{"id":96092,"date":"2019-07-03T20:37:39","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T20:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gamefromscratch.com\/post.aspx?id=9528abbc-e274-4142-9d52-8663b11140e0"},"modified":"2019-07-03T20:37:39","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T20:37:39","slug":"unity-removing-enlighten-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/07\/03\/unity-removing-enlighten-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Unity Removing Enlighten Support"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a Unity blog post today, Unity announced that Enlighten support was being removed from the Unity game engine.&nbsp; Enlighten is the lightmapping and global illumination solution used in Unity since Unity 5 was released.&nbsp; Enlighten was original developed by Geomerics, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eetimes.com\/document.asp?doc_id=1320386#\">was acquired by ARM technologies in 2013<\/a>, then the technology was sold to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.siliconstudio.co.jp\/en\/\">Silicon Studio<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Details of the removal <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.unity3d.com\/2019\/07\/03\/enlighten-will-be-replaced-with-a-robust-solution-for-baked-and-real-time-giobal-illumination\/\">on the Unity blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Due to Geomerics shutting down Enlighten as a product, Unity is required to remove Enlighten.<\/p>\n<p>Unity will continue support for Enlighten in the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.unity3d.com\/Manual\/SL-RenderPipeline.html\">built-in renderer<\/a> as it currently exists today (as-is, with no new platform support). The 2020 LTS will be the last version to contain Enlighten functionality for the <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.unity3d.com\/Manual\/SL-RenderPipeline.html\">built-in renderer<\/a>, and it is fully removed in 2021.1.<\/p>\n<p>Projects authored with <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.unity3d.com\/Packages\/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition@6.7\/manual\/index.html\">HDRP<\/a> Preview Enlighten functionality will continue to be supported as it currently exists today (as-is, with no new platform support) in 2019 LTS, with full removal of Enlighten functionality from <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.unity3d.com\/Packages\/com.unity.render-pipelines.high-definition@6.7\/manual\/index.html\">HDRP<\/a> in 2020.1.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>They are working on a solution:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We are also fully committed to delivering a real-time GI replacement solution in 2021.1. The Unity team has a solid plan to solve this complex problem the right way, with great artists workflow and optimal runtime performance for 2021.1.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Additionally, in the <a href=\"https:\/\/forum.unity.com\/threads\/enlighten-deprecation-and-replacement-solution.697778\/\">linked forum discussion<\/a> are some good details on the limitations of the current Enlighten solution that will be addressed in their new in-house solution:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Enlighten has had a good run for the money, some of the best looking titles have shipped using it. However, some of the underlying principles means that it is not a good fit moving forward.<br \/>Enlighten is largely surface based, requires a global pre-computation phase and is limited to diffuse transport with no real support for physically based non-opaque materials. Some of the drivers moving forward are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Fast iteration<\/b>: <i>Time-to-first-pixel<\/i> needs to be fast, cannot have a lengthy pre-compute step. <\/li>\n<li><b>Easy authoring<\/b>: We need to remove the dependency on authoring suitable UVs and other surface based authoring. <\/li>\n<li><b>Dynamic worlds<\/b>: In addition to dynamic materials and lighting setup, we have to support <i>dynamic geometry<\/i> (eg. for procedural games). <\/li>\n<li><b>Unified lighting<\/b>: The lighting container needs to be decoupled from surfaces. This allows all scene elements to use the same lighting including volumetrics and participating media. <\/li>\n<li><b>Large worlds<\/b>: Due to the sheer size of levels today we need an easy way to to do localized light transport where <i>what is lit<\/i> and <i>what is affecting that lighting<\/i> is decoupled. <\/li>\n<li><b>Source access<\/b>: We need to have full access to all source in-house. So that we can independently drive development forward, fix bugs and support future platforms. This is arguably the most important point. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For these reasons we have decided that the best course of action is to no longer pursue software we have limited control over and move on.<br \/>That said the feature set that is available now will be supported until 2023 (via 2020 LTS), and we are happy to support you in the transition. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019m still not entirely certain what they mean by Geomerics shutting down however, as it\u2019s resources were sold way back in 2017 and everything seems to be business as usual.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=l76o54AtrKI&#038;w=853&#038;h=480]<\/p>\n<p class=\"under\"> <span class=\"categories\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamefromscratch.com\/category\/GameDev-News.aspx\">GameDev News<\/a><\/span> <span class=\"tags\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamefromscratch.com\/?tag=\/Unity\" rel=\"tag\">Unity<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n<hr>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a Unity blog post today, Unity announced that Enlighten support was being removed from the Unity game engine.&nbsp; Enlighten is the lightmapping and global illumination solution used in Unity since Unity 5 was released.&nbsp; Enlighten was original developed by Geomerics, which was acquired by ARM technologies in 2013, then the technology was sold to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-96092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-development","tag-gamedev-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}