... | ... | @@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ I'll cover how they work, and more importantly, how they can and should be used |
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## The basics of reflection probes
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A reflection probe captures an image of the world around it and stores it into a "cubemap" - a six-sided texture that can fill every side of a cube.
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Each side of the texture is square, and of the same resolution. This means a "512" resolution probe is six 512x512 textures, compacted together.
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Each side of the texture is square, and of the same resolution. This means a "512" resolution probe is six 512x512 textures, compacted together. This takes up 2MB of space and 2MB of memory.
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Reflection probes also store lower-resolution versions of their textures. These lower-resolution copies are blurred, and allow for the representation of rough or uneven surfaces realistically.
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... | ... | @@ -109,4 +109,10 @@ You can use this Unity tool to automatically add a glowing ball to each of your |
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Note that there are other ways of getting specular highlights from baked light using special shaders. If you're using Bakery's "lightmap specular" mode, you don't need to use this.
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### Lighting Changing Over Time
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If the lighting in your scene changes, you can enable and disable reflection probes containing different lighting. This allows you to keep the reflections correct between different lighting conditions. |
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Unlike baked lighting, reflection probes are tied to their components. If you disable a reflection probe, it'll stop affecting objects around it. Conversely, if you enable a reflection probe, it'll start affecting things around it.
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So, if the lighting in your scene changes, you can enable and disable reflection probes containing different lighting. This allows you to keep the reflections correct between different lighting conditions.
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The main catch is storing all those reflection probes. At 512x512, each one is 2MB. This can add up pretty quickly. An alternative is to set the probes to Realtime mode.
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In Realtime mode, Unity will render the probe ingame, instead of saving it to a texture. Using a Realtime probe might be the best choice for your scene if major elements of the scene can change - like lighting shifting over time, or objects in the map changing appearance. |
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