Ok gentlemen let me conclude this.
So apprantly there is no Real complete GI solution for UE4 . They might exist but would be industry secret or tremendously costly for non studio users
As an armchair game pundit, I would say, I agree. However, rapid advances in low-to-mid range GPUs and GI code means 2018-2020 could be the best scenario for full GI-enabled games on PC. For consoles, probably the next generation eg. PS5 past 2020.
I think in terms of game engines, the next five years for PC and console will be focused on VR optimisation as well as squeezing the most out of current hardware (including Intel GPUs and lower end AMD/Nvidia laptops).
, sorry but what are you talking about ? Games like ryse son of rom, Far Cry 3 or 4, the division and like 1000 more games are already using dynamic lighting / GI. In some scenarios it’s not full dynamic GI but absolut accebtable like a probe based GI solution. You have some kind of dynamic light and GI even on PS3 games… Crytek / Cryengine has used LPV for years in games like Crysis 1, 2 and 3… Sady UE4 is one of the very few engines with no real Dynamic lighting / GI solution.
Shepard, Cryteks SVOTI is worthless ? They are using it alreday for two games, Kingdom come will be released on PC, XBOX One and PS4 so how can it be worthless ?
But unless I am mistaken they don’t have full zero-bake, full dynamic GI equivalent to VXGI? Dynamic lighting is different, by full dynamic GI I mean totally no precomputed lighting or lightmapping, no light probes, fully on-the-fly indrect lighting and emissive lighting calculation, etc.
The games you mention for PC and console use engines that incorporate ~some~ GI, indirect lighting, LPV, etc. but again unless I am mistaken they’re nowhere close to a VXGI-type solution because the hardware just isn’t there (until recently).
Cryengines SVOTI is 100% dynamic, 2 bounces, nothing is precomputed, you have no probes etc… It’s in realtime.
Cryengines old lighting system is using a probe based lighting/GI solution, like in ubisofts the division, which also allows a full day a night cycle by precomputing the probes for the different hours of the day. However every engine has some kind of good “dynamic” lighting solution and this is what we definitly need in UE4.
And this is the main reason why UE4 “SADLY” is not really usuable for open world games, at least not yet.
SVOTI is too slow in my experience and still suffers from some of the same issues of other similar lighting systems like bleeding.
Unity pays a share on Pro licenses sold and from monthly subs.
Of course real time lighting/GI is more expensive than baked lighting/GI. However if SVOTI would be so slow they wouldn’t use it for kingdom come on consoles.
So the fact that SVOTI is going to be used on current console games is more than a proof that is it fast enough to use it for game developement.
They probably have the quality turned down because the game is mostly outdoors they can make the grid size larger and probably turn off secondary bounces.
Yeah it looks acceptable in the context of that game, but that doesn’t mean much for an engine like UE4 where the lighting will also need to work well indoors with clean environments.
They could make grid size variable , smaller indoor and around static buildings and bigger in other cases.
I’m not sure that’s an option, maybe it could have a cascade system so that things closer have a smaller grid and things further away are bigger, but I don’t think they could do it on a specific area.
There are a few things about crytek svoti that is not clear to me
1.it still needs light probes for specular
2. Only one light source the sun seem to be supported for indirect lighting
I mean however it works, it looks not just Ok, it looks absolutley amazing and the performnace is also more than just ok. They are using two bounces in Kingdome Come not only one… There are a few interviews with the developers from Kingdome Come about SVOTI, they even said that SVOTI gives them a better and more constant FPS count than the old probe based lighting system. I mean there is not much to tell or to discuss, it’s the most advanced and usuable lighting/GI system by far, even while it is still under developement. And this is what we need in UE4!
@ Shepard, Yes i think they are using still the environment probes for specular but there is also somehing going on with “low spee mode” which don’t need any probes but i’m not sure.
And no also spot and point lights are supporting bounces…
There is also a indie game, it’s called miscreated, they are also using SVOTI with full 2 bounces, indoor and outddor. Performnace and lighting are looking also very good.
Old probe based lighting VS SVOTIhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=PEfqtOYjolE
I think the most people know already the interior SVOTI vid…
Sponza Test
I’m just saying that that type of game doesn’t require as much detail in the dynamic GI so they can lower the quality to get the performance where they need to, but as an all around GI solution the performance isn’t good enough for many things that people want to do.
Like I tried that interior SVOTI demo and at 720p on an average computer (GTX660) it was sub-30fps performance and that’s without any gameplay.
need help with ai
so i made an ai that was suppose to look for target and chase and if he lost it roam but for some reason after it loses its target it stops moving and skips some direction in behavior tree
Hey I was talking in context of Ue4 only please don’t drag this to other engines, even if other engines provide dynamic GI, I don’t think its worth learning the new engine from start and deal with limitations on licensing , pricing and documentation. And if you got enough brains and time you can always add your own GI solution to UE4 
its free after all. but sadly I ain’t got that much skill so my aim in this post was querying if there is a solution applied yet or is it still far away.
There is already something :
https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?44278-Realtime-Dynamic-GI-Reflections-AO-Emissive-plugin-AHR
Like Adik said Cryteck solution is more versatile and faster, i would also like some real time GI solution made and supported by Epic instead of a community solution that could become no more supported some day.
Only bigger problem I currently have with UE is that it doesn’t seem to have clear path for the “visual pipeline”.
I understand that many features are under development and they will get better with time, but so far the baked lighting from UE3 seems to be the only one fully working without much trouble. That’s great for the crowd that needs baked lighting.
Unfortunately, those who need fully dynamic lighting, or simply don’t want to wait for baking are bit out of luck. SVOGI was killed (and now it shines in Cryengine, even if with some limitations), DF AO/GI/softshadows seemed to be where UE will go, but then focus shifted to performance optimizations (which is ok), LPV seems to be abandoned before was finished, there are environmental probes which are almost usable for fake GI, but the feature is not finished and then there is some great stuff from community (like AHR) which may not be practical for those who don’t want to compile UE.
It would be great if Epic could give us some info about the long time plans with fully dynamic lighting (I hope I didn’t miss some announcement or videoblog info ).
I don’t think we will get a fully dynamic lighting system until something like 70% of the userbase can use it, that’s probably the only thing we’re waiting for. It’s a power issue, today’s systems aren’t fast enough.
