Good terrain basic lighting setup for unity

MainManiac

I cannot figure out unity's lighting system, and I can't find any good tutorials on the matter. Im looking to create a little hand painted outdoor scene for a friend in Unity. Of course importing anything into that preset starting UDK scene it will look sexy as hell, but I can't even get similar results in unity and I can't find any tutorials of the quality I need and I don't know what nobs and sliders to play with!


Please help me out guys, I love the simplicity of unity but its lighting systems are really taking a toll on me today.

Thanks!

I dont understand how people are getting results like this (lighting, not assets of course)


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=881sOnOZzR0"]Amazing Forest Created with Unity 3d - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxDFGjz9s8E&feature=watch_response"]Forest Keeper showcase - Unity3D game - YouTube[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXgX7zvTw0E"]Mystic Forest - Nature Pack (Unity 3.3) - YouTube[/ame]

cupsster

all of that exmaples use postprocess effects like bloom and flares (Pro only) other than that it is alwys on artist.. base is directional light color, intensity and angle, fog density and color and then post effects

MainManiac

Heres the best I could get fooling with stuff

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/194502/WebPlayer/WebPlayer.html

Synthesizer

First, read this: http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm

This should help with the settings on lights in unity: http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Components/class-Light.html
And here's the settings for ambient light and fog: http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Components/class-RenderSettings.html


Right now you don't really have any directional to your light, it's the same intensity at every angle. The sun seems to be placed straight upwards (the most boring angle possible), but the tree shadows have some angle to them??

First, choose what time of day and weather you want, then try adjusting your lighting to match. If you have nothing to aim for, pulling sliders randomly won't get you anywhere. Gather lots of reference images that have the same time of day and weather that you want to achieve.

MainManiac

Actually the light was angled pretty sharpy, its just I couldnt get the lightmaps to work on the trees.

Thanks ill check out those links!

Eric Chadwick

Make sure the trees are set to Static.

Butthair

I could be wrong, but I believe lighting for Unity is defaulted to dynamic, realtime lighting. I've been told there is a setting to change that allows light maps.

Prophet

In terms of terrain creation, you can easily get results like this without any lightmaps.

The best thing to do is create a Direction Light with Soft Shadows (Unity Pro only, I guess) and then play around with the color taking in mind the sun direction and position.

Then you can create some Fog in the render settings and, again, play with its settings till you get the best results. Then you can add some Bloom to ehnance the bright areas giving it a little bit of a HDR effect and add as well some Sun Shafts.

Hope this helps.