Lighting Models Techniques

Unity Engine
1

Hello,

I’m still a newer user to Unity and have a question on lighting 3d models. Starting with a .blend model, such as a ship, in space with lighting of a sun. Now this works but the model is shadowy. My solution, at the moment, was to add two directional lights (one top and one bottom, or one front and one back) to always have the model well lit no matter where it is in the 3d scene. This works well enough but the lighting does carry over to other models and its tedious to set up each model this way. I do want the model well lit always.

So, what are some other alternatives? I tried spotlight and point, and such but they didn’t work as well. Do I need to create a light map or light probes for each model?

Also, I tried setting the directional lights to bake, but that didn’t work. Should these lights be baked on a model so they are “always on”, so to speak?

I appreciate any and all help. Thanks!

2

You have to set the MeshRenderer that is representing your model to Contribute GI, see Unity - Manual: Static GameObjects.

This is a good starting point for lightmapping Unity - Manual: Lightmapping: Getting started

3

Thank you, that was immensely helpful. Through a little research after reading your posts I found exactly what I needed in a self illuminated vertex lit shader setting. This worked perfectly!

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