Volumetric Lines

Name: Volumetric Lines
Brand: Johannes Unterguggenberger
Availability: InStock
Rating: 5 (80 reviews)

Launched Feb 2015 11.3y

Updated Feb 2022 4.3y Abandoned?

Johannes Unterguggenberger

5.0/5 · 1 recent review · rating rising

5.0

80 reviews total

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Recent Sentiment

5.0/5 · 1 recent review · rating rising

Package size 0.75 MB

AI Reviews Analysis

Editor's Cut

Pros

This asset is widely praised for its lightweight performance, ease of use, and plug-and-play functionality, making it an excellent choice for rapid prototyping of laser beams, tracer bullets, and neon light effects. Users consistently highlight its intuitive interface, clean code structure, and high visual quality, noting that it integrates seamlessly into various projects with minimal overhead. The developer is frequently commended for providing a high-quality tool for free and for offering responsive, helpful support when technical issues arise.

While this is a highly effective, free solution for simple visual effects, its lack of modern render pipeline support and rigid configuration make it a risky choice for complex, production-grade projects requiring high-performance XR or advanced shader customization.

Cons

The asset suffers from inconsistent material configuration, where property changes often fail to persist without creating unique material instances. It lacks advanced features found in Unity's native Line Renderer, such as variable start/end width control, and it struggles with modern render pipeline compatibility, specifically regarding URP/HDRP support and Single Pass Instancing for XR. Some users report difficulty integrating the script outside of provided example scenes, and the reliance on local space coordinates rather than world space requires additional manual distance calculations.

Render pipelines

None flagged

Description

Volumetric Lines is a fast, GPU-based volumetric line renderer based on a technique by Sébastien Hillaire. It can be used to render lines with a volumetric appearance by smartly utilizing a texture. Through the use of different textures, different volumetric line effects can be achieved.

Some usage examples:

Example 1: A radial gradient texture can be used to render anti-aliased volumetric lines like laser shots or light sabers.

Example 2: A texture with a filled, solid circle positioned in the center of the square texture can be used to create the appearance of pipes.

Technically, the algorithm uses as little as 8 vertices to describe a single line and positions them smartly on the screen to create a volumetric appearance.

This package includes:

- An algorithm to render single volumetric lines, handled by the script VolumetricLineBehavior.cs

- An algorithm to render volumetric line strips, handled by the script VolumetricLineStripBehavior.cs

- Shader files, predefined materials, and presets for different appearances: Light saber, texture with additive blending, texture with alpha blending

- Three example scenes: StaticLines, LineGenerationScripts, LaserCannon

Please note that the used technique has some limitations when used with a volumetric line strip: It will not look good if there are steep angles between line segments. This limitation is inherent to the technique and cannot be overcome. However, nice results can be achieved when wide angles, and possibly a higher number of line segments are used. Please have a look at the LineGenerationScripts.scene for an example for a well-behaved volumetric line strip.

Please have a look at the release notes of version 3 which includes descriptions of various fixes and improvements, but also of a potentially breaking change regarding the line width settings.

A getting started guide can be found in the Unity Forums thread: "[RELEASED] Volumetric Lines"

Volumetric Lines is also available on GitHub where you are welcome to add contributions, create issues, and also have the opportunity to make donations in order to support the development of this asset. Your support is greatly appreciated.

For bug reports, please create an issue on GitHub. For other questions or remarks, please write to volumetriclines@gmail.com or create a post in the Unity Forums thread mentioned above.