Unity SDK Components
The Leia Unity SDK includes several essential components for developing lightfield content for LitByLeia™ devices, including the LeiaCamera and LeiaDisplay components.
The LeiaCamera component automatically creates a camera rig that allows you to render in multi-view on LitByLeia™ displays and control settings like depth and focus distance.
Baseline scale controls the spacing between adjacent cameras in the LeiaCamera array. This spacing can be used to increase or decrease the depth.
The convergence distance sets the location of the multi-view convergence plane with respect to the camera plane.
When you add a LeiaCamera component to a scene, a LeiaDisplay gameObject will also automatically be generated in the scene. The LeiaDisplay inspector is used to change rendering settings.
From the LeiaDisplay inspector, users can select an Editor Emulated Device to emulate in Unity:
Selecting an "Editor Emulated Device" only modifies how content is simulated in the Unity Editor; an apk or app built with the Leia Unity SDK will automatically render correctly on any LitByLeia™ device.
From the LeiaDisplay inspector of the scene's LeiaDisplay, users can also specify a LightfieldMode for the LeiaDisplay to start in. There are two supported LightfieldModes:
- Off - No parallax. Conventional 2D screen experience
- On - 3D effects enabled
During play mode in the Unity Editor, switching the LeiaDisplay's LightfieldMode gives a preview in the Unity Editor of how pixels will be rendered. However, the Lightfield effect will not be apparent without a LitByLeia™ display.
During edit mode in the Unity Editor (outside of play mode), the user can select a LightfieldMode to start the scene in, then save the scene. On a LitByLeia™ device the scene will start in the LightfieldMode that the LeiaDisplay saved.
Parallax auto-rotation is not supported and will be removed in a future Unity SDK release.
There are two render techniques you can choose from the Leia Display component: Default and Stereo
Default
The default rendering technique will render using the native view count of the display. So on 4 view devices such as the Hydrogen or Lume Pad, 4 views will be rendered.
Stereo
The stereo rendering technique renders only two views, one for the left eye and one for the right eye. Because Hydrogen and Lume Pad have 4 views, the left two views will both show the left view, and the right two views will both show the right view.
LeiaCameras can have their output composited together into a final image by using Alpha Blending. When the LeiaDisplay.Instance.AlphaBlending feature is active,
a LeiaCamera which sees background pixels with an alpha of 0.0
will preserve the current background rather than drawing in those weak-alpha-pixels. Only pixels with a high alpha will actually be drawn onscreen.
Users can use this Alpha Blending feature, in conjunction with multiple LeiaCameras, to composite multiple LeiaCamera draws together onscreen. See the LeiaLoft "MultipleCameras.unity" scene for an example of usage.