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Unity 5 - Give up on baked lightmaps?

Discussion in 'Global Illumination' started by angeliapayne, Sep 9, 2016.

  1. angeliapayne

    angeliapayne

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2012
    Posts:
    30
    I updated a scene from Unity 4 to Unity 5.3.2p3 - my current version. The scene is lit by a directional light (sun) casting shadows and a point light indoors also casting shadows - both set to Baked. The indoor point light shown in the first image below is blown out to show the differences in lighting before and after baking. Player settings are forward, linear.

    Before Baked Lighting


    After Baked Lighting


    My issues are as follows:
    1. I am aware that Enlighten does not support mapping shadows from trees onto a terrain - see issue # 685764. So how do I lightmap shadows from my buildings onto the terrain and use real time lighting for my trees (that doesn't override or overexpose the terrain and the baked shadows)?

    2. In addition, even though my trees (both Speedtree and Tree Creator trees) are not marked Lightmap static, they loose ALL of their internal shadows and look flat after light mapping. How do I avoid?

    3. How do I get good lightmaps indoors? I have overexposed the indoor light (to highlight the issue) and the resulting baked lighting is no where close! Yes, everything in the scene has been set to Generate Lightmaps and has been marked as lightmap static, but the baked indoor lighting is simply not as bright and therefore not predictable at all. I've read that this could be the result of the new ambient light - read more here http://robotinvader.com/blog/?p=516. Should I hack Unity 4 ambient light? Or how do I get good indoor baked lighting in Unity 5?

    4. Finally this is for a project that is web player build (WebGL is simply not there yet) and 90% complete - Is realtime GI my only option at this point? And will it kill my FPS? Realtime GI might be good for outdoors but it might be nice to have some baked ambient light inside?

    Thought/ideas? Any insights appreciated!!!
     
  2. Stardog

    Stardog

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2010
    Posts:
    1,887
    My thoughts are that you should never attempt to lightmap a terrain, ever, unless it's tiny.

    If it's a desktop/webplayer game, use realtime shadows. If it's a mobile game, use fake blob/texture shadows for trees/etc.

    Realtime GI won't be useful for outdoors unless there are buildings close together.
     
  3. KEngelstoft

    KEngelstoft

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2013
    Posts:
    1,366
    Hi, we have a bug in our database about the terrainInstanceHashes error you are getting in your console. Do you happen to have two overlapping terrains in your scene?

    Can I see the inspector for your indoor light?
     
  4. angeliapayne

    angeliapayne

    Joined:
    Jul 13, 2012
    Posts:
    30
    I do not have two terrains in my scene. I also receive the ChunkX and Y error however the terrain does lightmap at the end of the process which you can see underneath the building in the second image above.

    I am researching realtime GI today as I am not hopeful to achieve good results with lightmapping. Any pointers for realtime GI are appreciated!

    Here are my settings for my indoor point light:
     
  5. KEngelstoft

    KEngelstoft

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2013
    Posts:
    1,366