Quickstart

Begin to use GT-VBAO or HBAO+ Plugins fast.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you must have:

• Unreal Engine 5.7 or later
• Deferred Rendering enabled (Forward Rendering is not supported)

Get started

1. Install

   Enable the plugin in your project by going to Edit → Plugins, searching for HBAO+ (or GT-VBAO) and enabling it. Restart the editor when prompted.

2. Verify it's working

   Set the composite mode to 0 and enable Debug Mode to see the raw AO buffer in the viewport:

   HBAO+

   r.HBAOPlus.Mode 0
   r.HBAOPlus.DebugMode 1
   

   You can run these commads using the console (press ~ in the viewport) or via the Cmd input in the Output Log.

   Set DebugMode back to 0 when done.

3. Switch to production mode

   Once everything looks correct, switch to Mode 1 for the best integration with Unreal’s native pipeline:

   HBAO+

   r.HBAOPlus.Mode 1
   r.HBAOPlus.DebugMode 0
   

For optimal results, enable TAA or TSR (r.AntiAliasingMethod 2). This allows Temporal Accumulation to smooth out the AO signal over time, reducing noise and producing a cleaner result overall.

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