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Light mapping a scene the size of Disneyland

Discussion in 'Global Illumination' started by Cocokozzy, Oct 8, 2020.

  1. Cocokozzy

    Cocokozzy

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2020
    Posts:
    3
    I have a scene that is the size of Disneyland that I want to light bake in ProgressiveCPU. The characters only walk on the path, they never get close to the set pieces off in the distance.
    1. I have light probes all around the walk pathways. The pathway and railing next to the pathway are marked as static.
    2. settings are:
    Light map resolution is set at 10.
    And 2 light bounces.
    Max light map size is 512.
    Indirect and environment samples are 256.

    3. The light bakes are taking hours and hours with default low quality light maps

    Question: if I have large mountains and trees off in the distance, that the characters will never walk up to, do these assets need to be light mapped? Will performance be impacted if these assets are lit by the dynamic sun light?
     
    Cocokozzy, Oct 8, 2020
    #1

  2. thefranke

    thefranke

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2015
    Posts:
    153
    Hey Cocokozzy,

    for large scenes we get this problem with the baking times often because the scenes are set up in an unfavorable way.

    We have a tutorial that might interest you here:
    https://unity3d.com/how-to/progressive-lightmapper-optimization-tips

    A similar talk on the same issue exists here:


    A TL;DR: When baking, avoid lightmapping small objects (small relative to the size of the scene). They take up lots of space in your lightmaps and end up having little to no effect on the overall appearance. Instead, use probes for things like small items etc. A static object does not have to be lightmapped. For static objects that use probe lighting, you can even make them bounce light back onto neighboring objects that are lightmapped by using the "Contribute GI" option:
    https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/StaticObjects.html

    Regarding your question: Yes, performance can be impacted, but remember that the impact depends on several factors like shader complexity and whether or not objects in the distance are included in shadowmapping.

    Cheers
     
    thefranke, Oct 12, 2020
    #2
    Mauri likes this.