Hybrid Renderer
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
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 high geometry.
- Refine : The visibility buffer is raytraced directly, and then the scene is refined over time. This is most appropriate when exporting video, to get extra improvements to anti-aliasing and temporal stability.
Antialiasing These options allow for different methods of reducing aliasing. For more about aliasing and anti-aliasing, see here
- Edge AA : Applies 8x 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, but with a small performance cost compared to other techniques. Not compatibile with Raytracing render mode.
- DLSS : Uses Nvidias DLSS to resolve aliasing. Often works faster than FSAA, 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.
- FSAA : 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.
- Off : No anti-aliasing is applied.
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.
Depth Of Field Controls how depth of field is generated in the scene.
- Depth Of Field : Uses a variable blur based on the Z-depth of objects in the scene.
- Off : No Depth Of Field is generated, regardless of camera properties.
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.
Point Lights Control how shadows are generated from point lights in the scene.
- Raytraced Penumbras : A more advanced raytracing solution with a post blur for soft shadows. Shadows are more accurate, but can introduce noise with softer shadows.
- Raytraced : A simple raytraced solution generated by casting shadows from multiple mini shadows casting points from the light, and diverging them based on the radius. Less accurate, but works well in scenes with lower shadow softness values.
- Shadows Off : Point Lights do not cast shadows.
Area Lights Control how Area Light shadows are generated.
Sky Lights Control how specular reflections are generated from skylights in the scene
- Raytraced Specular : Raytraces the Specular Reflectons from the Sky light to check if it intersects with geometry in the scene. Greatly improving the quality at the cost of a little performance.
- Simple Specular : Uses a simplified model for specular reflections, which doesn’t take into account other geometry in the scene. Much faster, but less accurate.
Emissives Control how emissive materials interact with other surfaces in the scene.
- Simple : Surfaces will be lit by emissive materials, but will not produce shadows.
- Off : Emissive surfaces do not contribute diffuse lighting to the scene.
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.
- 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.
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 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.
Reflections Control how reflections are generated in the scene.
- Raytraced : Uses raytracing to generate accurate reflections in the scene. Accurate, but can impact performance with lots of geometry.
- Off : No reflections are generated from objects in the scene, but simple reflections from skylights and spcular reflections will still be generated.
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.
- SSAO : Generates ambient occlusion using screen space data from the G-Buffer. Fast and reasonably acucrate, but can generate erroneous shading around object edges thin structures.
- Probes : Uses the probes generated for Global Illumination to also generate Ambient Occlusion. Better for wider ambient occlusion ranges than SSAO, but still relies on some screen space methods to generate AO.
- Raytraced : Raytraces AO with a few samples, then denoises for a smooth result. Gives great and accurate results, but slower than the other methods.
- Off : No Ambient Occlusion is generated.
AO Blend Mode Controls how the generated Ambient Occlusion is applied to the 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 chosen blend mode is applied into the scene. 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.
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.
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.
Motion Blur Control how motion blur is applied to the scene.
- Motion Blur : Applies a motion vector based blur to all objects in the scene, for both camera motion and object motion.
- Off : No motion blur is generated from the scene.
Scattering Control how Light Scattering is applied in the scene.
- Full : Uses a full scattering model, handling shadows and adding the ability to add smoke to the scattered light.
- Simple : Uses a simple distance calculation to generate light scattering. No shadows or smoke, but very fast to calculate.
- Off : No light scattering is generated in the scene.
Scattering Intensity Multiplier on top of the global scattering density. Useful for adjusting the density globally without going to all the individual lights.
Max Depth The maximum distance the volumetric lighting tests against in the scene. Higher values will improve quality at a distance, but can reduce performance.
Emissives Scattering Control how much emissive materials contribute to light scattering.
Smoke Density Applies a simple noise pattern over the scattering generated, giving an appearance of smokiness. Useful for generating a mysterious lighting effect.
Smoke Scale Changes the scale of the smokiness parameters
Smoke Speed How quickly the generated smoke is animated in the scene.
Show Probes Control how probes are rendered in the viewport. Useful for evaluating how global illumination is being generated in the scene.
- Probes : Render the probes in the Viewport as lit spheres.
- Off : No preview of the spheres in the viewport.
Inputs
| 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 about aliasing and anti-aliasing, see here
|
| 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.
|
| Depth Of Field | Controls how depth of field is generated 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. |
| Point Lights | Control how shadows are generated from point lights in the scene.
|
| Area Lights | Control how Area Light shadows are generated. |
| Sky Lights | Control how specular reflections are generated from skylights in the scene
|
| Emissives | Control how emissive materials interact with other surfaces in the scene.
|
| 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.
|
| 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 | 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. |
| 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 | Controls how the generated Ambient Occlusion is applied to the scene.
|
| AO Blend Amount | How much the chosen blend mode is applied into the scene. 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Motion Blur | Control how motion blur is applied to the scene.
|
| Scattering | Control how Light Scattering is applied in the scene.
|
| Scattering Intensity | Multiplier on top of the global scattering density. Useful for adjusting the density globally without going to all the individual lights. |
| Max Depth | The maximum distance the volumetric lighting tests against in the scene. Higher values will improve quality at a distance, but can reduce performance. |
| Emissives Scattering | Control how much emissive materials contribute to light scattering. |
| Smoke Density | Applies a simple noise pattern over the scattering generated, giving an appearance of smokiness. Useful for generating a mysterious lighting effect. |
| Smoke Scale | Changes the scale of the smokiness parameters |
| Smoke Speed | How quickly the generated smoke is animated in the scene. |
| Show Probes | Control how probes are rendered in the viewport. Useful for evaluating how global illumination is being generated 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 |