The Amazing Power of Light Probes
For this article I am using Unity 2021.3.10f Personal.
What are light probes? The Unity Manual describes them as, “Light Probes provide a way to capture and use information about light that is passing through the empty space in your scene.” The manual goes on to state that light probes have two main uses; to provide high quality lighting on moving objects in your scene and to provide the lighting information for static scenery.
To begin using light probes, right click in the Hierarchy panel and then select Light -> Light Probe Group.
After you create this, you’ll see a new item in your scene.
The next step is to create a lattice of the light probes. (Each individual sphere is a light probe.) Click on the Edit Light Probes box in the Inspector.
In the scene, select the upper probes and move them to as high or as low as you need. (You’ll have to experiment with this and gain experience on what works best for you.) Then do the same for the lower ones as well.
Next, go to a top-down view and create a lattice of light probes to cover your scene as necessary. Once again, it will take experimentation to gain experience with this. (I selected all the light probes on one side of the block, used Ctrl-D to duplicate them, and then moved them to where I wished.)
The next step is to decide what objects in your scene are static and which are dynamic. (A static object is one that is not expected to move.) In the Level Design Prototyping — HDRP project, static and dynamic objects were already separated into their various types.
In order to set objects to static, select the check box in the Inspector.
If you are selecting a whole group of objects like I am in my scene, you’ll get a prompt asking if you wish to change the child objects as well. Select Yes, change children.
The light probes are now active. It took about five minutes to bake the lighting in my scene. Here’s the final result. You can see the incredible reflections of the lights and the fantastic shadows around the base of the consoles and platform.
