Hybrid Renderer
Updated: 25 Nov 2024
The renderer for real-time 3D content.
Hybrid Renderer
Method #
This node is the best renderer for real-time 3D content. Heavily based on raytracing, this node can handle everything from global illumination to glass refractions, with various quality settings to tweak the performance to your needs.
Parameters
These properties control the general rendering features applied to the scene.
Parameter Details Render Mode Changes the method used for rendering the visibility buffer, which has a large impact on how the frame is generated.
- Rasterise : The visibility buffer is rasterized, which means that each object is individually placed in the visibility buffer. This is faster with scenes that have a lower polygon and object count.
- Raytrace : The visibility buffer is raytraced directly. This is usually better for scenes with higher geometry ensity.
Antialiasing These options allow for different methods of reducing aliasing. For more, see our page on Anti-Aliasing.
- Off : No anti-aliasing is applied.
- Edge AA : Applies MSAA to the visibility buffer, then applies a single MSAA pass to all other lighting and shading passes, but using the information from the visibility buffer to improve the quality greatly. This results in much less aliasing, on geometry, with a smaller performance cost compared to other techniques. Not compatibile with Raytracing render mode.
- DLSS : Uses Nvidias DLSS to resolve aliasing. Often works faster than MSAA or EdgeAA, but can introduce artfacts.
- Temporal : Applies a subpixel jitter applied to the camera, and averages the result over time. Decent AA results for a relatively small cost, but can make scenes appear blurry or jittery in some cases.
- Refine : Samples every pixel multiple times per rendered frame, greatly improving AA and also smoothing out some temporal artefacts. Not suitable for live output, but perfect for video and stills.
DLSS Resolution Change the resolution the scene is rendered at before being passed to DLSS for anti-aliasing. Only functions with DLSS selected for the antialiasing method.
- 100% : The project stays at the same resolution, so DLSS is prmarily used in reducing aliasing.
- 50% : The project is run at half resolution, then passed to DLSS for upscaling and antialiasing. This can dramatically improve performance, but can introduce artefacts.
Transparency Sorting Control the sorting order used for evaluating alpha transparent objects in the scene.
- Per Node : Alpha objects are sorted based on the nodes position in the nodegraph. Faster, and useful for dealing with 2D content, but often inaccurate when alpha objects overlap.
- Per Pixel : Alpha objects are sorted based on the surfaces location in z depth, per pixel. Accurate, but slower and limited to 16 overlapping objects at once.
DOF Quality Control the Quality of the Generated Depth Of Field. Higher Quality levels will result in a more accurate result, at the cost of performance.
DOF Sample Amount Increases the sampling rate for the depth of field. Higher values can mprove the quality at higher blur levels, but impact performance heavily.
DOF Max Blur Sets a maximum radius the DOF can blur to. Useful for capping the impact this effect can have on performance, but can introduce artefacts where the blur radius stops increasing at a certain distance.
Depth Of Field Control the depth of field rendered from the camera. Useful for drawing focus onto a specific area of the scene. The Blur Amount and Focus Distance can be controlled from the Camera node.
- Off : No depth of field will be applied.
- On : A simplified post-process based blur based on the z depth of objects in the scene. Fast, but often inaccurate, and incompatible with alpha based content (fields, particle sprites, etc).
Motion Blur Control the motion blur rendered from the camera. Useful for adding smoother and more realistic motion to a scene. The Blur Amount can be controlled from the Camera node.
- Off : No motion blur is generated.
- On : The motion vectors in the scene are analysed, and a directional blur is applied to the scene based on those vectors. Fast, but often inaccurate, and incompatible with alpha based content (fields, particle sprites, etc).
Max Output Luminance Sets a maximum output value when sampling light in the scene. Useful for reducing ‘firefly’ noise in the scene, as further light samples are likely to average out faster, but can reduce the overall lighting accuracy in the scene.
These properties control how lighting is calculated and affects the scene.
Parameter Details Pre-Refine First Frame When the scene is reset, the lighting is allowed to refine a few times before completing the first frame, to generate an accurate result on the first frame. When rendering a video, the scene will be pre-refined automatically on export, regardless of this properties settings. Useful when working on video content and the first frame needs to be match the export but can impact performance when frequently resetting the scene.
Point Lights Control how shadows are generated from Omni and Spot lights in the scene.
- Raytraced : Shadows are generated by tracing shadow rays per pixel, with a post blur for soft shadows. Shadows are more accurate, but can introduce noise with softer shadows.
- Shadow Maps : Shadow maps are generated by rendering the scene from the lights viewpoint at a set resolution, storing the depth, and projecting the result back onto the surfaces. If the distance to the light is greater than the distance in the lights depth map, it is shadowed. These shadows are fast to generate, but limited in both resolution and distance. Further away lights use lower shadow map resolutions, and are cut off after a certain distance.
