hlsl and add #define LIGHT_EVALUATION_NO_HEIGHT_FOG to it.

 

Yep works like a charm! Thank you!
Wonder why it is not simple checkmark in fog settings.
Also as I understand it have better performance.