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:

1. Add the Icarus Renderer Feature.
2. Add an Icarus Flare Source to a light or scene object.
3. Assign a flare profile.
4. 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.