Add light emission to a material

Adding emission to a Material makes it appear as a visible source of light in your Scene. The Material emission properties control the color and intensity of light that the surface of a Material emits.

Emission is useful when you want some part of a GameObject to appear lit from the inside, such as the screen of a monitor, the disc brakes of a car braking at high speed, or glowing buttons on a control panel. GameObjects that use emissive Materials appear to remain bright even in dark areas of your Scene.

Use Emission

You can define basic emissive Materials with a single color and emission level. To make a Material emissive, enable the Emission checkbox. This exposes the Color and Global Illumination properties.

Examples

Additional resources

• Emit light from a GameObject in the Built-In Render Pipeline
• Surface Inputs in the Lit shader for the Universal Render Pipeline (URP)
• Emission inputs in the Lit material for the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP)
• Create and calibrate an illuminated object using HDRP