Unity Lighting Terminology
Notes:
Unity Lighting Terminology
Light:
Light in Unity is a component, which is responsible for
- Illuminating game objects
- Making things visible
Light Terminologies:
Direct Light:
From the light source the light that directly falls on the surface of an object is called direct light.
Indirect Light:
The resultant light produced after bounce or reflection of a light is called indirect light.
Note: Some lights in Unity can be set to real time, baked or mixed.
Real time Light:
- Light whose lighting effect is computed and updated on each frame at run time
- Is used for illuminating movable objects (dynamic)
- Ex: Objects which we may move i.e. player, vehicles etc.
Baked Light:
- Light whose lighting effect is pre-computed before run time
- Is used for illuminating immovable objects (static)
- Ex: Objects which we never move i.e. buildings, trees, etc.
- Effects of light is pre-computed for immovable objects and written on textures, then the resultant textures (light maps) are overlaid on immovable objects.
Mixed Light:
- Light whose some of the properties are computed at run time automatically
- For static objects lighting effect is pre computed
- For dynamic objects lighting effect is computed at run time
- Ex: Static direction light
