Lightmapping: Getting started

Preparing the Scene and baking the lightmaps

Select Window > RenderingThe process of drawing graphics to the screen (or to a render texture). By default, the main camera in Unity renders its view to the screen. More info
See in Glossary > Lighting from the Unity Editor menu to open the Lighting window. Make sure any Mesh you want to apply a lightmap to has proper UVs for lightmapping. The easiest way to do this is to open the Mesh import settings and enable the Generate Lightmap UVs setting.

Next, to control the resolution of the lightmaps, go to the Lightmapping Settings section and adjust the Lightmap Resolution value.

To be included in your lightmap, Renderers must meet the following criteria:

• Have a 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 or TerrainThe landscape in your scene. A Terrain GameObject adds a large flat plane to your scene and you can use the Terrain’s Inspector window to create a detailed landscape. More info
  See in Glossary component
• Be marked as Contribute GI
• Use a built-in Unity Material, the Standard ShaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
  See in Glossary, or a Shader with a Meta Pass

You can adjust settings for Lights in the Light Explorer. To open the Light Explorer, go to Window > Rendering > Light Explorer.

To generate lightmaps for your Scene:

1. Open the Lighting window (menu: Window > Rendering > Lighting)

2. At the bottom of the 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 tab on the Lighting window, select Generate Lighting (or ensure that Auto Generate is enabled).

3. A progress bar appears in Unity Editor’s status bar, in the bottom-right corner.

When lightmapping is complete, Unity’s Scene and Game views update automatically and you can view the resulting lightmaps by going to the Baked Lightmaps tab in the Lighting Window.

When you manually generate lighting, Unity adds Lighting Data Assets, baked lightmaps and 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 to the AssetsAny media or data that can be used in your game or project. An asset may come from a file created outside of Unity, such as a 3D Model, an audio file or an image. You can also create some asset types in Unity, such as an Animator Controller, an Audio Mixer or a Render Texture. More info
See in Glossary folder.

Progressive Lightmapper added in 2018.1 NewIn20181