[RELEASED] Magic Light Probes - High Precision Light Probe Generator

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1950Ă—1300 128 KB

Hello! I developing a plugin that greatly simplifies the work of installing light probes on the scene.

Magic Light Probes is a tool that takes you from a long and painstaking work on the arrangement of light probes.

Light probes will be automatically installed where they really are needed - the borders of shadows, sharp changes in the color of textures, transitions from well-lit areas to dimly lit, corners and intersections of geometry, edges of geometry, ledges, breaks, sharp descents, two-sided geometry (to prevent leaks through walls, floors and ceilings). In addition, the modes of uniform filling of the entire volume and vertical duplication for particularly difficult cases are supported.

You can achieve AAA results much faster, you will no longer need to spend a huge amount of time looking through the entire scene in search of really important places for installing light probes, you will get this in automatic mode.

In addition, you are unlikely to get faster and better support anywhere. In addition to email and the forum, the Discord channel is available to you, where you can receive answers to any questions in real time.

This tool cannot guarantee that the probes will be installed correctly in all possible cases, but it can guarantee that:

  • No probes will be located inside the geometry, no matter how complex it is, convex or concave. This is very important, because even in the simplest case of manually arranging probes by simple duplication, you will inevitably encounter probes within the geometry.
  • With high accuracy, light probes will be installed at corners and intersections of the geometry. In corners, as a rule, the light intensity is lower, therefore, in order to properly illuminate a dynamic object when approaching such places, it is necessary to install probes there.
  • Light probe placement density depends on contrast of the lighting, yielding more probes near the lights and at shadow borders. Depending on the settings, the system will try to place the probes in the most contrasting places (errors are not excluded)
  • It is guaranteed to be pretty fast in most cases.

Large and complex scenes can be divided into separate volumes that can be calculated individually or all at once. You can adjust each volume individually, and also exclude some light sources from the calculation in volumes that they will not have any effect on.

Magic Light Probes supports multithreading where possible, which greatly increases the speed of calculation.

Volume calculation is split into several stages, each can be configured separately using the debug mode.

  • Automatic arrangement of calculation volumes

  • Dynamic Volume Density (Experimental)

  • Automatically check for updates

  • Workflow selection

  • Simple (quick and easy)

  • Advanced (slower and more accurate)

  • HDRP/URP compatible

  • GPU acceleration for some passes of calculation

  • Quick editing of volume parameters after calculation

  • Equivalent Volume Filling (GPU)

  • Unlit Volume Filling (GPU)

  • Color Threshold

  • Can work in background

  • HDRP light source support (experimental)

  • Installing probes in manual mode (option “Set Custom Probes” in “MLP Combined Volume” component)

  • Culling geometry collisions

  • Accurate search for corners and geometry intersections

  • Arrangement of probes along geometry

  • Multithreading

  • Supports terrain

  • The ability to divide the scene into separate volumes

  • Debug volume calculation steps

  • Works “out of the box” with a minimum basic settings

  • Automatic search for all static objects and adding colliders to them at the time of calculation

  • Ability to put the main folder in any project directory

Asset Store
Manual
Discord Server
Update Server (access is possible by login and invoice number after purchase)

Videos

Promo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecoj6AwbRTk

Probes generation on indoor scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVYc_A2BtQ

Quick editing of calculated volume with GPU acceleration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbOq52w1gAU

“Separate Filling” algorithm demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bka8E3cygNU

Scene setup demo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g7KGJDt6qQ

Images

5186252--604417--colorCulling_media.jpg
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5186252--604408--baked point light.PNG
5186252--604408--baked point light.PNG1920Ă—908 156 KB

5186252--604411--mixed point light.PNG
5186252--604411--mixed point light.PNG1920Ă—908 108 KB

5186252--604420--innerVolumesOnTerrain.PNG.jpg
5186252--604420--innerVolumesOnTerrain.PNG.jpg1920Ă—909 304 KB

1 Like
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Automatic placement light probes example: one directional light in mixed mode. Sample scene taken from Bakery plugin examples.

1 Like
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Hello!
I am still working on the plugin.
I want to show you how objects are illuminated after calculating the scene with one baked directional light.

Placing of light probes in “Accurate Shadows” mode. Light probes are placed in shadow areas near the geometry and a bit further away from it. (this distance can be changed)

2 Likes
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Hi everybody! The plugin is almost ready. In the meantime, here are a few more demos.

Calculation Types - Accurate Shadows vs Light Intensity

This is an example of using the “Accurate Shadows” option. One of the light sources has a high intensity and a different color. This creates a shadow near another light source - in this place it is necessary to install light probes.

