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Volumetric Lighting

Discussion in 'Wish List' started by Dakta, May 24, 2010.

  1. Dakta

    Dakta

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2008
    Posts:
    492
    I’m amazed that this hasn’t been suggested already!

    We NEED volumetric lighting. Or at least we really want it :p I don’t think there’s anything more to say here.

    Anyone support?
     
  2. imaginaryhuman

    imaginaryhuman

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    Yes it would be nice. There are ways to do it but something built in would be cool.

    The main ways are a) model geometry in the shape of light shafts, and b) post-process multiple zooms on top of each other.
     
  3. Dreamora

    Dreamora

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    I'm sure it has been suggested.
    Commonly followed by the lines that you are likely not interested to cut the majority of OSX users and the majority of the non gamer focused windows users just for the sake of an effect thats hard to tune and handle ;-)


    I understand peoples interest in god rays and they make much more sense than volumetric lights with their ugly 3D texture performance impact, especially as god rays can replicate quite some of the intend usages just as well yet worlds faster
     
  4. Dakta

    Dakta

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    And clouds, and light shafts, and fog, smoke… Mostly light shafts though. You really need volumetrics for those.

    And I would hope it’s been suggested, but the suggestion doesn’t exist. I searched. No luck.
     
  5. wannabeartist

    wannabeartist

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    Jun 20, 2009
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    You can add be to the list of interested people :)

    Do we currently have any decent workarounds for such effects?

    Watching Alice in Wonderland last night suddenly made volumetric lights look really cool for me 8)
     
  6. Dakta

    Dakta

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    Well, you can do tons of meshes, but that's static. So far AFAIK there isn't a way to do this in Unity.
     
  7. chai

    chai

    Joined:
    Jun 3, 2009
    Posts:
    84
    Damn, I thought this was coming in Unity 3 .. guess I was wrong ?

    Walkarounds for volumetric lights are very cpu expensive and complicated to implement - I'm badly in need of this feature !
     
  8. antenna-tree

    antenna-tree

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2005
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    5,324
    We're including a volumetric light effect in 3.0. It will of course be Pro only as it requires render textures.

    Volumetric lights are always expensive though and should be used sparingly ;)
     
  9. Dakta

    Dakta

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    Apr 8, 2008
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    So I saw in the demo vids, and thank you greatly for that. Obviously it would be Pro only, but it's still a good thing to have.