Volinga Plugin Pro lets you relight 3DGS data inside Unreal Engine
Volinga has released Volinga Plugin Pro, a new edition of its plugin integrating 3D Gaussian Splatting workflows into Unreal Engine.
The Pro edition makes it possible to relight 3DGS objects inside Unreal Engine, with accurate cast shadows; and supports HDR workflows, and OCIO and ACES color management.
Volinga describes it as “a major leap in making 3DGS practical for professional studios and virtual production pipelines.”
Part of a suite of tools for using 3DGS in Unreal Engine VFX and virtual production pipelines
A new way to reconstruct real-world objects from source images or video, 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) is increasingly being used in production, and supported in DCC software.
Volinga’s Unreal Engine plugin is part of a specialist suite of tools aimed at VFX, virtual production and broadcast studios looking to integrate 3DGS technology into their pipelines.
The firm’s flagship product, Volinga Suite, is a standalone tool for creating 3DGS data from photos or videos, which integrates with key virtual production platforms like disguise.
Users of Volinga’s technology include Paramount Pictures and VFX studios like Rodeo FX.
Import and render 3DGS data within Unreal Engine
The original base edition of the plugin, Volinga Plugin for UE, makes it possible to import, manipulate and render 3DGS data within Unreal Engine.
Although it’s designed to work with Volinga Suite, it can also import data created from third-party tools like Postshot or Nerfstudio, either in PLY format or Volinga’s NVOL format.
Users can import multiple 3DGS ‘actors’ into a scene, render them using their standard pipeline – the workflow supports post effects like depth of field – and export them in a UE5 scene.
Volinga Plugin Pro: support for mesh-based relighting of 3DGS data
The base edition also supports what Volinga calls ‘additive lighting‘, in which 3DGS actors can interact with scene lighting, but retain the lighting data built in during their creation.
They don’t cast shadows, either on other 3DGS actors, or their surroundings.
To that, the new Pro edition introduces mesh-based relighting: a new approach that uses proxy meshes to “reproduce geometry, shadows and materials”.
In the video at the top of the story, you can see it in use to relight an environment, with the 3DGS actors casting shadows that respond as light sources move within the scene.
New tools for cropping 3DGS actors, and support for multi-GPU rendering
Other new features in the Pro edition include Cull Volumes, which Volinga describes as a “precision tool” for removing floaters or unwanted elements within 3DGS actors.
It also supports multi-node and multi-GPU rendering, including nDisplay, Unreal Engine’s system for rendering to multiple displays in LED volumes
Support for HDR rendering and OCIO and ACES color management
Pro users also get support for HDR rendering, and the OCIO and ACES (ACES2065) color management standards.
Both are actually available in the base edition, but output can only be previewed with a watermark.
Price and system requirements
Volinga Plugin is compatible with Unreal Engine 5.3 on Windows only. Volinga Suite is a standalone application compatible with Windows 11. Both require a NVIDIA GPU.
Both the plugin and the suite are available rental only. A subscription to the base edition of the plugin costs €119.88/year (around $150/year).
The Pro edition of the plugin is only available with Studio and Enterprise subscriptions, which also include Volinga Suite, and which are priced on enquiry.
Read more about Volinga Plugin for Unreal Engine on Volinga’s website
Read Volinga’s FAQs about the plugin and Volinga Suite
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