This is an example of using the “Light Intensity” option. Both light sources have the same intensity and color. Most of the light probes have the same intensity and therefore have been removed. Those light probes whose intensity is too different are placed in contrasting areas of the scene.

Baked And Mixed Lights

The placing of light probes is carried out differently for baked and mixed light sources. For mixed light sources, the light probes will only be placed at the borders of the shadow near the geometry to capture indirect light.
For baked light sources, the light probes will be placed both near the geometry and throughout the height of the volume in order to capture the exact place of transition from the illuminated area to the unlit.

2 Likes
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Hi everybody!
Another feature of the plugin is nested volumes. This allows for example, to create one large volume with low density to fill large spaces and several smaller volumes inside it. Nested volumes can have individual settings for more detailed processing of the environment and more accurate/dense arrangement of light probes.

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Asset is ready and is awaiting approval at the store.
Since the first release was sent, several bugs were found and some new features were added, so immediately after the publication of version 1.0, update 1.1 will be sent to the store.

Changes / bug fixes in version 1.1:
Added features**:**

  • Duplication to a specified height with a given step
  • The calculation mode “One by one” (for a large number of volumes on the scene)
  • Progress bars in the manager window

Bug fixes:

  • The manager window does not update the list of volumes when the volume is duplicated on the scene

  • Rare cases of light probes placement far beyond the volume

  • Double light probes near geometry

  • Uncontrolled duplication of an object “- MLP Combined Volume -”

  • Invalid shader for displaying light probe positions in debug mode

  • Exception during scene unloading

  • Error restoring scene state after calculation

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Will you have a video showing a proper scene with and without your probes in place, I think that would be interesting to potential purchasers.

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I have several videos, they are in the beginning in this thread, they show very simple scenes. Do you mean a demonstration of a more complex scene?

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Yeah, simple scenes show the concept but it would be nice to see the difference it makes in a real world scene to the lighting and show the performance difference.

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Ok, i will try ))

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Lighting demonstration after automatic placement of light probes on Sponza. I did not notice FPS changes associated with light probes, it makes no sense to show the level without light samples.
Nevertheless, I know that this has a significant impact on the performance of mobile platforms, so they (as always) will require more careful tuning.

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Why does it make no sense to show the level without probes, surely that is showing what benefit your asset brings.

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Without light probes, the character looks evenly lit at any point in the scene. If it makes sense to show it, then I can, of course.

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I mean, if you absolutely murder a scene with lightprobes of course it’s going to look right everywhere.

I guess what most of us want to see, is intelligent placement of lightprobes that has almost the same results with much fewer probes, which seems that your asset might be able to do, but your examples here don’t exactly showcase it.

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Any chance you will add an optimize option to remove un needed probes like AutoProbe does?

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A much smaller number of probes will reduce the quality of lighting. Miracles do not happen, unfortunately. )) Everything depends on the requirements and complexity of the scene. Somewhere it will be better to uniform fill the whole scene with probes with the specified step, somewhere it is better to use intelligent filling. On Sponza, for example, it is better to use uniform filling. Both methods are supported by the asset, both methods ideally exclude probes inside the geometry and take into account probes in the corners, also in both methods the probes are placed along the geometry and most importantly, the arrangement of the probes is very fast. You will not need to think about any of the probes being inside the geometry or below the floor or above the roof, otherwise, each scene requires an individual setting. I will record another video on Sponsa, in which I will reduce the number of probes to 500, which is significantly less than 3470.

The plugin’s goal is to place probes where they are needed, so optimization may not be necessary at all. But as I said earlier, it all depends on the scene. It is possible to reduce the number of probes along the geometry, the number of probes equivalent in light intensity or unlit probes. It is guaranteed that not a single probe will be inside the geometry, and also, with appropriate settings, the probes will be placed in contrasting places.

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Sure, but my point is that your examples are geared towards quality, while I would like to see examples that are geared towards a more equal performance/quality ratio.

Personally, I am currently hand authoring light probes, so they generally don’t go above a couple of hundred probes. I would be interested in your asset if it does a better job in placing them than I do.

2 Likes
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After a quick setup, I was able to reduce the number of probes on scene to an incredibly low. A total of 181 samples.
Of course, in some places you still have to correct the result manually. However, this result differs in accuracy from the previous video.

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Hi guys!
Asset is published in the store. Here’s a link: Magic Light Probes 1.0

I remind that a new version 1.1 is already available. Please contact me immediately after purchase so that I will send you a new package. After some time, the update will be available in the asset store.

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Update 1.1 is published in the asset store.