Unity [2020.1] New Feature - Lighting Settings Asset

A simple diagram showing how to access the feature via the UI.

Overview
This feature was developed by Jennifer Nordwall (@JenniferNordwall).

Improvements introduced by the Lighting Settings Asset (LSA) feature

• Ability to change settings on multiple scenes and having more control in multi-bake scenarios.
• Lighting settings are no longer a part of the Unity scene file; instead they are now located in an independent file that stores all the settings related to pre-computed GI.

Benefits to the users

• Lighting settings can now be easily shared between different scenes.
• Ability to toggle between different lighting settings quickly.
• Lighting settings asset file can easily be assigned to a scene, removed or modified (either through the Inspector UI or API). This allows for much faster iterations when authoring lighting settings.
• A single lighting settings asset file can be used by multiple scenes without need to manually tweak the settings for every scene.

Setup instructions
Via the UI

1. Open Lighting window by navigating to Window > Rendering > Lighting.
2. Click on New Lighting Settings button located at the top of the window.
3. Your newly created Lighting Settings Asset is going to be assigned and located next to the opened scene's file.
4. Either select the asset directly from the Project folder, or edit the asset in the Lighting window after assigning it to the Lighting Settings slot.

Note: Currently, the Lighting Settings asset will be automatically created in the folder located next to the Unity scene file when opening the scene after upgrading to the recent 2020.1.0/trunk branch, but only if the lighting settings of this upgraded scene were changed from the default values. We are going change that behavior for the upcoming 2020.1.0 beta version, so that the asset would only be created after making changes to the lighting settings of the upgraded scene (i.e. changing the lightmapper backend) and then manually saving the scene.

Via C# code
Creating the asset:

Code (CSharp):

1. Lightmapping.lightingSettings = new LightingSettings();
2. ProjectWindowUtil.CreateAsset(Lightmapping.lightingSettings, "My new lighting settings asset.lighting");

Setting directionality mode:

Code (CSharp):

1. Lightmapping.lightingSettings.directionalityMode = value;

Feature access & feedback
You can get access to the feature by downloading the latest 2020.1 alpha build via the Unity Hub, or via this link - https://unity3d.com/alpha/2020.1a#downloads. We are looking forward to hearing your feedback!

 

Just put the settings file next to you Lighting Data Asset, or create it from code

 

Make sure that you have a LSA assigned in the Lighting Settings window. If there's no asset assigned, you will not be able to edit any values in the Lighting Settings window.

 

@AcidArrow is the Lighting Settings Asset actually assigned in the Lighting window? If it is not assigned, you will be viewing the default values which are not editable by design.

 

Hey, thanks a lot for finding this bug! FYI, I've submitted it here: https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/is...-keyboard-after-switching-between-editor-tabs
It looks like it's unrelated to the LSA feature, as this is a regression introduced in 2020.1.0a23.
In any case, our developers will take a look at it and fix it as soon as possible.
Cheers!

 

Hi

Currently, skybox and fog are part of the scene and render settings, which we haven't moved to its separate file yet (and might never do since most of those things will be redone in the SRP workflow). So these settings will be attached to the active scene (which is also being used to fetch the current lighting settings). The active scene workflow is so rooted into how everything works in Unity, but hopefully the lighting settings workflow helped a bit with this.

As for the bake location, what problem will this solve? I just want to fully understand your situation and why this would be a good solution for you.

Thanks