Clarification on lights and shadows in unity free? (also vs pro and other engines)

Unity Engine
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I’m a newbie but before to begin my project I’m studying and trying to understand some stuff so to plan the project in the best possible way and with the more suitable tools. So for now I’m trying to understand the concepts at the base of the techniques and then learn the more useful techniques. Right now I’m trying to better understand lights in game engine.

I read several threads in this forum about unity free and the lights and shadows system; but still can’t get a clear global view.
So I have several doubts that some more expert unity users may help me understand.

  1. For what I’ve read I understand that only one shadow (hard) for a directional light can be used in unity free. (is this correct?) But with that it means that I can put infinite directional light in one scene but only one will have a shadow?

  2. What about point and spot lights? Can I use them in unity free but no shadows from them?

  3. Is this all about realtime shadow, right? So I can cast how many static shadows I want (hard and soft)?

  4. What’s the meaning of no HDR in unity free? A tool like the one for marmoset, for example, would be useless with unity free?

  5. asking for advice: In my project (3rd person adventure) there won’t be that much of action or complex ai scripts, while graphics and lighting will be fundamental because I need to convey a certain mood. Which are the workarounds to get great graphics and lighting in unity free? I read about lightmapping and projections (any link to basic, well done tutorials, appreciated), but still would I achieve good results as with pro?

  6. I’ve read many many post about unity vs udk vs cryengine and seen some graphical comparison. Many said that the other engines can obtain better graphics with less complications; other even say that with unity is impossible to obtain the same results. I like many things in unity but still I can have second thoughts so that’s why I am asking:
    is this (the lights and shadow system in unity free) the main difference in terms of graphics results compared to udk and cryengine or am I missing other factors?

(my project is intended to be built for pc and linux)

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1: Yes. Only one light will cast shadows.
2: Yes you can use them in Unity free with no shadows.
3. You can bake shadows if that is what you mean.
4. No idea. Never used that tool or HDR for that matter.
5. Unity pro has so many tools to help improve just about everything, including light maps, that it will be difficult to make a scene in free look as good as one in pro but that doesn’t mean it will look bad.
6. No idea how unity stacks up to those engines.

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  1. The build in HDR isnt available in free however you can still use Marmoset just fine (they dont use the build in HDR system)
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Thank you very much for the replies

@drewradley: 3-5: So a result like the one in the below pictures can be achieved in unity free without the need of pro extra features?
Unity - Manual: Lightmapping: Getting started (first picture)
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/LightmappingInDepth.html (first picture)

@element_wsc: So marmoset can replace unity pro hdr when I go to render?

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Yes, I think a skilled unity user could make a scene much like those using free. They might even be free since it’s using the lighter skin and not the dark one that comes with pro.

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@Lightmapping
The lightmaps in those pictures were created using GI, which is a Unity Pro feature.
The comparision at the end of the quickstart doc (first link) shows nicely how it will look differently with the internal lightmapper without extra effort.
However it is also possible to import a lightmap from an external tool (e.g.blender?) which may support GI.
Also there are several tricks to make look simple lighting like it was done with GI - using carefully placed additional lights and ambient occlusion.
Getting the lighting right is actually one of the (if not THE) most important thing to achieve a nice looking game scene (or photograph or movie for that matter).

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Thank you for the replies. yes lighting it’s fundamental; I’ll keep studying and see what’s the best solution