The Volinga Plugin provides several rendering settings that allow you to control how Gaussian Splats are rendered inside Unreal Engine.
Starting with Volinga Renderer v0.10.0, the settings have been reorganized into three categories:
- Volinga Toolbar Settings – Global settings that affect every Gaussian Splat rendered in the project.
- Radiance Field Model Settings – Per-model settings stored individually for each Radiance Field Actor.
- Radiance Field Animation Settings – Animation controls available only for animated 4D Gaussian Splats (4DGS).
This page describes every available setting, its purpose, and where it can be found depending on the plugin version.
¶ Settings Overview
| Setting | Category (v0.10.0+) | Location | Available Since |
|---|---|---|---|
| Additive Lighting | Global | Volinga Toolbar | v0.9.0 |
| Normal Generation | Global | Volinga Toolbar → Settings | v0.9.0 |
| Render Mode | Global | Volinga Toolbar → Settings | v0.8.0 |
| Render Pass Mode | Global | Volinga Toolbar → Settings | v0.8.0 |
| Freeze Cull Volumes | Global | Volinga Toolbar → Settings | v0.8.0 |
| Ambient Light | Per-Model | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Model Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Lower Alpha Threshold | Per-Model | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Model Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Upper Alpha Threshold | Per-Model | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Model Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Minimum Screen Area Threshold | Per-Model | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Model Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Minimum Gaussian Opacity Threshold | Per-Model | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Model Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Current Frame | Animation | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Animation Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Frame Count | Animation | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Animation Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Frame Start | Animation | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Animation Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Frame End | Animation | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Animation Settings | v0.10.0 |
| Play | Animation | Radiance Field Actor → Radiance Field Animation Settings | v0.10.0 |
¶ Volinga Toolbar Settings
The Volinga Toolbar contains the global rendering settings of the plugin.
Unlike per-model settings, these options affect every Gaussian Splat rendered in the current Unreal Engine project.
Starting with Volinga Renderer v0.10.0, only rendering settings that affect the entire project remain in the Volinga Toolbar.
Rendering parameters such as Ambient Light and Post Processing have been moved to each individual Radiance Field Actor.
¶ Additive Lighting
The Volinga Plugin allows Radiance Field Actors to interact with Unreal Engine lighting.
This feature, called Additive Lighting, enables Unreal Engine lights to illuminate Gaussian Splats while preserving the lighting originally captured during the creation of the asset.
By default, Additive Lighting is disabled.
It can be enabled or disabled at any time using the Additive Lighting Toggle located in the Volinga Toolbar.
When disabled, Gaussian Splats are rendered exclusively using their original captured lighting.
When enabled, Unreal Engine lighting contributes to the final rendered result according to the selected Normal Generation method.
¶ Normal Generation
Normal Generation determines how surface normals are generated for Gaussian Splats when Additive Lighting is enabled.
These normals are used by Unreal Engine's lighting system to calculate illumination and shadows.
Four different methods are available.
-
Approximated: Generates estimated normals directly from the Gaussian data. This mode provides the best balance between rendering quality and performance and is recommended for most scenes.
-
Inverse Approximated: Uses an inverted approximation of the generated normals.Some Gaussian captures produce more natural relighting results using this method. If the lighting appears inverted or unnatural using Approximated, try switching to this mode.
-
Proxy-Mesh Based: Uses the normals of a proxy mesh instead of estimating them from the Gaussian data. This method provides the highest lighting quality and enables proper shadow casting based on the proxy geometry.
For more information, see: Tutorial — Proxy Mesh Based Normals -
No Normals: Disables normal generation completely.
In this mode, Gaussian Splats preserve only their original captured lighting and are not affected by Unreal Engine lights.This option produces the same result as disabling Additive Lighting.
¶ Render Settings
Render Mode:
-
Quality Preferred: Optimizes rendering for the highest visual fidelity, prioritizing detail and accuracy over frame rate.
-
Performance Preferred: Optimizes rendering for higher frame rates, prioritizing speed over visual detail, suitable for real-time previews or less powerful hardware.
Render Pass Mode:
-
Base Pass: Renders the main opaque geometry, capturing the primary visual elements of the scene.
-
Translucency Pass: Renders transparent or semi-transparent objects, ensuring proper blending with the scene.
Improves blending of Gaussian Splatting elements with the sky and other translucent components.
Cull Volume Settings:
- Freeze Cull Volumes: Keeps the current culling volumes static, preventing dynamic updates during playback or camera movement.Useful for consistent rendering and performance optimization.
¶ Radiance Field Model Settings
Starting with Volinga Renderer v0.10.0, several rendering settings that were previously configured globally have been moved to each Radiance Field Actor.
These settings are now stored independently for every Gaussian Splat, allowing different actors within the same level to use completely different rendering parameters.
This greatly improves flexibility when working with multiple Gaussian Splats in the same scene.
