**Edit : D’oh! I see that just replied stating that Nvidia are almost done with their 4.15 integration for VXGI, good times!
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Just wanted to chime in with my 2 cents as I’ve been watching these VXGI threads regularly, hoping that someone will have been able to merge VXGI into 4.15 succesfully.
, I completely understand where you’re coming from. you’ve spent a good deal of time merging the VXGI code into 4.15 (glad to know it’s possible by the way, I was wondering if the new header system would break everything) and you’re not obligated to just give everyone your work at all.
I think the is that for all intents and purposes, UE4 is a free platform with an open codebase. VXGI is also free for the end-user. As a community of people all working on projects using UE4 (and some of us with VXGI), I personally feel that if Nvidia aren’t keeping their VXGI branch up-to-date and a member of the community succesfully merges all the code in themselves, releasing that code benefits many people with zero cost to that developer as they’ve already done the leg work!
In my opinion, the more of us using VXGI the better, more support threads, more useful information out there. Holding back an integration of 2 essentially free platforms feels a little hard-nosed. We all benefit!
I think the other unfortunate reality is that in months past, actively maintained his own Nvidia Gameworks merged branches, which were available for download through Github for everyone. I guess it’s just a bit frustrating to go from that to seeing that someone has achieved the same with 4.15 but doesn’t want to share (for valid reasons I do admit).
As I said earlier though, I wouldn’t feel beholden to release something I’d spent hours/days on just because people ask me to. I do understand (I think).
With all that said, I have a couple of completely unrelated questions regarding VXGI if anybody has any further info?
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Is it recognised that VXGI and Forward Shading are incompatible? Is there a reason for ? Enabling Forward Shading in my 4.14.3 branch results in a crash on project load.
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What are everyones thoughts on using VXGI in a VR-Based project? Obviously Nvidia have a ton of optimisations in their VRWorks branches, but as I understand it, VXGI isn’t tailored to integrate with these (perhaps resulting from the Forward Shading issues I mentioned above) as the goals (VXGI = high quality realtime indirect lighting / VRWorks = high performance VR optimisations) don’t really serve each other well.
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Is there any information out there on whether Epic will open up the plugin system to allow something like VXGI to just be dropped into an official UE4 build without the need for a custom branch?
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Related to the question above. Realtime GI in general in UE4! LPV is really the only option (DFGI also, but is even less developed than LPV) developed by Epic and my understanding is that it’s not being actively maintained or developed. Is there a reason for ? We’re hitting a point where most gaming PCs can happily handle realtime GI, but without a custom version of the engine using something like VXGI, it’s pretty limited. Does anyone know if Epic has a plan to iterate on LPV or otherwise build a new 1st-party solution at any point in the future?