Best practice for lighting in Unity for console?

Azaraen

Hello! I've mostly done lighting for mobile in Unity, and even then it wasn't anything complex. I used ambient lights, light maps, or unlit baked in diffuse. Never made anything for console or used Unity for something with complex lighting. I normally just make props, so stepping in to the world of advanced environment lighting WHILE keeping good game performance is new to me.

What is the standard for lighting in this situation? Marmoset Skyshop? Unity's native PBR system? Or even know a good resource that can point me in the right direction?

Eric Chadwick

A good place to start
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/graphics/unity-5-lighting-and-rendering
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/LightingOverview.html

You probably don't want to use pre-computed real-time global illumination, instead you'll probably want to use baked global illumination (traditional lightmaps).

The real-time GI in Unity still has many problems, including light/shadow leaking, noise artifacts on flat surfaces, etc. Some shown here:
http://polycount.com/discussion/168236/realtime-gi-enlighten-problem
http://polycount.com/discussion/177837/real-time-gi-problems-in-architectural-vr

If you want to dive deeper into the real-time GI, I suggest checking out the docs put out by the developers who made the Enlighten system (which Unity has implemented, sadly only partially).
http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.100140_0201_00_en/arm_guide_to_unity_enhancing_your_mobile_games_100140_0201_00_en.pdf

A new system is in development from a private developer and looks very promising. PC only though, requires DX11: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/segi-fully-dynamic-global-illumination.410310/

Time Of Day is pretty fantastic for skydomes and outdoor illumination. Not sure about console support though.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/7316

Edy has some helpful resources about Unity lighting here:
http://www.edy.es/dev/docs/unity-5-lighting-cookbook/
http://www.edy.es/dev/docs/unity-3d-lightmapping-reference-guide/

Azaraen

Very cool thanks! I'll check these links out! If I have more questions I'll pop them in here. Oh, but i guess I am curious, is Marmoset Skyshop not useful anymore now that Unity implemented pbr shaders?

Eric Chadwick

I don't use Skyshop so I couldn't say. But Unity 5's Standard shader does use IBL.