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Try the new environment probes


Josh

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Environment probes are now available on the beta branch. To access them, you must set the "UnlockBetaFeatures" setting in the config file to 1, then start the editor. Environment probes are available in the "Effects" object creation category.

 

Environment probes should be placed with one in each room. Use the object scale to make the probe's volume fill the room. (Like decals, probes will display a bounding box when selected.) You do not have to worry about covering every single space as the GI effect will blend in pretty well with the regular old ambient light level. Outdoor scenes do not need probes covering everywhere. There is not presently an entity icon for probes so you will have to select them from the scene panel. The AI & Events map has been updated with probes added, and it just took a couple of minutes.

 

blogentry-1-0-14434300-1463408956_thumb.jpg

 

The color value of the probe (under the "Appearance" tab in the object properties) is used to control the amount of ambient lighting the probe contributes. The specular color of the probe is used to control the strength of the reflections it casts.

 

Materials can control their reflectivity with their specular color and specular texture, if it exists. You may find some materials are highly reflective and need to be toned down a bit, so just make their specular color darker. The roughness setting is used to control how sharp or blurry reflections are. Higher roughness = blurrier reflections.

 

When you first create an environment probe, its cubemap will be rendered immediately. You should re-render it when you have made some changes to your map and want to see the updated global illumination. To do this, select the Tools > Build Global Illumination menu item, which will update all environment probes in the scene.

 

Global illumination is an inexpensive effect because it is precomputed. However, environment probes will be skipped if the lighting quality is set to the lowest setting.

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Things are kicking up a notch here, I love it! The new screens showing the GI and reflections look awesome! Fingers crossed for PBR, Leadwerks will be number one when that comes

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PBR isn't a marketing term, Josh. It's just a new way of rendering things, make 'em look better (more realistic), and also, more importantly...PBR makes any game model look great (and realistic) under any lighting setting/condition.

 

PBR also uses a linear workflow, instead of the gamma workflow (that LE still uses). Physically Based Rendering is also energy conservative: the light reflected off the surface will never be more intense than it was before it hit the surface.

 

There are three PBR workflows: Gloss/Color Specular, Gloss/Metalness and Roughness/Metalness. But, they can be used together in order to make any lifelike material.

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Tryied it. I've updated the project and all seem fine but the instant I select the menu CREATE -> EFFECTS -> ENVIRONMENT PROBE

Got a EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION.

 

I'm running Leadwerks Beta branch on Steam / Windows 10 / GTX 780 / I7 3770K

The test level I made is on the same project as the examples.

 

I am already set to use the beta build, but you are talking about modifying a config file. I haven't done that, where is this file?

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That's cool, have to try them out. I had already started working on some environment probes myself for my PBR experiments, but without accessibility to the editor the workflow is a little cumbersome.

Question: Is there/will there be an API to generate the cubemaps at runtime? I know this is time consuming, but for changing outdoor conditions (time of day) it would be nice if the maps could be generated at runtime, like every 10mins or so.

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Environment probes are an extension of the camera class and get rendered by calling the Render() method. The editor does a little extra before rendering them, like changing the shadow modes of all lights.

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Such a cool feature. I've been able to change the config file. Starting the editor it shows the Environment Probe option greyed out.

i bought the Leadwerks Game Engine: Indie Edition on February 20th last year. havent worked with it much yet. the price was same as the pro is nowadays. i am a bit confused now about the version: shouldnt i be able to work with the beta feature? no worries tho i am getting confused easily

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