TOPICS

Editor Essentials Scripting Graphics & Visual Effects 2D Mobile & Touch XR Physics User Interface For Educators AI & Navigation

Content Type

Pathways

Build skills in Unity with guided learning pathways designed to help anyone interested in pursuing a career in gaming and the Real Time 3D Industry.

View all Pathways

Courses

Explore a topic in-depth through a combination of step-by-step tutorials and projects.

View all Courses

Projects

Create a Unity application, with opportunities to mod and experiment.

View all Projects

Tutorials

Find what you’re looking for with short, bite-sized tutorials.

TOPICS

View Tutorial Content

Steps

Shading: Material Design

Tutorial

Beginner

20 Mins

(32)

Summary

This collection of short tutorials covers basic manipulation of an object's appearance using materials, how to make emissive materials, and how to remove lighting from photogrammetry.

Select your Unity version

Last updated: January 21, 2022

2017.2

Language

English

1.Materials

How to control the visual appearance of gameobjects by assigning materials to control shaders, colours and textures on a renderer.
This content is hosted by a third party provider that does not allow video views without acceptance of Targeting Cookies. Please set your cookie preferences for Targeting Cookies to yes if you wish to view videos from these providers.
Type caption for embed (optional)

2.Emissive Materials

Whilst Area Lights are not supported by Precomputed Realtime GI, similar soft lighting effects are still possible using ‘Emissive Materials.’ Like Area Lights, emissive materials emit light across their surface area. They contribute to bounced light in your scene and associated properties such as color and intensity can be changed during gameplay.
‘Emission’ is a property of the Standard Shader which allows static objects in our scene to emit light. By default the value of ‘Emission’ is set to zero. This means no light will be emitted by objects assigned materials using the Standard Shader. The HDR color picker can be used to select colors with intensities beyond the 0-1 range in order to create bright light effects similar to those of Area Lights.
There is no range value for emissive materials but light emitted will again falloff at a quadratic rate. Emission will only be received by objects marked as ‘Static’ or “Lightmap Static’ from the Inspector. Similarly, emissive materials applied to non-static, or dynamic geometry such as characters will not contribute to scene lighting.
However, materials with an emission above zero will still appear to glow brightly on-screen even if they are not contributing to scene lighting. This effect can also be produced by selecting ‘None’ from the Standard Shader’s ‘Global Illumination’ Inspector property. Self-illuminating materials like these are a useful way to create effects such as neons or other visible light sources.
Select image to expand
Type caption for image (optional)

Simple neon sign created using the ‘Emission’ property of Unity’s Standard Shader. Notice how the emission from the sign is still shadowed by static geometry - in this case, the sphere.
Emissive materials only directly affect static geometry in your scene. If you need dynamic, or non-static geometry - such as characters, to pick up light from emissive materials, Light Probes must be used. Changing emission values at gameplay will update Light Probes interactively and the results will be visible on any objects presently receiving light from those probes.

3.How to remove lighting from Photogrammetry with the De-lighting tool

This content is hosted by a third party provider that does not allow video views without acceptance of Targeting Cookies. Please set your cookie preferences for Targeting Cookies to yes if you wish to view videos from these providers.
Type caption for embed (optional)

In this lesson we cover the basic workflow for removing light from Photogrammetry data when using the De-lighting tool. Download the tool from the Asset store here.
Often when using such data, you'll need to remove the natural light on your texture maps so that you can relight the material you're using them in - the delighting tool allows you to remove the original lighting so that your assets can be used in any lighting scenario.

Shading: Material Design

General Tutorial Discussion

1. Materials

2. Emissive Materials

3. How to remove lighting from Photogrammetry with the De-lighting tool