Global Illumination
This section contains settings related to global illumination including SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion), SSGI (screen-space global illumination) and bent normals.
SSRTGI Parameters#
The SSRTGI (Screen-Space Ray-Traced Global Illumination) technology is a set of screen-space ray tracing techniques with the real-time performance level. The technology doesn't require light baking, so every object can be freely moved. In other words, SSRTGI is real-time global illumination in the screen space.
The technique implements real ray-tracing through each pixel of the screen, with a given number of rays and a specified accuracy of obstacle detection (the accuracy is set by using steps). Such ray-tracing is used for Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) to make more realistic shadows between objects, for Bent Normals to smooth ambient lighting on edges, and for SSGI to recreate light reflections from the object's surfaces.
Ray Tracing Options#
| Enabled | Toggles SSRTGI on and off. |
|---|---|
| Fast Tracing | Toggles fast tracing for the SSRTGI on and off. This option dynamically changes the step size to obtain indirect illumination bounces using a low number of steps while keeping performance high. However, tiny objects may be ignored. Disabling this option improves quality, but significantly reduces performance. |
| Increased Accuracy | Toggles increased accuracy of ray tracing for the SSRTGI on and off. This option reduces visual artifacts by increasing accuracy of the last step. |
| Resolution | Resolution of the SSRTGI. This option significantly affects performance.
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| Resolution Depth | Resolution of the depth buffer used for SSRTGI calculation. This option significantly affects performance.
Notice
To gain performance, this option can be set to lower values while enabling the Increased Accuracy option. |
| Noise Step | Intensity of the step noise used for SSRTGI calculation. This parameter is used to reduce the banding effect of tracing by using the noise: the higher is the value, the less pronounced the banding effect is. |
| Noise Ray | Intensity of the ray noise used for SSRTGI calculation. This parameter is used to reduce the banding effect on the final image by using the noise: the higher is the value, the less pronounced the banding effect is. |
| Num Rays | Number of rays of SSRTGI traced per pixel that are used to calculate the final image. Using more rays provides a more precise SSRTGI calculation and a smoother picture, however, it is more expensive. |
| Num Steps | Number of steps of SSRTGI per ray used for trace calculation. The higher the value, the further the tracing is performed, resulting in wider gradients. However, this option significantly affects performance. |
| Step Size | Size of the trace step used for SSRTGI calculation. The higher the value, the longer the trace is and the more accurate obstacles are accounted. Increasing the value results in smoother gradients on small objects. However, tiny objects may be missed. The lower the value, the more detailed tiny objects are. |