I have a large terrain (4000x4000) with a lot of objects on it. I split it into 4 (square) parts so my team can work easier by only load the one they are working on.
In the terrain, we have a lot of 3D objects (stones, houses, etc). We split them into multiple scenes so that we can work on them easier.
Now, when we bake the light, we cannot increase the light map resolution over 6 even we reduce the size to 512 and lower all other settings. The PC is very strong with RTX4090 + AMD 7950 x and 192GB DDR5 ram.
I think I reached the limit of Unity already (??). So, I’m looking for other solution.
Is there any way to split the map into smaller part and bake them?
My challenge is: We cannot split the terrain to a custom pattern to fit with the objects on the map. As you can see in the image, when we split the terrain in to 4, it will cut through some objects which stay in the split line.
I cannot put all the objects fit into each part and avoid the split like since it will cause the map weird and break the level design.
Lightmapping something this big is way more trouble than it’s worth. Games with big terrains often use probe based GI anyways. It might be worth using APV with a low resolution exclusively for the terrain, since it’s unlikely it’d need much GI detail anyways.
In Unity 6 APV is much more production ready, but assuming you’re on the LTS (as you should be) it might still be worth a shot.
TLDR don’t bake lightmaps for terrain, it’s ludicrously expensive, and ends up low resolution / very inflexible.
