{"id":1304,"date":"2015-03-05T13:35:35","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T12:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edy.es\/dev\/?page_id=1304"},"modified":"2024-02-12T16:16:39","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T15:16:39","slug":"unity-5-lighting-cookbook","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.edy.es\/dev\/docs\/unity-5-lighting-cookbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Unity 5 Lighting Cookbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quick notes on how to deal with Unity 5 lighting.<\/p>\n

The source project for the screenshots in this article is hosted at GitHub<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Standard realtime lighting<\/h1>\n

Standard realtime lighting includes ambient light, environment reflection and realtime lights and shadows. It\u00a0doesn’t require any GI or precomputed stuff whatsoever. Both options Precomputed Realtime GI and Baked GI are disabled in Lighting > Scene.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Standard-Lighting\"<\/a><\/p>\n

1) Ambient Light<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Equally affects\u00a0all objects.<\/p>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Ambient-Light\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ambient Source (Skybox, Gradient, Color) and Intensity<\/em><\/p>\n

2) Environment Reflection<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Reflected path that changes with the angle of the camera. Applied independently of Ambient. Affects\u00a0the Fresnel<\/em> effect as well.<\/p>\n

If Reflection Probes are used they become the Reflection Source and Intensity for the objects under their influence, so the global reflection settings don’t have effect on these objects. Reflection Bounces define how much times the reflection can bounce among several probes (i.e. a probe capturing the objects under the influence of another probe).<\/p>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Environment-Reflection\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Reflection-Probes\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Left:\u00a0Reflection Source (Skybox, Cubemap), Resolution and Reflection Intensity.
\n<\/em>Right: A Reflection Probe affects this object, so the global Environment Reflection Source\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0affect this mesh.<\/em><\/p>\n

3) Standard Lights<\/strong><\/h4>\n

All standard realtime lights in the scene apply direct lighting and shadows on the\u00a0objects.<\/p>\n

The first Directional Light in the scene is considered as Sun<\/em> by default. The default Skybox gets its\u00a0intensity and color adjusted\u00a0depending on the Sun’s\u00a0horizontal inclination. Alternatively, a specific directional light can be selected as Sun<\/em> for affecting the default Skybox:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Skybox-Sun\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Precomputed realtime lighting<\/h1>\n

Precomputed realtime lighting throws in\u00a0light bounces, color bleeding, and emissive materials in real time. Everything can change dynamically (light color and intensity, material color, material emission, etc) an the lighting gets updated in the scene accordingly in real time.<\/p>\n

Lighting > Scene > Precomputed Realtime GI<\/strong> enabled, Baked GI disabled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Precomputed-Realtime-GI\"<\/a><\/p>\n

4) Light Bounces<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Each light is configured to bounce off of objects and affect others.<\/p>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Light-Bounces\"<\/a><\/p>\n

5) Emissive Materials<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Objects flagged\u00a0as Static containing\u00a0an emissive material emit light according to their geometry.<\/p>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Emissive-Object\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Emissive-Material\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Precomputed realtime lighting is calculated on\u00a0the scene objects flagged\u00a0as Static<\/strong>. A precompute phase\u00a0is triggered whenever the Transform of any\u00a0object marked as Static is modified, or when the Static flag itself changes.<\/p>\n

The parameter Lighting > Scene > Precomputed Realtime GI > Realtime Resolution<\/strong> directly affects the time it will take to precompute the data. It’s ok to use values as low as 0.01 – 0.5 for allow quickly prototyping\u00a0while working in the\u00a0Editor.<\/p>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Precomputed-Resolution\"<\/a><\/p>\n

CPU Usage<\/strong> affects the reactions of the dynamic light changes in runtime. It doesn’t affect the CPU used for baking the precomputed data in the editor.<\/p>\n

Light bouncing and material emission affect static objects only.\u00a0Light probes<\/strong> must\u00a0be used for the precomputed effects\u00a0to be applied\u00a0on\u00a0dynamic objects as well.<\/p>\n

Ambient Light in precomputed realtime lighting<\/h4>\n

Ambient Light\u00a0affects the parts of the static geometry that can be reached “from the exterior” by the light. Backfaces also count here. For instance, at\u00a0interior scenes where the static geometry defines a closed hull, the ambient light won’t have effect at all in the static meshes. Any “gaps” or parts that are reachable\u00a0from the exterior of the static geometry will be affected by the\u00a0Ambient Light accordingly.<\/p>\n

Baked lightmaps<\/h1>\n

Ambient Light, Standard Lights (baked or mixed), Light Bounces and Emissive Materias are baked into lightmap textures. Only Environment Reflection can change in runtime.<\/p>\n

Lighting > Scene > Baked GI<\/strong> enabled, Precomputed Realtime GI disabled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Baked-GI\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Standard Lights should be configured as Baked or Mixed for allowing to seamlessly switching among\u00a0Bake only and Realtime only GI modes.<\/p>\n

The parameter Lighting > Scene > Baked\u00a0GI > Baked\u00a0Resolution<\/strong> directly affects the time it will take the lightmap to be generated. It’s ok to use values as low as 1-4 for quickly prototyping while working in the Editor.<\/p>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Baked-Resolution\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Modifying any parameter involved in lighting (Ambient Light, Standard Lights, Light Bounces, Emissive Materias) or modifying any Static object will trigger a new lightmap calculation phase.<\/p>\n

General GI\u00a0settings<\/h1>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-General-GI\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Indirect Light<\/strong>\u00a0is the lighting effect of Ambient Light, Light Bounces and Emissive Materials (effect on\u00a0nearby\u00a0objects, not the emissive objects themselves), but not Environment Reflection.\u00a0Scene Window > Irradiance<\/strong>\u00a0shows the Indirect Light in the scene:<\/p>\n

\"Unity-5-Lighting-Cookbook-Irradiance-Indirect-Light\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These settings affect the\u00a0Indirect Light\u00a0in both realtime and baked modes:<\/p>\n