Capturing Information

In this case, we capture the final color of the scene – with lighting and all. This means that the final model can be used with an unlit shader, which is very cheap. But that does mean that all dynamic lighting is lost.

However, the system could be modified to capture Base Colors, Normals and Roughness (optional) Instead, for dynamically lit scenes.

Small lights in the environment could even be baked to an emissive texture for additional detail.

Unreal Tournament – Outpost 23 – Outside by Thomas Kole on Sketchfab

Optimization

Of course there’s a huge loss in geometry detail when you run an environment through this pipeline. However, the final polycount is in your hands.

Everything is baked into one final texture, so small details in texture are also lost. High frequency details such as wires, chain link fences, and thin meshes can be problematic too.

For the captures of Unreal Tournament, I tried to take those out.

The one thing that the process does preserve very well is contour and shape, which is perfect for distant geometry.

Abandonded Bathroom by Thomas Kole on Sketchfab

Cases

There’s all sorts of uses for this technology. The most useful one would be using it for distant geometry.

But you could also use it for marketing purposes, uploading 3D action scenes of a game to a site like Sketchfab.