- Off : No shadows are generated.
Sky + Directional Lights Control how Sky and Directional Light shadows are generated.
- Raytraced : Shadows are generated by tracing shadow rays per pixel, with a post blur for soft shadows. Shadows are more accurate, but can introduce noise with softer shadows.
- Shadow Maps : Shadow maps are generated by rendering the scene from the lights viewpoint at a set resolution, storing the depth, and projecting the result back onto the surfaces. If the distance to the light is greater than the distance in the lights depth map, it is shadowed. These shadows are fast to generate, but limited in both resolution and distance. Further away lights use lower shadow map resolutions, and are cut off after a certain distance.
Area Lights Control how Area Light shadows are generated.
Shadow Map Resolution The resolution of the shadow maps for all the shadow casting lights in the scene.
Emissives Control how emissive materials interact with other surfaces in the scene.
- Raytraced : Surfaces are accurately lit by raytracing, resulting in more accurate lighting and shadows, at the cost of greater performance cost and more noise in some cases.
- No Shadows : Surfaces will be lit by emissive materials, but will not produce shadows.
- Off : Emissive surfaces do not contribute diffuse lighting to the scene.
Emissive Quality Control the Quality of the Emissive lighting in the scene. Higher Quality levels will result in a more accurate and less noisey results, at the cost of performance.
Shadow Quality Control the quality of point lights, spotlights, and directionl lights. Higher quality settings generate better quality shadows, but aat the cost of performance.
Diffuse Bounces Select the method used to generate diffuse bounce lighting in the scene. These techniques simulate the way light bounces around in the scene before reaching the camera, creating a much more realistic result.
- Probes : Light probes are automatically generated on the surfaces of all visible geometry in the scene from the camera’s view. They are then used to sample the scene around them to add bounce lighting to nearby surfaces, resulting in efficient bounce lighting at high frame rates. However, this technique can produce artefacts around thin surfaces or with low probe densities. It’s also worth noting that this effect can take a moment to refine, so quick camera movement should be used sparingly.
- Raytraced : A radiance cache is generated, which attempts to raytrace the scene at varying levels of quality based on the distance from the camera. Decent quality, but can sometimes need tweaking to match a path traced equivalent, and can introduce noise in dimly lit areas.
- Off : No diffuse bounces are generated. This is faster to process, but can result in very dark scenes without extra lighting to fill out the shadows. Ambient Lights can be used to approximate global illumination, by roughly matching the light colour to that of the scene and adding Ambient Occlusion on top, but accuracy is highly scene dependant.
Diffuse Bounce Quality Control the resolution the raytraced diffuse bounces are sampled at. Low will process the diffuse bounces at half the render resoltuion, and scale up to fill the render. High processes at the full render resolution.
Diffuse Bounce Multiplier Boost the brightness of diffuse bounces in the scene. Useful for artificially brightening unlit areas of a scene without adding extra diffuse bounces, but not accurate and if pushed too far can introduce artefacting and blow up the lighting model as surfaces reflect more light than they absorb.
Num Diffuse Bounces Controls how many light bounces the probes will account for when sampling the scene. More bounces increases the quality of the bounce lighting to a point, but does can impact performance heavily. 1 is usually fine for outdoor scenes, 2-3 can fill out lighting in interior scenes, 4+ is often overkill unless you are actively putting lighting in hard to reach areas.
Probe Separation Distance When in Probes mode, sets the minimum distance betweeen light probes in the scene. Higher probe densities can improve quality of bounce lighting to a point, but can impact performance and reduce lighting quality if pushed further than necessary.
Diffuse Bounce Quality When in Raytraced mode, controls the samples used for generating the irradiance cache. Higher sample counts increase quality, but can negativelty impact performance.
Show Bounce Data Shows a debug view of the currently used global illumination data on the scene. Useful for evaluating how global illumination is being generated in the scene.
- On : Render the either the probes or the irradiance grid in the viewport.
- Off : No preview of the chosen algorithm in the viewport.
Reflections Control how reflections are generated in the scene.
- Raytraced : Reflections are generated by tracing a single bounce rays through the scene, and testing sampling the lighting at the new location. A post blurring pass is added to simulate roughness, which can vary per pixel. Accurate, but can impact performance with lots of geometry and reflective surfaces.
- Off : Only the specular reflections from lights are generated, including skylights and specular point, spot, and area light reflections.
Refractions Control how refractions are rendered in the scene.
- Multi Bounce : Rays are sent through the geometry, and they bounce up to 8 times before being disregarded by any other refractive surfaces.
