The Lighting window (menu: Window > Rendering > Lighting) is the main control point for Unity’s lighting features. You can use the Lighting window to adjust settings related to the lighting in your Scene, and to optimise your precomputed lighting data for quality, bake time, and storage space.
You can perform many of the functions available in the Lighting window in scripts, using the LightingSettings and Lightmapping APIs.
The Lighting window contains the following elements:
The Scene tab displays information about the Lighting Settings Asset that is assigned to the active Scene. If no Lighting Settings Asset is assigned to the active Scene, it displays information about the default LightingSettings object.
The Scene tab is divided into two sections:
Use the controls in this section to assign a Lighting Settings Asset to the active Scene, or to create a new Lighting Settings Asset.
| Property: | Function: |
|---|---|
| Lighting Settings | The Lighting Settings Asset assigned to the active Scene. |
| New Lighting Settings | Click this button to generate a new Lighting Settings Asset in your Project, and automatically assign the new Lighting Settings Asset to the active Scene. |
Use this section to view and edit the properties of the Lighting Settings Asset or LightingSettings object assigned to the current Scene. See Lighting Settings Asset.
This section contains settings that help you debug your Scene.
| Property: | Function: | |
|---|---|---|
| GPU Baking Device | Use this to change the GPU that Unity uses for precomputing lighting data. This property is visible only when you use the GPU Progressive Lightmapper backend. | |
| 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. | |
| Ничего | No Light Probes are visualized in the Scene view. | |
| Display Weights | When enabled, 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 enabled, Unity displays occlusion data for Light Probes if the Lighting Mode is set to Shadowmask. | |
The Environment tab contains settings related to environmental lighting effects for the current Scene. The contents depend on the render pipeline that your Project uses.
In the Built-in Render Pipeline and URP, the Environment tab is divided into two sections:
The Environment section contains lighting-related settings and controls that apply to the environmental lighting in the current scene, such as 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. Lights with Render Mode property set to Not Important do not affect the Skybox. The default value is None. | |
| Realtime Shadow Color | Define the color that Unity uses to render real-time shadows in Subtractive Lighting Mode. This setting is visible only when the Lighting Mode is set to Subtractive. |
|
| Environment Lighting | This section contains settings that affect ambient light in the current Scene. | |
| Source | Use this to define a source color for ambient light in the Scene. The default value is Skybox. | |
| Skybox | 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 | Choose separate colors for ambient light from the sky, horizon and ground, and blend smoothly between them. | |
| Color | Use a flat color for all ambient light. | |
| Intensity Multiplier | Use this to set the brightness of the ambient light in the Scene, defined as a value between 0 and 8. The default value is 1. | |
| 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. | |
| Custom | Select this to use a cubemap for reflections. | |
| Resolution | Use this to set the resolution of the Skybox for reflection purposes. This property is visible only when Source is set to Skybox. | |
| Cubemap | Use this to specify the cubemap to use for reflection purposes. This property is visible only when Source is set to 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. | |
The Other Settings section contains settings for fog, Halos, Flares and Cookies.
| Property: | Function: | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fog | Enables or disables fog in the Scene. Note that fog is not available with the Deferred rendering path. | |||
| 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. | |||
In HDRP, the Environment tab allows you to specify which sky to use for environment lighting. For more information on environment lighting in HDRP, see Environment Lighting in the HDRP documentation.
| Property: | Function: |
|---|---|
| Profile | A Volume Profile for the sky. This Volume Profile must include at least one Sky Volume override. |
| Static Lighting Sky | The sky to use for the Global Illumination simulation. The drop-down only contains sky types that the Profile includes. For example, if the Profile includes a Gradient Sky Volume override, you can select Gradient Sky from this drop-down. You can only edit this setting if you assign a Volume Profile to the Profile field. |
The Realtime Lightmaps tab shows a list of all lightmaps generated by the Realtime Global Illumination system in the current Scene. If Realtime Global Illumination is not enabled in your Project, this tab will be empty.
The Realtime Global Illumination system is supported in the Built-in Render Pipeline, but not in URP or HDRP. Therefore, this tab is visible only in the Built-in Render Pipeline.
This tab shows a list of all lightmaps generated by lightmapper 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.
Controls for precomputing lighting data are at the bottom of the Lighting window.
| Property: | Function: |
|---|---|
| Auto Generate | If Auto Generate is enabled, Unity precomputes lighting data automatically when you make changes to the Scene. This data includes lightmaps for the Baked Global Illumination system, lightmaps for the Realtime Global Illumination system, Light Probes, and Reflection Probes. Unity usually begins the bake a few seconds after you make a change to the Scene. If Auto Generate is disabled, you must manually invoke a bake yourself, using the Generate Lighting button in the Lighting window, or the Lightmapping.Bake or Lightmapping.BakeAsync APIs. Note that when you precompute lighting data using Auto Generate, the precomputed lighting data is not stored as Assets in your Project. It is instead stored in memory, and serialized as part of the Scene. This property is stored in a Lighting Settings Asset. It is visible in the Lighting window only if the Scene tab is selected, and the active Scene has a Lighting Settings Asset assigned to it. |
| Generate Lighting | Click the Generate Lighting button to precompute lighting data for all open Scenes. This data includes lightmaps for the Baked Global Illumination system, lightmaps for the Realtime Global Illumination system, Light Probes, and Reflection Probes. Click the foldout arrow on the right hand side of the Generate Lighting and then click Bake Reflection Probes to bake only the Reflection Probes for all open Scenes. Click the foldout arrow on the right hand side of the Generate Lighting and then click Clear Baked Data to clear all precomputed lighting data from all open Scenes without clearing the GI Cache. This button is enabled only if Auto Generate is disabled. |