About Raytracing Relight

Raytracing Relight brings 2.5D physically‑based relighting into After Effects, allowing lighting changes on footage without re‑shooting or regeneration. It reads depth and normal maps, supports up to three independent lights per instance, and offers directional, omnidirectional, spotlight, and ambient light types with soft or hard shadows, translucent lighting, ambient occlusion, and optional denoising. Five depth‑map formats are recognized, and output can be final result, white albedo, or shadows‑only. A single license covers both After Effects (2022‑2026) and Nuke/NukeX (12.2‑17.0). The plugin runs on Windows only and requires a Vulkan 1.3+ compatible GPU with 8 GB or more dedicated memory.

Features

• Physically-based rendering with a metallic/roughness PBR workflow so materials behave the way they do in real life
• Thickness estimation lets light transmit through and around objects, enabling physically correct shadows that match object structure
• Up to three independent lights per instance, with controls for position, intensity, radius, and tint
• Three light types (directional, omnidirectional, spotlight) plus ambient light
• Soft and hard shadows, translucent lighting, ambient occlusion, and optional denoising
• Support for five depth map types: direct, normalized, inverted normalized, 1/Z depth, and inverted 1/Z
• Multiple output modes, including final result, white albedo, and shadows only

Best for

After Effects artists who need to relight video or stills, adjust time‑of‑day lighting, match plates across shots, or unify lighting between CG and live‑action elements.