Hello! I developing a plugin that greatly simplifies the work of installing light probes on the scene.
Magic Light Probes is an extension of the Unity editor that allows you to quickly build high-precision volumes of light probes. You can choose different techniques for calculating the volume (exact shadows or the intensity of the illumination of a point in space) for each light source in your scene, depending on what result you want to get. Light probes are installed not just near light sources, but only in places of contrast - at the borders of shadows, changing the color or brightness of the light.
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.
MLP supports multithreading where possible, which greatly increases the speed of calculation.
Volume calculation takes place in several passes, and each of the stages of the passage you can configure separately using the debug mode.
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
How much is this going to be? Its one of the most annoying things. How about something for reflection probes too? PBR textures require good reflection probes to work.
I mean it looks cool, but is with that overkill of probes? I know Unity does that sometimes in their demo scenes, but you could have like 10 times less probes and have the same visual result.
It seems like it starts with a pretty dense grid, and then adjusts adds more in high contrast areas.
I would like to see how it does with far less probes.
I can’t tell you the exact price yet. I am still continuing work on the plugin and adding new interesting things to it. It is unlikely that the same thing will happen with reflection probes.
The number of light probes depends on the settings and types of light sources. For example, for mexed lights, probes will be installed only at the borders of the shadow near geometry in order to capture the change in indirect lighting. I will show some screenshots a bit later.
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)
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.
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.
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 feautures:
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
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.
