Environment Probe

Environment Probe is a light source which also provides reflections on an object inside the probe by using a cubemap (pre-baked or dynamically changing each frame). In UNIGINE, Environment Probe has two types of projections:

• Box projection — works better for indoor scenes (when the room has a 3D box shape) or box-shaped outdoor scenes (back alley between buildings).
• Spherical projection — works better for all other cases (reflections on car, spherical room, etc.).

With Environment Probe you can create reflections instead of creating reflection materials.

See Also#

Environment Probe is a great thing to increase performance, decrease the number of materials and make the life of content designers easier.

Environment Probe uses cubemaps that were baked (or grabbed with a special tool). The cubemap will play the role of the reflection and the light simulation. Here is an example:

We have two houses with different color of the interior and put same objects (with reflection material, for example, metal) into these houses. What will happen?

If we don't speak about the dynamic reflections, you'll need to reflect the interior on each object. But interiors have different ambient color, and that is why you'll need to create 2 different materials for them. Not optimized at all.

Environment Probe removes this flaw. Once you added an object, you don't think about the reflection material for it. Environment Probe will map the cubemap to the object.

There is a difference in mapping cubemaps to transparent and non-transparent objects:

• If an object is transparent, Environment Probe will map the cubemap only if the entire object is inside the radius of Environment Probe. Otherwise, the object won't be affected by Environment Probe at all.
• If an object is non-transparent, Environment Probe will map the cubemap to any part of the object which is inside the radius of the probe.

Transparent object affected by Environment Probe	Non-transparent object affected by Environment Probe

If you put several Environment Probe nodes that affect a non-transparent object (rendered in the deferred pass) their cubemaps will be blended smoothly. Here is an example, a long corridor which has walls painted in different colors.

We put two Environment Probe nodes and they both affect the object (when the object is in the intercrossing area). If you have large locations, you should use several Environment Probe nodes instead of one to make the final image more realistic.

The SSR (Screen Space Reflections) effect makes the final image more realistic, because it appends reflections that cannot be baked into cubemaps. Using Environment Probe and SSR is a great method for pretty fast imitation of reflections with dynamic lighting.

Multiple Environment Probe for Transparent Objects#

The Multiple Environment Probes option set for a transparent object (rendered in the forward pass) allows several Environment Probe nodes affect the object and map their cubemaps to it.

• When the option is disabled, only the last set Environment Probe will affect the object. At that, the entire object must be inside the radius of Environment Probe. Otherwise, it won't be affected by this Environment Probe at all.
• When the option is enabled, the object will be lit by the whole Environment Probe: each probe will affect the part of the object, which is inside the probe. Cubemaps of Environment Probe nodes will be blended in the intercrossing areas.

Notice

Rendering of multiple Environment Probe nodes must be enabled via Rendering -> Transparent -> Multiple Environment Probes.

Multiple Environment Probes is off: only the left cubemap is mapped to the object	Multiple Environment Probes is on: both cubemaps are mapped and blended

To add an Environment Probe node to the scene via UnigineEditor, do the following:

1. Run the project with UnigineEditor.

2. On the Menu bar, click Create -> Lights and select the required shape of Environment Probe: box or sphere. The projection shape can be changed after it is created via the Parameters window.

   

3. Place Environment Probe.
4. Grab the cubemap texture for Environment Probe. You can grab it via the Parameters window or use the Bake Lighting tool.
5. Adjust the Environment Probe settings.

When Environment Probe is selected in the UnigineEditor viewport, reference spheres are visualized in the center of the probe:

• Reflective sphere helps in estimating the reflection provided by the probe.
• Diffused sphere helps in estimating the ambient lighting provided by the probe (requires Ambient lighting to be enabled).

The Environment Probe settings can be found in the Node tab of the Parameters window. This tab contains both the parameters attributable to all light sources and the parameters specific for Environment Probe. The specific parameters are described below.

Common Parameters#

Render Parameters#

Ambient Parameters#

Reflection Parameters#

Baking Settings#