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Unity Engine

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Script Reference

Unity Engine

Lighting

Understand how to light your application and compare the different lighting options in Unity.
Read time 1 minuteLast updated 12 days ago

A scene with photo-realistic lighting.

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

Page

Description

Introduction to lightingResources for learning about lighting and choosing a lighting setup.
Lighting configuration workflowResources for selecting a render pipeline, configuring global lighting settings, and adding lighting elements.
Light sourcesResources for adding light to a scene, with Light components, ambient light, emissive materials, and cookies.
Direct and indirect lightingResources on choosing whether Unity calculates global illumination in real time, or stores baked lighting in a build.
ShadowsTechniques and resources for Lights casting shadows from a GameObject onto other parts of itself, or onto nearby GameObjects.
ReflectionsTechniques and resources for using Reflection Probes to capture and display reflections on GameObjects.
Lighting in URPResources and approaches for lighting in the Universal Render Pipeline (URP).
Lighting in the Built-In Render PipelineResources and approaches for lighting in the Built-In Render Pipeline.
Optimize lightingReduce extra lighting work so Unity uses fewer draw calls and processes fewer vertices and pixels.
Troubleshooting emissive materials not renderingFix emissive materials that appear too dim or don't contribute to global illumination.
Lighting referenceExplore lighting properties and settings, for example in the Lighting window, the Lighting Settings Asset, and Debug Draw Modes.

Additional resources and examples