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A light shafts (volumetric shadows) effect for Unity.

JavaScript 14.51% C# 47.78% GLSL 37.72%

lightshafts's Introduction

Note: I'm working on a more solid and universal volumetrics rendering solution, but it's still WIP (e.g. doesn't support directional lights): VolumetricLighting

Light shafts

A light shafts (aka light scattering, aka volumetric shadows) effect for Unity.

video

Performance: in 1080p on GTX580 about 1.0-1.5ms for a full screen light, down to 0.2ms if the light is smaller or partially occluded.

Download

Check out this repo into a subfolder of your Unity project (visible meta files), e.g. Assets/LightShafts/

Light shafts should work on Windows (DX9 and DX11) and OSX.

Version 2. Verified in Unity versions 4.5.5f1 - 5.6.0f3.

Usage

Add the LightShafts.cs script to a directional light or spot light and tweak the settings.

In general volumetric lighting is a very expensive effect. This implementation tries to make it affordable by avoiding slow raymarching for every screen pixel. A smaller number of raymarching samples in important places is chosen instead (red pixels in images below) and the final lighting is interpolated from those.

It's important to tweak the effect's quality settings to get as few red (expensive) samples as possible. Other settings are important for performance too.

Start out by tweaking the size (directional light) or spot angle and volume start and end (spot light) to get the yellow box/frustum in the scene view tightly around your target area.
Set the culling mask to only include objects which need to cast volumetric shadow (doesn't matter if the shadowmap mode is static, as then the shadowmap is only rendered at startup).
Enable show samples (DX11 only for now).
Tweak shadowmap resolution to be as low as possible, but still be able to make out the detail in silhouettes of shadow casters.
Samples across rays - that many samples - and rays - around the light, when looking at it.
Samples along rays - that many potential samples along each ray, but they only become actual samples if they encounter a difference in depth or are forced by the force samples every setting.
Depth threshold - from camera's perspective, light shafts change intensity wherever there's a bigger depth difference. Make sure this setting creates silhouettes of red pixels around objects where it matters.
Force samples every - even if there's no abrupt change in depth, light shafts' intensity still changes along it's length somewhat and that gradient needs to be sampled. Set to a higher value if you can (the goal is still to have as few red samples as possible).

Colored light shafts

To get the effect of light tinted by stained glass, enable the colored checkbox and set the color filter layer mask to whatever layer contains your colored objects. Those objects will be rendered to a buffer using a forward rendering camera, so sometimes it might be better to create duplicates with a shader not using lighting, just outputting saturated color. The rays will be tinted along their entire length.

Cookies on spot lights are multiplied in as well, and also affect performance.

LightShafts.cs vs SunShafts.js

The SunShafts.js effect in standard assets performs a (depth-aware) radial blur of the skybox, fully in screen space. So the effect is more volatile, visible only when looking against the light direction, etc., but also cheaper. Use LightShafts.cs when you need a more grounded effect, in world space, visible from the side - and can afford it.

What's next?

I'll probably add the effect to Unity's image effects standard package, when it's done.
1D min/max mipmap optimization: not sure if I'll implement it. It's usefullness is limited to dx11 and non-colored lights without cookies, mostly. Pull requests welcome, though :)
Some dithering would be nice to avoid banding in dark scenes.
Re-using the internal shadowmaps instead of rendering new ones - hmm...
Cookies: for directional lights too (need an offset setting) and premultiply with color filter, if both are enabled.
Make sample visualisation work on dx9 and opengl as well.

License

Public domain.

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lightshafts's Issues

Black Triangles Appearing

Very nice package that really helps creating interesting atmospheres. It seems however that there are strange black triangles that appear for some reason I cannot fully explain. In the following screenshot they are not all produced by the same light source.

It it maybe clearer when animated:

Any idea of what could be causing this?

EDIT: It seems to happen only at the edge of the light projection frustum. Here’s a more useful GIF:

didn't work on android

work fine with standalone platform, but on android platform this didn't work.

bug with unity 5.3 multi scene editing

Hello, I use the new multi scene editing in unity 5.3.1p1 and find a bug. LightShaft is latest version.
I put LightShaft and light in scene A, scene A has no camera, then put main camera in scene B. I set the lightshaft use camera from scene B. But every time I run the game in editor, there is a camera added into scene A. So there will be many cameras in scene A after many times playing.

The Gizmos draw for spot light is not correct I think for new Unity 5.6. DrawGizmos should use zero as center

Works on VR?

Hello and thank you for this great stuff!
I don't get it work on my VR Project with SteamVR and my HTC Vive.
In the unity Window it works great, but not on my Headset.. i don't see anything :(
Is there any workarround or something?

Thank you!

Unity 4.6.3 & 4.6.4 on OSX not working

I tried this on Unity 4.6.3 & 4.6.4 both on OSX 10.10 and Windows 7.
Windows 7 worked fine, but OSX can't see the light beam, and 100% crash when switch to game view.
I tried this on mac last year and worked fine ( it was around unity 4.5.4 ).
Is it possible to make it work on OSX with unity 4.6.4 ?

Light Shafts only Render When selected during Play Mode

I tried on both Mac and PC. the light shafts clear when the play button is hit until i manually select the lights in the project window while the game is running. The Shafts are also off when i build a stand alone.

