Shortly after Akiya Research updated their UE5 plugin, Luma has arrived with their official Gaussian Splatting Unreal Engine Plugin.
Previously Luma allowed for NeRFs to be exported into Unreal Engine through their .Luma file.
The Luma Gaussian Splatting Unreal Engine Plugin is compatible with version 5.3 and launches with a host of features.
Users have the ability to include both NeRFs and splats in the same scene, meaning you can bring your .Luma files into the same environment to build on top of. You can crop and cull your splat files and additionally merge multiple splats into the same file.
The plugin also supports relighting, but only on parts that are directly casting light. It does not support emissive lighting at this time.
There is a limit, I’m told, to the amount of particles that are able to be displayed with Niagara in Unreale Engine. Given that Akiya’s plugin also has this same cap, it is an artificial limit introduced from Unreal Engine. However, Luma’s plugin does work with Nanite meshes, though that must be toggled on manually.
Where it starts to get interesting is the price. Luma has made it 100% free to get started and like the rest of Luma’s captures, come with the ability to use commercially. This is not a fork of the original Inria code, but built ontop of Luma’s proprietary tech stack, meaning they can offer a different license.
Luma continues to innovate and push out regular updates to the community. This is a powerful extension to Gaussian Splatting and huge win that it is both free and commercially viable. If you would like to try out Luma Gaussian Splatting Unreal Engine Plugin, Luma has created some sample scenes. To get started with the plugin, click here.
