Plugins + Scripts Dynamic environment lighting

[dafalconer]

sdfg3456 submitted a new resource:

Dynamic environment lighting - Let there be light... dynamically!

A plug-in that adds dynamic lighting that scales with the room based on character location. Once added, it picks the first person (you can change this) and places lights around the character, sampling the colors of the room and then using those colors to calculate realistic lighting. The result gives the impression the character really is in the room realistically.

How it works:
- Reads the environment colors from where your character is standing
- Positions lights at smart heights and...

Read more about this resource...

 

[dafalconer]

the only light that's not dynamic is the ambient light. I'm debating how to handle this if I want it to come down when obstructed or not, for instance a lower than usual ceiling. Still debating this one.

 

[AIRBOATRRRR]

I downloaded this and I can't find it anywhere. The plugin is not in session, scene or person plugins. Your video Quality is hard to see.
What am I doing wrong?

 

[dafalconer]

I’m going to update the post with instructions later today.

To use this, add it as a scene plug in. That’s it.

You can keep your existing environment lighting or remove all and just use this plug in.

The main idea is this figures out lighting for you so you don’t have to mess around with placing lights in a scene ever again.

 

[dafalconer]

dafalconer updated Dynamic environment lighting with a new update entry:

Bug fixes and perf improvements!

- Changed some calculations for the ambient light.
- Fixed several bugs, one of which wasn't detecting new person atoms added to the scene
- you can now uncheck and recheck the plug-in to recalibrate instead of reloading (still calculates automatically though on person atom moving)

You will have to re-add this to your scenes as the path inside the VAR changed.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[dafalconer]

dafalconer updated Dynamic environment lighting with a new update entry:

New features and bug fixes

- new 3-light mode that may improve performance or give a preferred look
- Improved color sampling
- VR performance improvement, sampling camera no longer runs through the VR stereo pipeline

Future plans:
- lock rig in place and don't recalculate: this will be useful for maybe like small rooms where you move the character but don't really want the light recalculating
- follow target: this is useful for mocaps where the person control stays in place, but the body moves around, allow the...

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[BStarG2]

Amazing plugin.

However, I'd like to know if this is compatible with Light Options?

Light Options - Plugins + Scripts -

Allows configuring some Unity Light options that the default UI doesn't have. The default Light UI in VAM doesn't show all of the available parameters, and some aren't fully set up. For example, the 'point bias' will affect shadowBias for point...

hub.virtamate.com

I'm using Light Options (as a session plugin) mostly because of its ability to push the shadows quality a notch above the 'default' of VAM (I.E., shadow quality setting of 13, or 14 in the plugin cannot be achieved normally in VAM). If somehow you were able to add that same effect (perhaps optionally) in your own plugin, I think it would end up being the best overall Lights-related plugin for VAM, in my opinion.

 

[grendel69]

I'm getting errors when loading this plugin:

You'll need perfectbloo's debug plugin to see them.

 

[dafalconer]

Amazing plugin.

However, I'd like to know if this is compatible with Light Options?

Light Options - Plugins + Scripts -

Allows configuring some Unity Light options that the default UI doesn't have. The default Light UI in VAM doesn't show all of the available parameters, and some aren't fully set up. For example, the 'point bias' will affect shadowBias for point...

hub.virtamate.com

I'm using Light Options (as a session plugin) mostly because of its ability to push the shadows quality a notch above the 'default' of VAM (I.E., shadow quality setting of 13, or 14 in the plugin cannot be achieved normally in VAM). If somehow you were able to add that same effect (perhaps optionally) in your own plugin, I think it would end up being the best overall Lights-related plugin for VAM, in my opinion.

Probably not, when you move the recalculate happens and the settings are redone. So forget using it. Also, I only found that that particular plug-in is only useful for directional lights anyway as it allows you to set bias. For other lights that plug-in i don't think does much.


EDIT: actually i just re-read your post a bit closer and yes, that should be possible. I will look into it and if possible and make an update into v6 that maybe lets you control shadow quality for all the lights. Thanks a lot for the feedback and idea

update: tried with stoppers plug-in and it works as a scene plug-in just fine with this plug-in just fine. It will retain settings when the character moves and light recalculation happens. If you reload the EnvCharacterLightRig plug-in though, you'll need to uncheck and re-check stopper's plug-in. Stoppers plug-in works by finding lights in the containg atom (if scene then all in the scene) or if it's added to a light atom itself.

So, in short it works with my plug-in but you need to reload when the lights are destroyed and re-created, which happens on plug-in reload or at the start of a scene load.

 

[dafalconer]

I'm getting errors when loading this plugin:
View attachment 569971

You'll need perfectbloo's debug plugin to see them.

You are seeing this with a special plug-in? That's cool, thanks a lot for sharing that. These are benign though, as bias is just set to default anyway and I can remove it from the script altogether. In the next update I will.

And I had no idea that debug plug-in existed I'm gonna check it out

Edit: it's reading the log here: C:\Users\users\AppData\LocalLow\MeshedVR\VaM\ so no need for the plug-in, but it's cool anyway. Found there is a run-away log error from the subsurface scattering plug-in that fills the log.

 

[dafalconer]

update: fixed in new version, uploading now. Also, added FreezeRig to the options so you can freeze the light rig in place and it won't update or move with the target person atom. Useful for small rooms or other situations.

 

[dafalconer]

dafalconer updated Dynamic environment lighting with a new update entry:

minor bug fix and one feature

- fix trying to set wrong parameter name (shadowBias -> pointBias) that was putting entries into VaM output_log.txt). This wasn't causing any issue but it's worth cleaning up. Thanks to grendel69 for finding it
- added ability to freeze the rig in place, useful for small rooms where you don't want the light rig to follow or update
- updated so rig will do a full recalculation on scene load

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[BStarG2]

Probably not, when you move the recalculate happens and the settings are redone. So forget using it. Also, I only found that that particular plug-in is only useful for directional lights anyway as it allows you to set bias. For other lights that plug-in i don't think does much.


EDIT: actually i just re-read your post a bit closer and yes, that should be possible. I will look into it and if possible and make an update into v6 that maybe lets you control shadow quality for all the lights. Thanks a lot for the feedback and idea

update: tried with stoppers plug-in and it works as a scene plug-in just fine with this plug-in just fine. It will retain settings when the character moves and light recalculation happens. If you reload the EnvCharacterLightRig plug-in though, you'll need to uncheck and re-check stopper's plug-in. Stoppers plug-in works by finding lights in the containg atom (if scene then all in the scene) or if it's added to a light atom itself.

So, in short it works with my plug-in but you need to reload when the lights are destroyed and re-created, which happens on plug-in reload or at the start of a scene load.

Ok, good to know! Thank you very much for taking the time to look into it If it's that simple, just a re-load, then that's amazing. Again, thank you.

 

[grendel69]

You are seeing this with a special plug-in? That's cool, thanks a lot for sharing that. These are benign though, as bias is just set to default anyway and I can remove it from the script altogether. In the next update I will.

And I had no idea that debug plug-in existed I'm gonna check it out

Edit: it's reading the log here: C:\Users\users\AppData\LocalLow\MeshedVR\VaM\ so no need for the plug-in, but it's cool anyway. Found there is a run-away log error from the subsurface scattering plug-in that fills the log.

Glad to help