Light Probes in Unity

In this short article, I will go over what light probes are and how to use them in Unity.

In Unity, baked lighting can make scenes look very visually appealing. The downside of these is that dynamic objects don't receive this lightmap data and therefore the scene can look flat and unresponsive to players.

Light probes act almost like sponges, soaking in baked light data. They then project it onto other dynamic objects in the scene almost as a way of simulating global illuminaion on the object.

To set up light probes in your scene go to your hierarchy tab, click the “+” button and select “Light” > “Light Probe Group”.

This will add a group of 8 light probes to your scene. Move them around your scene to cover the areas you want the light to be reflected. If you want to add more probes to the group you can select multiple probes by clicking the “Edit Light Probes” button on the “Light Probe Group” component of your game object, ctrl + left-clicking on each probe, and hitting the “Duplicate” button.

You’ll need to ensure you have static objects in your scene which actually receive the baked light data.

Now, what you’ll notice is that light is being projected onto your dynamic objects.

Before:

After:

That’s all for now.