Radiance Field Model Settings are available in the Details panel of every Radiance Field Actor.
Changes made to these settings affect only the selected actor and do not modify any other Gaussian Splat in the scene.
-
Ambient light: Controls how much of the existing color in the Radiance Fields actor acts as an emissive color. A value of 0 means no emissive color, while 1 means fully emissive color.
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Lower and Upper alpha thresholds: Allow you to filter out gaussians below or above specified limits. These settings are particularly useful for removing black gaussians at the borders of actors, especially in outdoor captures.
-
Min Screen Area Threshold: Changes the minimum radius a gaussian can have on the final image (in pixels). For instance, when set to one, gaussians size in the projected image will be enlarge if it is smaller than one pixel. Usually, setting it to 0 improve performance and while not affecting quality.
-
Min Opacity Threshold: Minimum opacity that a gaussian should have to be rendered. Increasing it, will filter our less opaque gaussians, making performance better, but it can lead to artifacts.
¶ Radiance Field Animation Settings (4DGS)
Radiance Field Animation Settings are available only for animated Gaussian Splats (4DGS).
Unlike static Gaussian Splats (3DGS), a 4DGS asset contains a sequence of Gaussian frames that can be played back in real time, allowing animated volumetric content to be rendered directly inside Unreal Engine.
These settings can be found in the Details panel of every Radiance Field Actor that references a 4DGS asset.
Radiance Field Animation Settings are available starting with Volinga Renderer v0.10.0 and are only displayed when a 4D Gaussian Splat (4DGS) is assigned to the actor.
- Current Frame: Specifies the frame currently displayed by the animation. The value can be modified manually to inspect any individual frame of the sequence.
This property is also exposed to Unreal Engine Sequencer, allowing frame-accurate animation during cinematics and virtual production workflows. - Frame Count: Displays the total number of frames contained in the animation sequence.
This is a read-only property and is provided for reference only. - Frame Start: Defines the first frame used during playback.
Changing this value allows playback to begin from any point within the original animation without modifying the source asset. This can be useful for trimming unwanted frames at the beginning of the sequence. - Frame End: Defines the last frame that will be played.Reducing this value allows playback to stop before reaching the end of the original animation.
Together, Frame Start and Frame End provide a simple way to restrict playback to a specific section of the animation.
- Play: Starts or pauses animation playback.
When disabled, the animation remains fixed on the current frame.This is particularly useful when inspecting individual frames or when the animation is driven externally through Sequencer.
¶ Sequencer Integration
Starting with Volinga Renderer v0.10.0, all animation-related properties are fully integrated with Unreal Engine Sequencer.
This allows animated Gaussian Splats to be incorporated into cinematic and virtual production workflows using Unreal Engine's native animation tools.
The following properties can be animated directly from Sequencer:
- Current Frame
In addition, several Volinga components are also exposed to Sequencer, including:
- Radiance Field Model Settings
- Crop Volume
- Cull Actor
- Volinga Mesh
This enables complete timeline-based control over Gaussian Splats, making it possible to create complex cinematic sequences without additional scripting.
¶ Version Compatibility
Volinga Renderer v0.10.0 and later
Ambient Light and all Post Processing settings are configured per Radiance Field Actor, allowing every Gaussian Splat in the scene to have its own rendering configuration.
Volinga Renderer v0.9.x and earlier
These settings were configured globally from the Volinga Toolbar.
Any modification affected every Gaussian Splat rendered in the project.
¶ Legacy Settings (Volinga Renderer v0.9.x and Earlier)
Prior to Volinga Renderer v0.10.0, the organization of rendering settings was different.
Several parameters that are now stored per model were previously configured globally through the Volinga Toolbar.
The following settings were moved in v0.10.0:
| Previous Global Setting | New Location (v0.10.0+) |
|---|---|
| Ambient Light | Radiance Field Model Settings |
| Lower Alpha Threshold | Radiance Field Model Settings |
| Upper Alpha Threshold | Radiance Field Model Settings |
| Minimum Screen Area Threshold | Radiance Field Model Settings |
| Minimum Gaussian Opacity Threshold | Radiance Field Model Settings |
The remaining settings continue to be global and are still available from the Volinga Toolbar.
¶ License Settings
You can open the Volinga License Manager by clicking the “Open License Panel” button in the dropdown menu.
For a complete step-by-step guide on using the licensing system, see:
Tutorial - Offline License System and Tutorial - Online License System
More details about how licensing works are available here:
How Licensing Works
⚠️ Note (Volinga Plugin v0.7.x):
This licensing system is only available in plugin version v0.8.x.
If you are using a different version, please refer to the Tutorials section.
¶ Considerations
These settings can also be accessed through the project settings (Edit > Project Settings > Volinga).
Use settings from the Volinga toolbar dropdown. Changing them in Project Settings may not sync correctly and could cause errors