Version: Unity 6.5 (6000.5)
Language : English
Search and explore lighting-related objects
Light Explorer window

Lighting Search window reference

Lighting Search is a cross-pipeline editor window with a table-based interface for managing lighting data across complex scenesA 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
. For a simpler alternative that covers lights, Reflection ProbesA rendering component that captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions, rather like a camera. The captured image is then stored as a Cubemap that can be used by objects with reflective materials. More info
See in Glossary
, light probesLight probes store information about how light passes through space in your scene. A collection of light probes arranged within a given space can improve lighting on moving objects and static LOD scenery within that space. More info
See in Glossary
, and static emissive materials, refer to Light Explorer.

To open the Lighting Search window, from the Unity Editor menu, select Window > Rendering > Lighting Search.

The window contains the following: * A search bar at the top. * A categorized search query tree panel on the left. * A table view of the search results with editable lighting object properties on the right.

Select a pre-built search query in the tree panel to load its results into the table or build your own query from the search bar.

Note: The Lighting Search window uses the Unity Search framework. For more information about managing search queries and results, refer to Unity Search.

Edit any lighting object properties directly in the search results table. You can multi-select the table rows to edit the properties in bulk.

Query categories

Here is the list of pre-built search query categories available in the tree panel.

Category Description
Lights Light components in the scene, with lighting mode, intensity, color temperature, rendering layers, shadow resolution, contact shadows, and ray tracingThe process of generating an image by tracing out rays from the Camera through each pixel and recording the color contribution at the hit point. This is an alternative to rasterization. raytracing
See in Glossary
settings. In HDRP only.
MeshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
See in Glossary
Renderers
Mesh RendererA mesh component that takes the geometry from the Mesh Filter and renders it at the position defined by the object’s Transform component. More info
See in Glossary
components, with GI contribution mode, receive GI mode, reflection probe usage, and rendering layers.
Reflection Probes Reflection Probe components, with capture mode and cubemapA collection of six square textures that can represent the reflections in an environment or the skybox drawn behind your geometry. The six squares form the faces of an imaginary cube that surrounds an object; each face represents the view along the directions of the world axes (up, down, left, right, forward and back). More info
See in Glossary
resolution.
Adaptive Probe Volumes Adaptive Probe Volume components, with volume mode and probe spacing. Available when Adaptive Probe Volumes is enabled in Project SettingsA broad collection of settings which allow you to configure how Physics, Audio, Networking, Graphics, Input and many other areas of your project behave. More info
See in Glossary
.
Baking Sets Baking Set assets in the project, with probe spacing and sky occlusion settings. Available when Adaptive Probe Volumes is enabled in Project Settings.
Light Probes Light Probe GroupA component that enables you to add Light Probes to GameObjects in your scene. More info
See in Glossary
objects in the scene. Available when Adaptive Probe Volumes is inactive in Project Settings.
Materials Materials with emission enabled, with emission intensity, multiplier, and HDRhigh dynamic range
See in Glossary
mode.
Lighting Settings Lighting Settings assets associated with open scenes, with baking backend, lightmapA pre-rendered texture that contains the effects of light sources on static objects in the scene. Lightmaps are overlaid on top of scene geometry to create the effect of lighting. More info
See in Glossary
resolution, and sample counts.
Lightmaps Baked lightmap data with thumbnail previews, alongside index, dimensions, format, compressionA method of storing data that reduces the amount of storage space it requires. See Texture Compression, Animation Compression, Audio Compression, Build Compression.
See in Glossary
, and an adjustable exposure slider.

Note: The queries available depend on the active 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
. In HDRP and URP projects, the query tree also reflects your Adaptive Probe Volumes configuration:

  • When Adaptive Probe Volumes is inactive in Project Settings, a Light Probes folder appears in the query tree.
  • When Adaptive Probe Volumes is active, Baking Sets and APV folders appear instead.

Save a query

Use the save controls in the query tree panel to save the current query state. A saved query stores active filter settings, the columns shown in the table, column widths, and the table format.

Option Description
User Saves the query to user preferences. Not included in version controlA system for managing file changes. You can use Unity in conjunction with most common version control tools, including Perforce, Git, Mercurial and Unity Version Control (UVCS). More info
See in Glossary
.
Project Saves the query as a Search Query asset in the project. Included in version control and shareable with your team.

Additional resources

Search and explore lighting-related objects
Light Explorer window