# Lighting

> Understand how to light your application and compare the different lighting options in Unity.


**A scene with photo-realistic lighting.:**
![](/api/media?file=/engine/6000.0/media/images/ProgressiveLightmapper-0.jpg)

With Unity, you can achieve realistic lighting that is suitable for a range of art styles.

| **Page**                                                                                                      | **Description**                                                                                                                  |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Introduction to lighting](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/lighting-in-unity.md)                      | Resources for learning about lighting and choosing a lighting setup.                                                             |
| [Lighting configuration workflow](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/lighting-configuration-workflow.md) | Resources for selecting a render pipeline, configuring global lighting settings, and adding lighting elements.                   |
| [Light sources](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/lighting-light-sources.md)                            | Resources for adding light to a scene, with Light components, ambient light, emissive materials, and cookies.                    |
| [Direct and indirect lighting](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/direct-and-indirect-lighting.md)       | Resources on choosing whether Unity calculates global illumination in real time, or stores baked lighting in a build.            |
| [Shadows](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/shadows.md)                                                 | Techniques and resources for Lights casting shadows from a GameObject onto other parts of itself, or onto nearby GameObjects.    |
| [Reflections](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/reflections.md)                                         | Techniques and resources for using Reflection Probes to capture and display reflections on GameObjects.                          |
| [Lighting in URP](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/lighting.md)                                        | Resources and approaches for lighting in the Universal Render Pipeline (URP).                                                    |
| [Lighting in the Built-In Render Pipeline](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/lighting-birp.md)          | Resources and approaches for lighting in the Built-In Render Pipeline.                                                           |
| [Optimize lighting](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/lighting-optimize-builtin.md)                     | Reduce extra lighting work so Unity uses fewer draw calls and processes fewer vertices and pixels.                               |
| [Troubleshooting emissive materials not rendering](/engine/6000.0/manual/ts-emissive-mats-not-rendering.md)   | Fix emissive materials that appear too dim or don't contribute to global illumination.                                           |
| [Lighting reference](/engine/6000.0/manual/lighting-overview/lighting-reference.md)                           | Explore lighting properties and settings, for example in the Lighting window, the Lighting Settings Asset, and Debug Draw Modes. |

## Additional resources and examples

* 👥 **Community**: [Join the conversation on Unity Discussions for Graphics](https://discussions.unity.com/lists/graphics)
* 📖 **E-Book**: [Introduction to the Universal Render Pipeline for advanced creators (Unity 6 edition)](https://unity.com/resources/introduction-to-urp-advanced-creators-unity-6?isGated=false)
* 📺 **Video**: [The URP 3D Sample - a short introduction](https://youtu.be/lg1W3Deoprg)
* 📺 **Video**: [Understanding URP settings and essentials](https://youtu.be/HCXCmHgV7Sk)
* 📚 **Documentation**: [Visual effects](/engine/6000.0/manual/visual-effects.md)