Voxel-Based GI

• Light baking is available via code by using the BakeLighting Class.
• Video Tutorial: Global Illumination.
• Quick video guide: How To Bake GI to Voxel Probes.

For a surface to contribute to static GI, it must have the Lighting Mode set to Static or have the Cast Global Illumination option enabled in the Advanced Lighting Mode. It must be turned off for dynamic surfaces.

Set up light sources in the scene:

• For light sources that should contribute to global illumination, select the Static mode. Dynamic lights will be ignored. Only indirect lighting from lights is baked, so light sources are to be kept enabled to provide direct lighting and specular highlights.
• For emissive surfaces (having Emission state in the material parameters enabled) also enable the Emission Bake GI option. Both direct and indirect (bounced) lighting from emissive materials is baked.

1. Create and place one or several Voxel Probes at the places where the lighting remains relatively static (e.g. interiors, outdoor buldings, immovable objects).

   

   Notice

   Place voxel probes inside other voxel probes to create insets defining the areas that require higher detail. Note that voxel probes with the additive blending mode enabled cannot be used for this purpose, as they are blended instead of replacing each other.
2. Set the Common Settings of probes, such as the Box Size and the Voxel Size. By configuring these parameters you define the resolution of the voxel grid and the video memory consumed by the probe.
   Warning

   Do not use the Scale transform parameter to change the probe size as it causes visual artifacts.
3. Adjust the Baking Settings of probes.

1. Open the Bake Lighting window.
2. Enable Bake Voxel Probes. Adjust the Voxel Size Multiplier, if needed.
3. Adjust the Common settings:
   • Select the number of light ray bounces. Higher values will result in a brighter lighting since each voxel receives more photons.
   • Set the number of samples (voxels) calculated per frame. This parameter is available for adjustment during baking process.
4. Start baking process by clicking Bake All Lighting and wait for it to finish. Live preview is available. Several iterations (one per bounce) will be simulated for each Voxel Probe.

   

   Notice

   You can stop the process at any moment by using the Stop button and you will be prompted to keep the achieved result or restore the previous textures.
5. Upon completion, generated lightmaps will be saved in the bake_lighting/voxel_probes folder and assigned to the corresponding Voxel Probes.

You can check the result by selecting the Indirect Lighting mode in the Rendering Debug.

If you are not satisfied with results on certain objects, you can select surfaces and/or nodes and perform partial re-bake using different settings by clicking Bake Selected.

As each voxel of a Voxel Probe stores light data, a Voxel Probe is capable of providing diffuse (blurred) reflections at every spatial point withing its volume provided Bake Internal Volume was enabled for baking. Control reflections by adjusting the Reflections Parameters.

More flexibility in lighting control is available with the Additive Blending mode. You can use it to blend lighting of several voxel probes together and control them separately (e.g. make a separate Voxel Probe for an indoor emissive light source and blend it with another Voxel Probes with lighting baked from the sky, having the ability to enable and disable them separately).

A Voxel Probe is subject to multiplication by the sun light color if the Use Sun Color option is enabled for it.