Did they removed light baking in Blender 4.2.1?

Where is it?
Untitled-1
The only one available is when you specifically select the volume light cache element itself:
Untitled-2

but even when you press that, nothing happens, where else in Cycles, everything light up properly.

Update:
Found yet another one under scene:
3
Pressing that also result in nothing.

You meand the indirect light bake in eevee ?? Render (Properties) → Indirect Lighting: Bake Indirect Lighting

See also Docs-Blender Manual: Render eevee-> Eender Settings → Indirect Lighting …

Thank you for taking the time to answer, I really appreciate it, but this is the full render panel, I don’t see it.

In 4.2, each volume probe is baked individually in its own settings. Also, the probe itself contains the baked light, which means you can move or delete a baked probe and it will work (in old Eevee, the baked light was tied to the world and you had to cancel the entire bake to make a change).

There isn’t a bake panel for reflection probes either, as they are no longer pre-baked.

I can’t say what is going wrong from a few images, this bake should work just fine. I would need to see the scene to tell.

Thank you, your answer clarified a number of questions.

Back in old eevee, you can set the number of bounces to calculate for the baked light, does “Eevee Next” uses these parameters?


If not, where is it?

Doesn’t seem like there is an option for the number of bounces, but each volume probe has an intensity slider which you can change even after the bake, so that can be used for a similar effect.

By the way, the “raytracing” section is a separate thing from the volume probes, they are 2 separate indirect lighting techniques. You can use them together for a more complete result than either would give on its own, but one doesn’t directly affect the light level of the other.

Raytracing gives you the short range, high detail screen space indirect lighting, volume probes are useful for a more large scale, ambient solution and can be used for darkening enclosed areas from the sky light.

From my testing, there seems to be one way the 2 interact: when raytracing is on, the accuracy of the volume probe improves and light leaks disappear.

The “raytracing” section itself is composed of 2 sub methods: screen tracing and fast GI. They are both forms of screen space GI and they work together.

Screen tracing is the higher quality, but noisier one. The denoiser is there entirely for it.

Fast Gi is a faster, less noisy method.

Which one is used is decided by the “max roughness” slider. Any material less rough than that value uses screen tracing, that way the reflections get the higher quality GI. Everything above that value uses fast GI, so the less noisy method can be used for diffuse surfaces that are less in need of accuracy.

If you set the max roughness to 1, you will render the entire image with screen tracing, completely deactivating fast GI. In that case, you will get a render that’s almost like a mini Cycles, with an image that’s noisy (if you disable the denoiser) but more accurate.

Thank you for the short education, I learn much from what you have said here!
1: Blender Eevee no longer allows you to set number of bounces for light cache bake, but you are allowed to exaggerate the calculated secondary bounce.

2: Evee’s Next’s real time GI comprises of two systems working together.

1 Like

As far as I know, a big reason why you could choose the number of bounces in old Eevee was mostly to reduce them for better performance, but the new system is much faster to bake.

I know that some GI techniques (especially those that use probes) have the ability to self sample in a way that simulates infinite bounces, which could explain the lack of bounce number, though I have no proof Eevee uses something like that.

Also, the fact that there are 2 types of GI pretty much guarantees multiple bounces and would make it hard to tell how many bounces there even are at a time.




While I’m on the topic of GI brightness, don’t forget that there are now light clamping settings in Eevee. Those could limit very bright bounces if set too low. They are present both in the main render settings and on the volume probe itself.

You are just wonderful :slight_smile:

I am sure when you say “infinite bounce”, you are being tongue in cheek ;p
In the past I would actually increase the bounce count, because since it is a one time bake, I might as well get it to bounce as many times as it can to be as realistic as it can since the result will be baked and I wouldn’t have to do it again :smiley:

But now, that is no longer possible.

No, some global illumination techniques can actually simulate infinite diffuse bounces, or at least get to a point where you can’t tell the difference anymore, because they can sample their own probes in a loop or something like that. I have no proof Eevee uses that, but it’s plausible. Unreal engine 5’s lumen system for sure has that capability.

1 Like