Version: 2021.2
SkyManager
Using skyboxes

Skyboxes

A skyboxA special type of Material used to represent skies. Usually six-sided. More info
See in Glossary
is a cube with a different texture on each face. When you use a skybox to render a sky, Unity essentially places your SceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary
inside the skybox cube. Unity renders the skybox first, so the sky always renders at the back.

Similar to other sky implementations, you can use a skybox to do the following:

  • Render a skybox around your Scene.
  • Configure your lighting settings to create realistic ambient lighting based on the skybox.
  • Override the skybox that an individual CameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info
    See in Glossary
    uses, using the skybox component.

Render pipeline compatibility

Feature Built-in Render PipelineA series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info
See in Glossary
Universal Render Pipeline (URP) High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP)
Skyboxes Yes (1) Yes (1) No (2)

Notes:

  1. The Built-in Render Pipeline, and the Universal Render Pipeline (URP) both exclusively use skyboxes to render a sky. These skyboxes are Materials that use a skybox Shader.
  2. The High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) does not support skybox Materials and instead includes multiple sky generation solutions.
SkyManager
Using skyboxes