Realistic Day-cycle (real-time day to baked lights at night)

Unity Engine
1

Hi folks – as per the thread title, trying to understand the best way to setup a realistic day-cycle that uses a single real-time light (sun) in the day and then at night additional baked / mixed lighting becomes active.

I do already have a working solution that basically switches the lightmaps, so when the sun sets and the night comes I switch the lightmaps and then enable the baked lighting.

There are a couple problems with this solution:

  • Performance - there is a noticeable performance hitch when changing maps, as that’s a lot of data to process / change.
  • The light transition change is sudden, it would have to be a smooth / gradual change to looks effective I suppose.

Has anyone done this before or have any pointers for a decent solution, one that would perform well?

Thanks!

// WildStyle

2

This seems like a fairly usual thing to try and do, with a semi-realistic game that has a day / night cycle. Am I missing something here, i.e. it’s already easy to do this? Or is it the other way, like not possible at all?

Any takers? :slight_smile: