I’ve created a free editor tool that provides advanced configuration options for Unity’s built-in lightmapping system, unlocking hidden features not accessible through Unity’s own Lightmapping window.
Lightmapping Extended includes support for all Beast XML settings that are compatible with Unity, many of which are not included in Unity’s own documentation.
Notable Features:
Lightmapping Settings Presets - store project-wide presets that can be applied to multiple scenes
Image-Based Lighting - light your scene with a panoramic HDR image.
Path Tracer GI - a fast, multi-bounce lighting solution.
Monte Carlo GI - a very slow but extremely accurate lighting solution.
Correct, this tool creates and updates an XML configuration file for the current scene. I’ve also added options not mentioned in Unity’s own XML documentation.
And I also like that it takes Probes into account :)… I made a tutorial involving XML files and this is a real time saver… I am going to do some renders for you if u need a gallery of sorts
And I do hope you put this on the asset store… especially for people like me who use Beast alot
I’ve actually neglected to test probes, so please let me know if you run into any issues.
I’d love a few gallery shots. I’m especially curious what a high quality Monte Carlo bake would look like - I haven’t had the patience to do one myself, it’s orders of magnitude slower than final gather.
I haven’t run into any issues… and I would add a bake probes option just in case… i am doing a render of my salem level with Some GI first, then PathTracer, and the Monte Carlo… and I will mess around with the second intergrators to make it work. Monte Carlo will take a LONG time to do… especially if the scene is huge. And I will have screencaps showing my settings… is that cool?
I am glad I have patience for a monte carlo render…also too, I will be posting screen shots from my desktop so you can see my settings… I usually keep it under 1000 when I am testing my scenes… and I fire 100,000 when I am happy with the settings Sorry, mentalray spoils me
I wish I could record how much time the bake took…
“The new Beast was presented at GDC 2010 in San Francisco.[6] The new version of Beast features two entirely new modules called DistriBeast and eRnsT. DistriBeast is an extremely fast and easy to use distribution engine for managing render farms. eRnsT is a real-time visualizer that allows artists to explore and control the lighting set-up without having to run a complete bake.”
Supported?
If yes, it would perhaps make sense for some of us to switch from Max+VRay to Unity+DistriBeast…
Here are some tests that I was doing with the newer exposed settings… The first screenshot is with PathTracer as a primary integrator… honestyly, I would never use this setting as a primary since it looks kinda off… in this scene, I am also using the skylight in the environment settings. I would use PT as a secondary integrator on lower settings.
The next one is Final Gather, and the results are predictable… even on lower settings I am getting very good results… I would definitely use this as a primary integrator with IBL enabled. This scene doesn’t have IBL.
DistriBeast is not currently supported. My tool is co-opting Unity’s embedded Beast tool by setting up a config file and calling the appropriate Unity editor methods to kick off the bake. Unity hasn’t licensed DistriBeast, so it’s currently inaccessible from the editor API.
The Beast engine is actually a separate executable that Unity runs after converting the current scene to a Beast-compatible format. It’s conceivable that this call could be intercepted and redirected to DistriBeast, perhaps by swapping the Beast executable with a script that accepts Unity’s command-line arguments. I may investigate this after polishing the current feature set.
Interesting… the path tracer render does look pretty strange. I’d seen it recommended to use Final Gather with Path Tracer as a secondary integrator specifically for environments that require a lot of bounce. I’m not certain if this is simply for speed, or if there is improved quality by combining them.
If you set Final Gather / Path Tracer to be the primary / secondary integrators respectively, it will enable a few additional settings at the bottom of the Global Illumination tab that control how the two solutions are blended together.
That is correct… I will test this out on a daytime level, using IBL… I strongly recommend not using PathTracer as a primary… The Path Tracer as a secondary sometimes adds a bit more bounce, but sometimes it is not a necessity unless you tweak the secondary integrator to a lower setting. Still waiting on a monte carlo render…
And here is a monte carlo render… took SO LONG with only 2048 samples… I recommend using this and FG as a second integrator… notice in this shot there is some residual sampling noise… you will need a CRAP load of samples and a good nights rest to get this looking great… I love Monte Carlo rendering… will post more images of my Atlantis level with a combo.
In FG, it keeps the shadows… in Monte Carlo, it is a full out lighting solution…
EDIT: Final Gather at a Primary Integrator and Monte Carlo as a secondary
When you use IBL, you are using the HDR mapping… another way to do it, is to make a physical box around your level, but this doesn’t have the same effect… The HDR maps are easy to acquire since they are available online in Lat-Long format…