- Single Bounce : Rays are sent through the geometry, which bounce once before ignoring any other refractive surfaces.
- Simple : Refractions are generated from screenspace warping. Super fast, but inaccurate.
- Off : No refractions are applied, so refractive surfaces won’t appear in the scene.
Refraction Max Distance Sets a maximum amount a material can be refracted. Useful for limiting some of the artefacts from the simpler refraction modes.
Ambient Occlusion Simulates natural shadowing that occurs in corners and crevices of a scene, by darkening those areas. Useful for exaggerating detail in a scene.
- Off : No Ambient Occlusion is generated.
- SSAO : Generates ambient occlusion using screen space data from the G-Buffer. Fast and reasonably accurate, but can generate erroneous shading around object edges and thin structures.
- Raytraced : Raytraces AO with a few samples, then denoises for a smooth result. Gives great and accurate results, but slower than the other methods.
AO Blend Mode Simulates natural shadowing that occurs in corners and crevices of a scene, by darkening those areas. Useful for exaggerating detail in a scene.
- Multiply : The Ambient Occlusions is multiplied against the scene after all the lighting passes have been generated.
- Replace : Replaces the current lighting with that of the Ambient Occlusion. Useful for getting a simple clay render of the scene.
- Add : Adds the Ambient Occlusion lighting on top of the lighting of the scene, brightening all areas except the areas the ambient occlusion is applied.
AO Blend Amount How much the of AO is applied to the scene, via the Blend Mode chosen. Doesn’t apply to Replace Blend Mode.
AO Distance Controls how wide the Ambient Occlusion radius is. Lower values tighten the ambient occlusion to smaller areas, larger value can end up darkening the whole object, and in some modes add visible noise.
AO Falloff Curve Controls how the weighting of ambient occlusion falls off over distance. Higher values will darken areas of ambient occlusion further, while lower values will lessen the ambient occlusion except in narrow crevices.
Lighting Far Plane Controls the distance away from the camera at which lighting will no longer be calculated. Lower values can increase performance in some scenes, but you’ll need to build the scene such that objects outside this range do not need lighting.
These properties control how light scattering is processed in the scene.
Parameter Details Scattering Enable a post-process based scattering on lights in the scene. Only functions if lights have some scattering amount in use.
Scattering Intensity Multiplier on top of the global scattering density. Useful for adjusting the density globally without going to all the individual lights.
Smoke Density Applies a simple noise pattern over the scattering generated, giving an appearance of smokiness. Useful for generating a mysterious and foggy effect.
Smoke Scale Changes the scale of the smokiness parameters.
Smoke Speed How quickly the generated smoke is animated in the scene.
Inputs
These properties control the general rendering features applied to the scene.
| Parameter | Details |
|---|---|
| Render Mode | Changes the method used for rendering the visibility buffer, which has a large impact on how the frame is generated.
|
| Antialiasing | These options allow for different methods of reducing aliasing. For more, see our page on Anti-Aliasing.
|
| DLSS Resolution | Change the resolution the scene is rendered at before being passed to DLSS for anti-aliasing. Only functions with DLSS selected for the antialiasing method.
|
| Transparency Sorting | Control the sorting order used for evaluating alpha transparent objects in the scene.
|
| DOF Quality | Control the Quality of the Generated Depth Of Field. Higher Quality levels will result in a more accurate result, at the cost of performance. |
| DOF Sample Amount | Increases the sampling rate for the depth of field. Higher values can mprove the quality at higher blur levels, but impact performance heavily. |
| DOF Max Blur | Sets a maximum radius the DOF can blur to. Useful for capping the impact this effect can have on performance, but can introduce artefacts where the blur radius stops increasing at a certain distance. |
| Depth Of Field | Control the depth of field rendered from the camera. Useful for drawing focus onto a specific area of the scene. The Blur Amount and Focus Distance can be controlled from the Camera node.
|
| Motion Blur | Control the motion blur rendered from the camera. Useful for adding smoother and more realistic motion to a scene. The Blur Amount can be controlled from the Camera node.
|
| Max Output Luminance | Sets a maximum output value when sampling light in the scene. Useful for reducing ‘firefly’ noise in the scene, as further light samples are likely to average out faster, but can reduce the overall lighting accuracy in the scene. |
These properties control how lighting is calculated and affects the scene.
| Parameter | Details |
|---|---|
| Pre-Refine First Frame | When the scene is reset, the lighting is allowed to refine a few times before completing the first frame, to generate an accurate result on the first frame. When rendering a video, the scene will be pre-refined automatically on export, regardless of this properties settings. Useful when working on video content and the first frame needs to be match the export but can impact performance when frequently resetting the scene. |
| Point Lights | Control how shadows are generated from Omni and Spot lights in the scene.