Maybe i can force this in the script somewhere?

Dead link in README.md

Hello! In the Links section of README.md, there is a link to a technical paper with information.

The link appears to be dead though.

The link in question is: https://sfb716.icp.uni-stuttgart.de/uploads/tx_vispublications/espmss10.pdf

Ambiguous Reference Exceptions

A few ambiguous reference exceptions from the LightShaftsEditor js file are showing up Unity 5.5.2

LightShafts 'failed getting triangles' error at runtime on Unity 5.1.1

I'm seeing the following error when adding light shafts to a spotlight, using Unity 5.1.1:

Failed getting triangles. Submesh topology is lines or points.
UnityEngine.Mesh:get_triangles()
LightShafts:InitSpotFrustumMesh() (at Assets/LightShafts/LightShafts.Resources.cs:219)
LightShafts:InitResources() (at Assets/LightShafts/LightShafts.Resources.cs:287)
LightShafts:OnRenderObject() (at Assets/LightShafts/LightShafts.cs:208)

Line 219 of LightShafts.Resources.cs is:

if (m_SpotMesh.triangles == null || m_SpotMesh.triangles.Length != 36)

And I found that adding another check to the beginning of that if statement seemed to sort it out:

if (m_SpotMesh.GetTopology(0) != MeshTopology.Triangles || m_SpotMesh.triangles == null || m_SpotMesh.triangles.Length != 36)

This does fix the error, though I'll leave it up to @robertcupisz as to whether it's the correct fix.

No effect for mobile

In the unity editor and player everything is ok, but on the actual mobile device it doesn't show at all. I tried fiddling with the lighting settings for mobile player and didn't come up to a solution. Is this restricted on mobile in anyway or am i just stupid ?

scene view not showing light shafts

light shafts not shown in the scene/editor view, only in game view
(because the editor script is js not cs?)

Not Work with WaterProDayTime

Hello.
I am trying to use Light Shafts with WaterPro DayTime (unity), but when I set the water to reflection mode or refraction mode the rays disappear.

Why does it happen ?

Not working in GVR

Without GVR

With GVR

Shader compile issues on PS4

On PS4 I have shaders issue...I hope it's an easy fix

Problem with forward doubleside shader

I have a problem with using LightShaft with “forward doubleside shader”.
I want to use a custom forward double side (cull off) shader for plane object lit by back light with LightShaft. If I make LightShaft enable, backside face became transparent. For several reasons, I can’t avoid using this forward shader (but render path is set deferred).
If I set deferred double side shader , it seems to be no problem. What is the reason of this problem and how can I fix?
(Unity5.5

)

HDRP compatible plezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I wan't to create a high quality scene by using HDRP,the LightShafts is such a high quality works,so it's incompatible with HDRP is strange,right?

[Unity 5.2] LightShafts disappear

I started using the Light Shafts in our project and found out, that in certain viewing angles the LightShafts disappear.
I was able to reproduce this issue with the following setup:

I had a ventilation duct on the top part of a wall (higher than the player camera) and placed a spot light in it, shining out of it. So the light had a -90degree rotation shining directly to the side.
If I now walked directly infront of it, looking right in the center of the light shafts, they disappeared.

Would love to use this asset in the project, but this is a no go.
Is there anything I can do to prevent this fromo happening?

I will provide some screenshots/video if I get home from work (if needed)

LightShaft Banding

Hi, on Dark scenes it is possible to see the banding, even with higher resolutions.

Which shader you think I can change to reduce it (as you said dithering)?

Regards
Rodrigo

unity beta 4.6

Currently the package isn't working in unity 4.6 beta
Incridible work btw!

Spot light origin not correctly offset in URP

Hello,

Trying to implement this awesome piece of art into my urp project and it's not working with spot light as intended:
The spot light position is wrong.

Unity 5.5 compile error - Shader error in 'Hidden/Coord': '|' : wrong operand...

When building my project I get the following error:

Shader error in 'Hidden/Coord': '|' : wrong operand types no operation '|' exists that takes a left-hand operand of type 'bool' and a right operand of type 'bool' (or there is no acceptable conversion) at line 67 (on gles)

Cut out shader

Hi,
Do you know any way to be makin the voumetric fog with a cut out shader ?
Since you said it need to write to depth texture and standard cutout doesn't.
Thanks !
Baptiste

different effet in Unity 5.2 and Unity 5.02

Hi,
I have noticed that yout light shafts look different in Unity 5.2 and Unity 5.02. Please, look and this image (top unity 5.02, bottom unity 5.2). All parameters are the same. Do you have any idea what is going on?

Is It Working on Mobile?

Hi I tried.
It's working on Unity. But didn't work on my mobile. So I'm curious that is it supposed to work on mobile?
Thanks in advance!

Coord / platform error

Just copied files, but got this error. No clue why... Target standalone x86_64, windows, dx11/9

Sprite rendering order, behind light shafts.

The light shafts seem to render in front of the sprite renderer, causing any sprite based object to always appear behind the shafts even when the sprite is in front.

Vertex manipulation in shader not affecting light shafts

Hi, I'm trying to use light shafts with a mesh that is animated via vertex shader, and the shafts don't seem to be conforming to the changing mesh. Is this expected? If so, could you offer any pointers as to how I could go about getting this to work? Thanks!