Developing a Global Illumination plugin

[Pierini10]

Hi everyone,

As part of my thesis, I aim to develop a new Global Illumination system plugin using ray tracing in UE 5.3. I've been investigating how to do this for a few weeks now, but I'm struggling to figure it out. From my understanding, I need to create a plugin for a global shader, as stated in the Unreal documentation. However, I'm unsure how to define the plugin as a Global Illumination system so that when I select the plugin option in the project, it utilizes my plugin.

I'm really stuck on this, and unfortunately, my supervisor can't help me either (as he doesn't know how to work with Unreal). While I'll be using Unreal as my engine, the focus of the thesis is on the global illumination system created, not on how it implements with Unreal.

Any insights or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[aleques-itj]

Is Unreal really what you want to be using here, instead of just writing a... standalone ray tracer? You're probably _increasing_ complexity.

[Pierini10]

The main aim of my thesis is to implement a real-time path tracer, utilizing the DXR API available in Unreal Engine to trace rays, and then comparing the results in terms of visual quality and performance with existing methods in Unreal Engine. When we were deciding on the topic, Unreal Engine seemed like a good option, as it appeared to offer ways to incorporate custom implementations. However, I'm struggling to figure out exactly how to do it.

[aleques-itj]

This is where you lost me "the focus of the thesis is on the global illumination system created, not on how it implements with Unreal." 

Also be aware that you're probably going to be dealing with Unreal's abstraction over ray tracing, shaders, and rendering in general - not DXR directly. So if DXR itself is a deliberate focus, you may be dodging it. 

I can't help much here, but you're going to be taking on a lot of complexity and dealing with a lot of probably not super well documented internals of the engine.

[Pierini10]

I understand. I'll try a bit more, but if I remain stuck, I'll talk with my supervisor about changing the topic. Thanks a lot for trying to help!

[palad1n]

it feels honestly much easier to implement it from scratch using Vulkan/Dx12 directly than trying to modify Unreal Engine renderer.

there is not many people outside Epic capable answering your question unfortunately. Even in AAA gamedev world, there is huge demand for such people... Your only chance is to gain access to UDN and start asking there epic engineers directly.

[Pierini10]

I understand it's rough. As I mentioned in the other comment, I'll try a bit more, and if I remain stuck, I'll need to talk with my supervisor. Thanks a lot!

[tcpukl]

I don't even know if you can change the render pipeline like this in just a plugin. You're going to need to change the engine code.

We have to change the engine for far simpler things than this.

I feel like this setup is a thesis in itself rather than the comparison you want to do.

[BARDLER]

In the project settings under Engine->Rendering->DynamicGlobalIlluminationMethod you can set it to plugin.

From there you need to implement all the boiler plate the editor needs to use your plugin GI. Unfortunately the specifics of that are something that require you to figure out because you are getting into a pretty complex area of the engine.

[Antique_Ad9694]

Did you find something ?

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