|
| Sky + Directional Lights | Control how Sky and Directional Light shadows are generated.
|
| Area Lights | Control how Area Light shadows are generated. |
| Shadow Map Resolution | The resolution of the shadow maps for all the shadow casting lights in the scene. |
| Emissives | Control how emissive materials interact with other surfaces in the scene.
|
| Emissive Quality | Control the Quality of the Emissive lighting in the scene. Higher Quality levels will result in a more accurate and less noisey results, at the cost of performance. |
| Shadow Quality | Control the quality of point lights, spotlights, and directionl lights. Higher quality settings generate better quality shadows, but aat the cost of performance. |
| Diffuse Bounces | Select the method used to generate diffuse bounce lighting in the scene. These techniques simulate the way light bounces around in the scene before reaching the camera, creating a much more realistic result.
|
| Diffuse Bounce Quality | Control the resolution the raytraced diffuse bounces are sampled at. Low will process the diffuse bounces at half the render resoltuion, and scale up to fill the render. High processes at the full render resolution. |
| Diffuse Bounce Multiplier | Boost the brightness of diffuse bounces in the scene. Useful for artificially brightening unlit areas of a scene without adding extra diffuse bounces, but not accurate and if pushed too far can introduce artefacting and blow up the lighting model as surfaces reflect more light than they absorb. |
| Num Diffuse Bounces | Controls how many light bounces the probes will account for when sampling the scene. More bounces increases the quality of the bounce lighting to a point, but does can impact performance heavily. 1 is usually fine for outdoor scenes, 2-3 can fill out lighting in interior scenes, 4+ is often overkill unless you are actively putting lighting in hard to reach areas. |
| Probe Separation Distance | When in Probes mode, sets the minimum distance betweeen light probes in the scene. Higher probe densities can improve quality of bounce lighting to a point, but can impact performance and reduce lighting quality if pushed further than necessary. |
| Diffuse Bounce Quality | When in Raytraced mode, controls the samples used for generating the irradiance cache. Higher sample counts increase quality, but can negativelty impact performance. |
| Show Bounce Data | Shows a debug view of the currently used global illumination data on the scene. Useful for evaluating how global illumination is being generated in the scene.
|
| Reflections | Control how reflections are generated in the scene.
|
| Refractions | Control how refractions are rendered in the scene.
|
| Refraction Max Distance | Sets a maximum amount a material can be refracted. Useful for limiting some of the artefacts from the simpler refraction modes. |
| Ambient Occlusion | Simulates natural shadowing that occurs in corners and crevices of a scene, by darkening those areas. Useful for exaggerating detail in a scene.
|
| AO Blend Mode | Simulates natural shadowing that occurs in corners and crevices of a scene, by darkening those areas. Useful for exaggerating detail in a scene.
|
| AO Blend Amount | How much the of AO is applied to the scene, via the Blend Mode chosen. Doesn’t apply to Replace Blend Mode. |
| AO Distance | Controls how wide the Ambient Occlusion radius is. Lower values tighten the ambient occlusion to smaller areas, larger value can end up darkening the whole object, and in some modes add visible noise. |
| AO Falloff Curve | Controls how the weighting of ambient occlusion falls off over distance. Higher values will darken areas of ambient occlusion further, while lower values will lessen the ambient occlusion except in narrow crevices. |
| Lighting Far Plane | Controls the distance away from the camera at which lighting will no longer be calculated. Lower values can increase performance in some scenes, but you’ll need to build the scene such that objects outside this range do not need lighting. |
These properties control how light scattering is processed in the scene.
| Parameter | Details |
|---|---|
| Scattering | Enable a post-process based scattering on lights in the scene. Only functions if lights have some scattering amount in use. |
| Scattering Intensity | Multiplier on top of the global scattering density. Useful for adjusting the density globally without going to all the individual lights. |
| Smoke Density | Applies a simple noise pattern over the scattering generated, giving an appearance of smokiness. Useful for generating a mysterious and foggy effect. |
| Smoke Scale | Changes the scale of the smokiness parameters. |
| Smoke Speed | How quickly the generated smoke is animated in the scene. |
| Name | Description | Typical Input |
|---|---|---|
| Max Output Luminance | TBC | TBC |
| Diffuse Bounce Multiplier | TBC | TBC |
| Probe Separation Distance | TBC | TBC |
| Motion Responsiveness | TBC | TBC |
| Refraction Max Distance | TBC | TBC |
| AO Distance | TBC | TBC |
| AO Blend Amount | TBC | TBC |
| AO Falloff Curve | TBC | TBC |