Show Lasers

Show Lasers is a script+shader for displaying laser beams which are modelled after those used in typical laser shows. All pipelines are supported. Works in VR.

You can use the Show Lasers to create your own laser shows made out of laser beams, fans, sheets, tunnels, and liquid sky effects – or use the effect to create a variety of other effects such as “laser scanner” visuals, laser grids or fences, skylights, or simply display ordinary laser beams.

The laser beams can be configured in three basic forms (rectangular, circular (fan-like) and conic), and give the appearance of “cutting through” smoke. The exact appearance and animation of the smoke can be configured directly through the script.

Simply add the Show Lasers script to an empty game object and configure the visuals in the script. The shader will automatically update the visuals, even in the scene view. You can configure a wide array of settings, including width, length, radius, main color, border color(s), transparency, type of smoke, distortion and speed of smoke, fade-out towards the end of the beam, etc.

For laser show animation, you can either use Unity’s built-in Mecanim animation system and arrange your shows using the timeline, or control the Show Lasers script using your own code. The demo laser show (see video) is part of the package, is made with Meccanim + Timeline, and can be inspected and reused.

Once set up, the laser effect can be used without the script, making it useful for use cases such as VR Chat.

Show Lasers works with VR, including Single Pass Stereo and Multiview mode, and thus allows you to watch your own shows in VR! Show Lasers works on both PC and mobile (Android/iOS). Full support on Meta Quest devices. Furthermore, Show Lasers works in both Forward and Deferred mode as well as using Linear and Gamma modes.

Performance: the demo laser show (see video) takes about 0.2ms/frame on the minimum VR hardware (i5-4590, GTX970) in 1920x1080. In VR, a solid 90fps is reached, likewise 60fps are reached on really old mobile hardware (Samsung Galaxy S7) in flat mode, as well as on all Meta Quests in VR mode.

Show Lasers does not require, but works great with a Bloom post processing effect. A simple Bloom effect is included (note: the simple Bloom does NOT work in VR multiview mode), but you can also use any other, including the one from Unity’s post processing stack.

Have fun working on your own laser creations!