Static shadows

Unity Engine
1

I’m working with the free version of unity. Now I know you need the pro version to get real time shadows, but can I even get static shadows with the free version?

For example I have an interior scene modeled. But when I place a directional or point light in the scene the light shines on everything in the model. So a light placed on the 2nd level will shine through the floor onto the objects on the first level.

Is this just an issue of having the free version vs the pro version? Or is there something I can do to enable static shadows?

2

If you use 3D Studio Max, you can use this tool that was released today: Unity Blog

Otherwise, you will have to create light maps in a 3D modelling program and line everything up yourself.

3

A couple of things you can try depending on the result you want:

  • If you have Unity Pro, turning on real-time shadows on the lights may do it. But it’ll be a performance hit.

  • You can bake your lighting into a lightmap or vertex colors in Max/Maya/XSI/Modo/Whatever. This will be a lot more efficient than using real time shadows.

  • You can separate your meshes by room and assign the lights manually to each room so that they do not shine through to other rooms (may help performance as well).

  • or try Daniel’s suggestion above.