When the 3DGS Shader Pack for Unity first launched, it introduced a bunch of expressive, GPU driven visual effects for Gaussian splats in Unity. Now, only a short time later, the developer, Coco Linux, reports that more than 100 developers and studios are actively using the extension and an advanced update has just arrived.
The new release expands the shader system beyond stylized motion effects and into lighting control, adding volumetric relighting capabilities to splats. One of the long standing requests for Gaussian splatting inside real time engines has been to do relighting. While splats capture lighting impressively well at training time, manipulating illumination afterward has been seldom offered.
Instead of treating splats purely as captured radiance, the shader layer introduces lighting interaction that feels more native to Unity’s rendering stack.
The update builds on the same technical foundation as the original pack, which supports Unity 2021+ and later, across BiRP, URP, and HDRP, running on D3D12 and Vulkan. URP continues to offer the strongest performance profile in VR thanks to single-pass rendering support. The variety of supported files has greatly been enhanced. The asset remains compatible with .ply outputs from INRIA’s original 3DGS training pipeline, World Lab Marble, and gsbox conversions. However, Coco Linux has also added support for XGRIDS .lcc files, in addition to SAM3D Objects, Apple ML-Sharp outputs, and Postshot's .psht.
The advanced 3DGS Shader Pack for Unity is available now, with continued iteration expected as adoption grows. Coco Linux was also one of the recent winners of World Labs Winter Challenge. Congrats!
