Making lightmaps in Unity look photoreal just like in Maya

Questions & Answers
1

I have a photorealistic light setup in Maya and I am transferring the scene lighting to a 32bit .EXR lightmap via MentalRay baking:
-When I compare the original render (witch is the ultimate visual reference) to my rendered lightmaps, the result is 99% identical (the lightmap is plugged to the ambient slot of the lamber shader - all lights and global illumination turned off - gamma 2.2 for the rendered camera) works like a charm!

-Now in Unity I plug my 32 bit .EXR lightmap to the lightmap slot of the “lightmapped/diffuse” shader and set the texture mode to “lightmap” (“color space” is set to “linear”).
Unlike Maya, the lightmap effect in Unity gives a different look then the original render. Why is that? Shouldn’t the lighmap be applied just like in Maya (where it is plugged to the ambient slot) witch is the correct way of applying the lightmap since it was identical to the original render? How can I make the lightmap in Unity have the same correct look as in the Maya?

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2

I think that the EXR setting is different. Since the EXR format stores high dynamic light data, it may be dependent on exposure, gamma or other light parameters. It is possible that Beast and Mental Ray generate these parameters at different values.

3

Try exporting lightmap as 24bit TGA. that is what i usually use when i render lightmap in 3D Max. Make sure gamma is set to 2.2

4

I think it could be the default ambient light in Unity! Turn the Ambient light off in Edit → Render Settings… That way, when there are no lights and lightmaps, it’s pitchblack in the scene like it supposed to be when there is no light. Your scene is now lit by an ambient light.

5

I have had a similar problem with 3ds max. I had an expected result on the Frame Buffer (render window). But after I saved the image I noticed with did not save it the same way as in the Frame Buffer, as if it did not apply the gamma correction before saving.