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Materials: Material Types: SC2 Volume

SC2 Volume is used for approximating volumetric fog effects. It is a relatively expensive material to draw and is used sparingly. This material is only available on Ultra Graphics settings and above. To use this material, it is required that the mesh be a "watertight" closed volume or there will be problematic visual artifacts.

Volume

  1. Blend Mode controls how the volume is drawn into the scene.

    • Blend uses a standard alpha blend to composite the volume onto the scene.

    • Add brightens the scene using the output color of the volume.

    • Mod multiplies the volumes color against the scene color, causing a darkening effect.

  2. Falloff Type controls the way the volume effect ramps in as the viewer looks through a thicker volume.

    • Linear changes the way the density of the effect behaves. This setting makes distance directly result in visual thickness. This is often a less physically correct, but easier to control effect.

    • Exponential makes the visual effect ramp in slower, and peak suddenly. This will often yield the most natural, smooth fog effects, but less clearly defines a volume and may be more difficult to control.

  3. Density represents the amount of particulate or other volumetric effect. Higher values yield stronger visual effects.

  4. Color sets the color to apply to the volume. Only RGB channels are considered. This should be either an SC2 Color or an SC2 Bitmap using Screen Space UV mapping. Other mapping types will yield undesirable effects.

  5. Alpha Threshold clips the outer edges of the volume where Density would result in a blending amount less than this value. This can be useful for making a volume effect feel more like a solid container.