Directional Specular, why? Unity5.5

Why is it now Depreciated?
Doesn't make any sense as to why, I'm developing a game for Android and it's apparently the ONLY way to get Specularity / Normals to show when baking.

Yes I am aware that it still works, only wondering why it's now being depreciated when Directional / Non-Directional don't give the same proper results when baking (For Android) at least.

Unless Mobile devices are about to mysteriously start accepting Standard Shader an such.

I'm not hating on it, just trying to understand why they would get rid of an important feature soon unless they plan on rolling out some new type of Rendering pipeline where it's no longer needed (Perhaps Vulkan maybe)???

 

Unity's light mapping is about to be overhauled and replaced by lighting modes, which uses shadow masks instead of directional specular maps. You can try it out for yourself here, the developers are encouraging feedback: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/mixed-mode-fixes-and-lighting-window-preview-2-mix-harder.430308/

It's deprecated because Directional Specular never worked properly and was a bit of a flawed concept. It's expected to be replaced by light modes in 5.6, but the roadmap says it's "At risk" so maybe not. There's nothing stopping you from using Directional Specular until then, if it works for you.

 

Ahh thanks man, now makes more sense.... It just caught me off guard when it said depreciated. Appreciate it man.
Looking forward to it when it's complete.

 

Standard shader works on Samsung Galaxy Tab II 7'. released in 2012.

 

Works and works well are two other things. Often I discover my scenes suddenly dropped in fps and 99% of the time is because there is some tiny mesh around where there is still the standard shader applied.
Since it's the default, it's easy to forget to change it, maybe even just some simple cube you added for testing.
It bothered me so much I had to write a script to find materials in the scene using it, so no it's not usable yet if you are aiming at maximizing your device compatibility.

 

Oh yeah it most certainly works. but 99% of devices can't handle even one single material with it haha.
My LG G3 when I had a phone could handle some, but the second I went to the Tablet (Elipsis 10). a single Sphere ruined it haha.