Icarus Procedural Lens Flares

Icarus Procedural Lens Flares gives you complete artistic control over lens flares in Unity URP.

Build realistic suns, cinematic anamorphic streaks, sci-fi optics, magical glows, portal effects, headlights, and stylised starbursts using layered procedural shaders instead of large texture libraries.

Stack editable flare elements, including cores, rays, halos, rings, streaks, ghosts, crescents, cat eyes, polygons, smudges, and custom image layers, and control exactly how they render, animate, distort, blur, fade, and react to the world.

Whether you need a quick sun flare or a complex optical setup, Icarus provides an artist-friendly workflow with deep runtime control and performance-focused rendering.

Key Features
URP Renderer Feature integration
Directional sun flares and world-space flare sources
Layer-based flare profile workflow
Fully procedural flare generation with optional image layers
Core, Halo, Ring, Ray, Streak, Ghost, and Custom Image layers
Multiple ghost styles, including Disc, Crescent, Cat Eye, Polygon, and Smudge
Advanced ray generation with spike, fan, taper, chaos, and stylised modes
HDR colour controls, gradients, hue shifting, chromatic spread, and spectral effects
Per-layer blend modes and render behaviour
Depth, raycast, pixel, and edit-mode occlusion
Runtime fade smoothing and atmospheric attenuation
Lens distortion, optical blur, bloom-reactive dirt, and lens imperfections
Static atlas caching and hybrid caching systems
Volume-based flare overrides
Runtime API and UnityEvent integration
Demo scene, example profiles, and quick-start documentation

Designed For Artists
Getting started is simple:
Add the Icarus Renderer Feature.
Add an Icarus Flare Source to a light or scene object.
Assign a flare profile.
Shape the look from a single profile inspector.

Included profiles provide starting points for:
Realistic suns
Cinematic lens flares
Stylised stars
Prism ghosts
Fantasy magic lights
Minimal flare setups

Deep Layer System
Every flare is built from an ordered stack of layers.

Each layer can define:
Position and scale
Aspect ratio
Rotation behaviour
Colour model
Blend mode
Blur settings
Distortion routing
Occlusion response
Cache behaviour
Local blur and distortion
Runtime animation

Mix subtle optical realism with dramatic stylised effects without leaving the editor.

Powerful Colour System
Icarus includes a flexible colour pipeline designed for both realistic optics and artistic flare design.

Features include:
HDR tinting
Secondary colours
Random colour variation
Hue shifting
Spectral rainbow effects
Three-colour gradients
Radial, linear, angular, and axis-based colour mapping
Chromatic spread for halos, rings, ghosts, streaks, dirt, and image layers
HSV and OKLab palette harmonisation tools

Create anything from subtle photographic flares to bold stylised rainbow optics.

Performance Focused
Icarus includes multiple optimisation systems:
Static source atlas caching
Hybrid cache mode
Shared blur buffers
Split flare and lens blur buffers
Realtime downsampling
Reduced SetPass usage mode
Per-layer cache indicators
Selective occlusion systems
Optional screen FX modes

Scale from lightweight gameplay flares to complex cinematic optical stacks.

Runtime Control
Designed for dynamic games and simulations.
Adjust at runtime:
Global intensity
Colour multipliers
Atmospheric density
Layer scaling
Profile switching
Day, sunset, and night presets

Perfect for:
Day/night cycles
Weather systems
Seasonal transitions
Gameplay events
Cinematic sequences

Volume Support
Use Volume Overrides to control flares based on camera location.

Ideal for:
Interiors
Caves
Weather zones
Biomes
Cinematic areas

Available controls:
Profile override
Disable flare
Intensity multiplier
Colour multiplier
Atmosphere density
Layer scale blending
Local volume fade borders

Best For
Realistic sun flares
Stylised starbursts
Sci-fi optics
Fantasy lighting
Cinematic anamorphic flares
Portals and magical effects
Headlights and bright emissive sources
Day/night systems
Projects that need art-directable flares without maintaining large texture libraries

Technical Architecture
IcarusLensFlareRendererFeature - URP rendering integration
IcarusLensFlareSource - Light and world-space flare emitters
IcarusLensFlareProfile - Layer stacks, rendering behaviour, and flare configuration

Built specifically for Unity URP, with a focus on performance, flexibility, and artistic control.