Real-Time Voxel-Based Global Illumination System For Unity

Developed by ARTnGAME, LUMINA GI: Voxel-Based Real-Time Global Illumination introduces an advanced system for true voxel-based global illumination. It ensures local stability and accurately responds to off-screen lights. Fully real-time, Lumina eliminates the need for baking processes commonly required by SDF solutions and supports a variety of light sources, including sun, local, and mesh-shaped lights.

The system is designed for Windows desktop development, with a focus on higher-performance machines, as the effect can be demanding, particularly if the included optimization features are not utilized.

Currently, Lumina requires Unity 2021.3 or higher, with the URP renderer set to Deferred mode. Due to its complexity and technical requirements, it only supports LTS versions of Unity and has not been tested with Unity 2023. Additionally, Lumina doesn't support VR, mobile, or Mac platforms, Geometry Shaders, WebGL, and consoles.

In the video at the top of the page, you can see Lumina being used with Unity 6's Render Graph. Several tweaks have been implemented to improve how indirect lighting is applied in the world, and full support has been added for all modes: Forward, Forward+, and Deferred. It's currently in testing and will be released soon on the store as an upgrade to the existing system.

The developer states that the system performs very well in URP, with this demo running at 160-190 FPS on a 4050 RTX laptop in the Unity editor. Performance can improve further by using optimizations, such as excluding small objects from the voxelizer that don't contribute to global illumination. Also, if the light sources remain static, voxelization can be adjusted on demand.

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