Shadows & Lightmapping

To make baked lighting work, Unity uses a process called Lightmapping.

Lightmapping Process

Lightmapping calculates how light rays bounce off static objects in your scene, baking the illumination into textures that are overlaid on top of scene geometry.

• To enable lightmapping on an object: 1. Select the GameObject (e.g. floors, walls, columns).

1. In the Inspector, check the Static checkbox in the top-right (or specifically Contribute GI).

1. Set your lights to Baked or Mixed mode.

The Lighting Window

Configure baking settings under Window -> Rendering -> Lighting:

• Click New Lighting Settings to create a settings asset.
• Select a Lightmapper (e.g. Progressive GPU for fast bakes using your graphics card).
• Click Generate Lighting in the bottom-right to start the bake.

Shadows settings

For real-time lights, you can adjust shadow settings:

• Shadow Type:

• No Shadows: No shadows cast (fastest).
• Hard Shadows: Sharp, pixelated shadow edges.
• Soft Shadows: Blurry, realistic shadow edges (more expensive).
• Shadow Resolution: High resolutions produce sharper shadows but consume more GPU memory.

TL;DR

• Lightmapping bakes light data into textures for static objects.
• Objects must be marked Static or Contribute GI to be included in light bakes.
• Control light bakes from the Lighting window.
• Real-time shadow types include Hard (sharp) and Soft (realistic).