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Black Shadows Every Time

Discussion in 'Unity 5 Pre-order Beta' started by swogdog, Nov 11, 2014.

  1. swogdog

    swogdog

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2013
    Posts:
    14
    Anyone else experiencing this? When I get the scene looking nice and then bake it, everything turns out almost the same with the exception of the shadows from the single direct light in the scene. They are solid black no matter what I set the shadow strength to. Here are my settings for the light and bake for a sanity check (everything is changing so quick, it's likely I missed something:
    light.png bake.png

    Thanks!
     
  2. KEngelstoft

    KEngelstoft

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2013
    Posts:
    1,366
    Hi swogdog!

    Shadow strength is only applicable for realtime shadows. Baked shadows never used this value, even when we used Beast in 4.x. If you want lighter shadows, you can use the skylight or indirect light bounces for a more natural look.
    In Beta 13 the shadow strength value will not be visible in the inspector when a light is baked.

    Best Regards,
    Kasper
     
  3. swogdog

    swogdog

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2013
    Posts:
    14
    Thanks for the response! That makes sense.

    I think there's still a problem though, because shouldn't the "skybox" skylight be lightening up my shadows? Even with the darkest realtime shadow setting they are not black (I understand now this is a separate thing, but shouldn't the result of a bake be somewhat close to the darkest shadow setting of "1" on the direct light?). When I bake, it seems like the skybox ambient is getting ignored. I can crank up the indirect and albedo sliders to max, and the shadows get slightly lighter, but then the rest of the scene is blown out.
     
  4. KEngelstoft

    KEngelstoft

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2013
    Posts:
    1,366
    Yes, the skybox should affect your shadow - I just tried this here and it worked for me. Please file a bug with your scene so we can have a look at it.

    Thanks!
     
  5. swogdog

    swogdog

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2013
    Posts:
    14
    Sent!