Unity Lighting Settings for VRChat Scenes[]
Unity only allows for certain environment lighting changes while running a scene, which is the reason some scenes using the default lighting settings have pitch black shadows and non reflective areas.
TL;DR: In your lighting tab, use Ambient Source and Reflection Source settings that aren't based on your skybox and turn of any other settings if you don't want to create a baked scene.
For this screenshot, the example gradient colors used are
- Sky Color: 838383FF
- Equator Color: 959595FF
- Ground Color: ACACACFF
Note: This is the Unity 5.2 lighting tab, for 5.1 settings ignore Ambient Intensity > 1 and the reflection source compression.
Lighting Issue[]
Unity default settings
When creating a new scene In Untiy using the default settings your scene and the
lighting settings will look similiar to those in the screenshot.
However, these settings are currently not used correctly in VRChat and will end up in your scene looking something like the scene in the second screenshot.
Wrong lighting in VRChat
Ambient Source Settings[]
disabling some settings
First thing we want to get rid of are the pitch black shadows and unlit areas in our scene. To do this, we should start by disabling all the checkboxes for lighting settings in the lighting tab.
- Disable Precomputed Realtime GI
- Disable Baked GI (only use this for baked rooms)
- Disable Fog if active
Ambient Source: Gradient
Next thing to do is change the Ambient Source to gradient or color, instead of skybox. I changed the gradient colors to look similiar to the default lighting.
For this screenshot, the example gradient colors used are
- Sky Color: 838383FF
- Equator Color: 959595FF
- Ground Color: ACACACFF
Reflection Source Settings[]
The last thing we need to fix are the non reflective areas. To achieve that we need to custom bake a reflection probe.
- Creating a reflection probe: Click on GameObject > Light > Reflection Probe
- Set the Reflection Probe Type to custommm
- Set Culling Mask to Nothing (to only reflect the sky in it!)
Reflection Probe Settings
After that your probe settings should look just like the settings in the screenshot.
You can now Bake the Reflection Probe and save the .exr cubemap somewhere in your asset folder.
Set your lighting settings Reflection Source type to custom and drag the saved .exr cubemap onto it and you're good to go.
After you're done, your lighting tab should look smiliar to that in the very first screenshot of this tutorial.
Reflection Probe Cubemap to Reflection Source