Volumetric Light Effect

Edit 1/15/2021:

This tutorial was created using beams. Please note that this tutorial was done using ShadowMap technology and will not work with Future Lighting. There are other methods that can cast shadows in Future Lighting.

A few years ago, Future Is Bright released a few beta builds that would embrace the future of Roblox Lighting. Within one of these beta builds was a bug where one could mimic volumetric lighting in said build.

Every now and then, I will see people who wish for this feature to come back to Roblox or try to make a close replica to the bug. Well, I found out that it is still possible to replicate as of right now.
In response to @Kord_K


By using the Beam object, it can trace all shadows that have the CastShadow property. By using a lot of beams at different offsets, it can produce incredible results.



While this does look incredibly beautiful, the compensation is that a large amount of beams are clamped in an area and depending on how many beams you have, can drop performance down massively.

One thing to mention is that this method only works with Graphics Level 4+. Going lower than level 3 graphics will not render the shadows and thus, the beams are ineffective. I feel like this would be a heavy contribution to builders, especially showcase builders, to use this to its fullest potential.

You can see the lighting in effect here but it requires a good computer to run it properly.

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Super cool, crazy how you can make realistic looking games in roblox. Still blows my mind today!

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Man, if only volumetric lighting was an offical feature. Thanks for sharing!

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Edit: It’s fixed now

It seems like the upcoming Atmosphere Class will render this trick as nearly useless now. I have played enough with it to see that it will not be visually the same without incredibly drastic changes. In short: It was a good ride while it lasted.

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It looks crazy good, I love the lighting beaming on the grass and as the grass moves the lighting also follows it, that’s great attention to detail.

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I can’t find any info on this through search. Do you have a link to more information on this “Atmosphere Class”?

It’s an upcoming class that will replace fog properties and has a much better way of blending in with skyboxes.

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I’m not entirely sure if this is unrelated, but I created a plugin for volumetric lighting. Volumetric Lighting Plugin [NO LONGER UPDATING] [OMG PLEASE STOP USING]

Can you please re open the place at the very least or make it uncopylocked. I’m trying to find the best method of recreating this.

Whoops, didn’t realize that it was closed. It has been reopened now

Your tutorial doesnt provide the most insight. Do you have a part full of beams follow the camera? do you calculate the light beams real time? do you have a bunch of parts around the map full of beams?

Yes, and only the part’s position is consistently updated.
I wouldn’t try to update any of the beams unless you need to redraw them for some reason. Depending on the quality you want the beams, it’s better to not touch them once they have been instanced.

Another Update: I randomly found out that BillboardGUIs with ImageLabels will show local shadows in Future Technology.

Note that Beams will NOT cast shadows in Future Lighting

There are slight variations (either from how I set it up or how lighting is handled in Future Lighting) in how shadows are shown.

Future Lighting:


ShadowMap Lighting:

Lights in Future Technology are mostly noticeable when said lights aren’t pointed towards you. Another comparison can be shown here.

ShadowMap Lighting:


Future Lighting:

I’ll edit this thread if I happen to come across anything new.

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for the game linked in the original post. did you manually place all the beams or did you use a script to automate it. If you used a script, can you release it?

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