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How to get light maps to NOT be black?

Discussion in 'Unity 5 Pre-order Beta' started by Jaimi, Mar 1, 2015.

  1. Jaimi

    Jaimi

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2009
    Posts:
    6,204
    Still trying to figure out lighting/Lightmapping.

    I replaced every shader with the standard shader, and I turned off "Reflection intensity" so the grass doesn't turn bluish green. I set Ambient lighting to a medium gray, and baked light maps.

    Result: Realtime shadows look right. But Lightmaps are black or very dark.
    Expectation: Lightmaps would not be darker than ambient lighting, or would at least match realtime shadows.

    Screen Shot 2015-02-28 at 6.42.58 PM.png

    If I turn reflection on, it gets worse. Everything now has a blueish tint to it. Light maps on the terrain look better, but not on the buildings. And non-static objects are glowing blue.

    Screen Shot 2015-02-28 at 6.42.38 PM.png

    Not sure how to get "correct" looking light maps. I don't want glowing characters or washed out terrain, and that's not affecting the buildings anyway...
     
  2. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2009
    Posts:
    2,278
    Could be the HDR selector bug on your camera. Deselect that and see if it helps.
     
  3. Jaimi

    Jaimi

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2009
    Posts:
    6,204
    Thanks, that had no effect, must not be it. I've also tried adjusting the "bounce intensity" on the light itself, and it doesn't seem to do anything. :(
     
  4. Don-Gray

    Don-Gray

    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2009
    Posts:
    2,278
    Yeah, couldn't say.
    I've been adding the albeto map to the emmisive slot to be able to adjust the look I want,
    as well as the color. This isn't needed in every case but I've found it helpful for some.
     
    doubtreddy likes this.
  5. Joachim_Ante

    Joachim_Ante

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2005
    Posts:
    5,203
    This sounds like you are getting the expected results to me...

    When you have only the ambient probe based lighting without lightmaps, it is expected that everything is brighter.
    This is because the ambient probe is applied uniformly to all objects without occlusion. However when you make bake lightmaps or realtime-lightmaps, then you actaully get occlusion, thus it will only get darker.

    In regards to the blueish color, I assume the materials are slightly reflective. Thus it picks up the colors from the skybox.
    If you dont want the effect you can redude smoothness & specular / metalness.

    That said maybe first of all you should try to create correct PBS materials.
    Check out this blog post for an intro to PBS and how to tweak materials:
    http://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/02/18/working-with-physically-based-shading-a-practical-approach/
     
  6. Jaimi

    Jaimi

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2009
    Posts:
    6,204
    Thank you for your reply. What I was looking for appears to be modifiable using the "indirect intensity" under "General GI". While lightmapping is clearly not up to the same level of quality of lightmapping in the previous version, it's working good for me now. Realtime lighting looks great, really interested to see how I can get it to work in my case.
     
    Last edited: Mar 2, 2015