Version: 2019.3
Lighting overview
Light Explorer

Lighting Window

The Lighting window (menu: Window > Rendering > Lighting Settings) is the main control point for Unity’s lighting features. You can use the Lighting window to adjust many aspects of the lighting process, to customise the lighting in your Scene, and to optimise your lighting for quality, speed and storage space.

Note that the options available in the Lighting window vary depending on which render pipeline your Project uses.

Обзор

The Lighting window contains 3 tabs:

  • The Scene tab contains lighting settings that apply to the overall Scene rather than individual GameObjects.

  • The Realtime Lightmaps tab shows a list of all realtime lightmaps for the current Scene. If Realtime Global Illumination is not enabled in your Project, this tab will be empty.

  • The Baked Lightmaps tab shows a list of baked lightmaps for the current Scene, along with the Lighting Data Asset. If Baked Global Illumination is not enabled in your Project, this tab will be empty.

At the bottom of the Lighting window is the Auto Generate checkbox. When enabled, Unity updates lightmap data as you edit the Scene. Note that the update usually takes a few seconds rather than happening instantaneously. If Auto Generate is disabled, the Generate Lighting button to the right of the checkbox becomes active; use this button to trigger lightmap updates when you need them. Use the Generate Lighting button if you want to clear the baked data from the Scene without clearing the GI Cache.

Scene tab

The Scene tab contains lighting settings that apply to the current Scene, rather than individual GameObjects. The Scene tab contains several sections:

Environment

This section contains settings for the skybox, diffuse lighting and reflections.

Property: Function:
Skybox Material A Skybox is a Material that appears behind everything else in the Scene to simulate the sky or other distant background. Use this property to choose the Skybox you want to use for the Scene. The default value is the built-in Default Skybox.
Sun Source When the Skybox Material is a Procedural Skybox, use this setting to specify a GameObject with a directional Light component to indicate the direction of the sun (or whatever large, distant light source is illuminating your Scene). If this is set to None, the brightest directional light in the Scene is assumed to represent the sun. The default value is None.
Environment Lighting This section contains settings that affect light coming from the distant environment.
Source Diffuse environmental light (also known as ambient light) is light that is present all around the Scene and doesn’t come from any specific source object. Use this to define a source colour. The default value is Skybox.
    Skybox Select this to use the colors of the Skybox set in Skybox Material to determine the ambient light coming from different angles. This allows for more precise effects than Gradient.
    Gradient Select this to choose separate colors for ambient light from the sky, horizon and ground, and blend smoothly between them.
    Color Select this to use a flat color for all ambient light in the Scene.
Intensity Multiplier Use this to set the brightness of the diffuse environmental light in the Scene, defined as a value between 0 and 8. The default value is 1.
Ambient Mode Use this to specify which Global Illumination mode should be used to determine ambient light in the Scene. This property is only available when both real-time lighting and baked lighting are enabled in the Scene.
    Realtime Choose Realtime if you want the ambient light in the Scene to be calculated and updated in real time.
    Baked Choose Baked if you want Unity to precompute the ambient light in the Editor, and then apply it at runtime.
Environment Reflections This section contains global settings for Reflection Probe baking, and settings that affect global reflections.
Source Use this setting to specify whether you want to use the Skybox for reflection effects, or a cubemap of your choice. The default value is Skybox.
    Skybox Select this to use the Skybox as the reflection source. If you select Skybox, an additional option called Resolution appears. Use this to set the resolution of the Skybox for reflection purposes.
    Custom Select this to use a cubemap for reflections. If you select Custom, an additional option called Cubemap appears. Use this to specify the cubemap.
Compression Use this to define whether or not reflection textures are compressed. The default setting is Auto.
    Auto The reflection texture is compressed if the compression format is suitable.
    Uncompressed The reflection texture is stored in memory uncompressed.
    Compressed The texture is compressed.
Intensity Multiplier The degree to which the reflection source is visible in reflective objects.
Bounces A reflection bounce occurs when a reflection from one object is then reflected by another object. Use this property to set how many times the Reflection Probes evaluate bounces back and forth between objects. If this is set to 1, then Unity only takes the initial reflection (from the skybox or cube map specified in the Reflection Source property) into account.

Realtime Lighting

Property: Function:
Realtime Global Illumination (deprecated) If this checkbox is ticked, Unity enables Realtime Global Illumination using Enlighten. Note that Enlighten is deprecated, and will soon be removed.

Mixed Lighting

Property: Function:
Baked Global Illumination If enabled, Unity precomputes lighting data in the Editor, and then applies this data to the Scene at runtime. See documentation on Baked lighting for more information.
Lighting Mode Specifies which Light Mode will be used for all Mixed lights in the Scene. Options are Baked Indirect, Subtractive, and Shadowmask.
Note: When you change the Lighting Mode, you need to re-bake the Scene. If Auto Generate is enabled in the Lighting window, this happens automatically. If Auto Generate is not enabled, click Generate Lighting to see the updated lighting effect.
Realtime Shadow Color Define the color that Unity uses to render real-time shadows. This setting is only available when Lighting Mode is set to Subtractive.

Lightmapping Settings

Lightmapping Settings are specific to the Lightmapper backend. To see the settings information for each lighting system, see the documentation on the Progressive CPU Lightmapper, the Progressive GPU Lightmapper (preview), and Enlighten (deprecated).

Other Settings

This section provides documentation for the Other Settings section.

Property: Function:
Other Settings Settings for fog, Halos, Flares and Cookies.
Fog Enables or disables fog in the Scene. Note that fog is not available with the Deferred rendering path. For deferred rendering, the Post-processing fog effect effect might be suitable.
Color Use the color picker to set the color Unity uses to draw fog in the Scene.
Mode Define the way in which the fogging accumulates with distance from the camera.
Linear Fog density increases linearly with distance.
Start Set the distance from the Camera at which the fog starts.
End Set the distance from the Camera at which the fog completely obscures Scene GameObjects.
Exponential Fog density increases exponentially with distance.
Density Use this to control the density of the fog. The fog appears more dense as the Density increases.
Exponential Squared Fog density increases faster with distance (exponentially and squared).
Density Use this to control the density of the fog. The fog appears more dense as the Density increases.
Halo Texture Set the Texture you want to use for drawing a Halo around lights.
Halo Strength Define the visibility of Halos around Lights, from a value between 0 and 1.
Flare Fade Speed Define the time (in seconds) over which lens flares fade from view after initially appearing. This is set to 3 by default.
Flare Strength Define the visibility of lens flares from lights, from a value between 0 and 1.
Spot Cookie Set the Cookie texture you want to use for spot lights.

Debug settings

Property: Function:
Debug Settings Settings that help you debug your Scene.
Light Probe Visualization Use this to filter which Light Probes are visualized in the Scene view. The default value is Only Probes Used By Selection.
    Only Probes Used By Selection Only Light Probes that affect the current selection are visualized in the Scene view.
    All Probes No Cells All Light Probes are visualized in the Scene view.
    All Probes With Cells All Light Probes are visualized in the Scene view, and the tetrahedrons that are used for interpolation of Light Probe data are also displayed.
    None No Light Probes are visualized in the Scene view.
Display Weights When ticked, Unity draws a line from the Light Probe used for the active selection to the positions on the tetrahedra used for interpolation. This is a way to debug probe interpolation and placement problems.
Display Occlusion When ticked, Unity displays occlusion data for Light Probes if the Mixed lighting mode is Distance Shadowmask or Shadowmask.

  • 2018–03–29 Page published

  • Updated in 5.6

  • Lightmapping section and Debug settings updated in 2018.1 NewIn20181

Lighting overview
Light Explorer