Each of the settings here plays a role in how your skybox will affect your scene. Specifically, let’s pay attention to the top section which is the Environment Lighting group. Please note that I keep using the word scene, as these lighting settings are specific to each scene of your game, so you can have different lighting settings at the scene level. Here you can see how Unity is going to treat the overall lighting settings in your scene. Now, go to “Window/Lighting” in your top menu, you will get an editor window that looks something like this: The first thing you want to do is open Unity 5 and create a new scene. The big takeaway here is that now with Unity 5, everyone has access to the basic tools they need to make a simple skybox solution that not only looks nice, but provides Directional ambient light, Image Based Lighting for specular reflections but also support for reflection probes to define regions of reflection areas in your scene. Granted, the new features were basic in comparison to what you can still do with Skyshop, but that is really beyond the scope of this article. In addition to that, they introduced the Standard Shader and reflection probes which now offered all Unity users the basic feature set you would find in Marmoset’s Skyshop. You still have access to do the things you did in the Unity 4 generation, but now it’s all in one control panel. Now you simply open the lighting panel in Unity for your scene and all of the settings you need are there in one place. They took what used to be a complex process and really simplified the steps needed to make skies integrate into the scene. Unity 5 introduced a whole new approach to lighting in your scenes. Then Unity 5 came out and stole their thunder so to speak. They also added support for HDR images so the effects were even more stunning and photorealistic. Marmoset even took it a step further and made zone/region specific areas which would reflect certain things in certain regions of your level. It changed everything, people were able to put reflections of the skyline in their models and it made things look even more real than before. This ground breaking concept in Unity actually won the 2013 technical achievement award from Unity. With Image based lighting, the materials applied to your meshes could be lit with a combination of direct lighting from things like point lights, spot lights and directional lights in combination with an Image Based Lighting cubemap.
![flexify 2 alternative flexify 2 alternative](http://web-profile.net/wp-content/uploads/material-palette.png)
Skyshop took the concept of skyboxes and married it with the concept of Image Based Lighting shader support in Unity. This all started back in Unity 4 when Marmoset Co released Skyshop. You see, not only do skyboxes provide a scenery to look at for the backdrop of your scenes in Unity, they can also provide directional ambient lighting for your scene.
![flexify 2 alternative flexify 2 alternative](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/image3-1-1024x498.png)
In particular I’m going to show my workflow for making faceted skies which work well with low poly or cartoon style games, however you will be able to apply the same workflow to making photorealistic skies too.īut before we delve into the tutorial, I want to talk a bit about some other things skies can do for you in Unity. I’m going to use Adobe Photoshop, a Photoshop plugin called flexify 2, and Unity 5. Well in this post I’m going to give you a step by step guide to how you can do just that. While these are complete solutions for Skies in Unity, many of you want to know what it takes to make your own. Skyshop Skies Pack 1 by Quantum Theory Entertainment at asset store which works with Skyshop by Marmoset Co.ĪllSky by RPGWhiteLock at assets store which is just stunning too There are many skybox kits out there you can purchase like: They are simply rendered into the scene in a few small draw calls before your actual scene geometry is. Skyboxes range from just about any style from simplistic brown to blue color gradients like the default sky in Unity5, to stunning nature landscapes and even highly detailed city environments. As stated Skyboxes are illusions, and do not have any physical properties like collision detection or any 3D mesh at all. A skybox is an image (or collection of images) used in a game engine to create the illusion of a non ending world or environment.