Unity 5: Lighting Fundamentals (Udemy.com)

This course takes a look and new and existing lighting features in "Unity 5" from the perspective of a novice student.

Created by: Jesse Ryan McAdam

Produced in 2015

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What you will learn

  • Set up effective realtime global illumination systems for vastly improved visual quality in their games
  • Use baked lighting setups that allow them to cut overhead on mobile games without having to sacrifice visual quality
  • Create realtime light probe systems allowing for better integration of game characters in their environments
  • Implement existing and new lighting features found in Unity 5

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Quality Score

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Overall Score : 92 / 100

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Course Description

This is a course that covers lighting for "Unity 5" and does not included any updates for current versions of Unity. A new course is being created to cover all the material needed for lighting in Unity 2017. Check the "Announcements" section for details concerning the new course. If you are still using Unity 5 and want to learn about lighting for this version of Unity than this course is for you. Otherwise check back often to find out more about when the new course will be released.
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What sets an average game apart for a truly amazing visual experience? How can you take your scene from "Oh, that's cool" to " Wow, that's AWESOME!". There are many facets that go into making a game look amazing, but when all's said and done the final polish for most any game comes down to lighting.
If you're an army of one powering through your own game or a small studio of talented,driven individual, this course will get you up and running with the latest and greatest that Unity 5 has to offer for lighting your projects.
In this example based course you'll be introduced to the basic Unity lights and get to know their properties. You'll learn how to control Unity shadow properties and fix common shadow related problems in your scenes. With this solid foundation under your belt you'll be ready to tackle more advanced topic like skybox lighting, Realtime Global Illumination, light map baking, and the all new light probe system.
At the end of this course you will have mastered all the latest unity lighting features needed to bring a new level or realism to your projects. You'll be able to up the quality of your portfolio work and set yourself apart when it comes to landing that next job.
If you're serious about using Unity as a platform for your creative ideas, then don't pass up this chance to set your work apart with this course on Unity 5 Lighting Fundamentals.Who this course is for:
  • This course is for anyone looking to take the visual quality of their games to a new level by implementing the newest lighting technologies found in Unity 5.
  • This course explains the processes behind the technologies so that you can understand how the different systems work and make appropriate decisions for your games needs.
  • This course is not an introduction to Unity 5. It focuses only on new and existing lighting features found in this software's latest release.

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Instructor Details

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I'm a big fan of movies and games and have been as long as I can remember. I have a bachelors degree in animation and after graduation worked at Disney Interactive on the Disney Infinite game franchise. For the last 3 years I've been working with Unity 3D among other software on architectural walkthroughs, product presentations, and interactive kiosks. I'm passionate about the world of 3D, and digital entertainment.

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Reviews

4.6

100 total reviews

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This course explains every setting for illumination in Unity 5. I feel like I can now tackle this field in Unity. The examples were great and easy to understand and the fact that he uses only default object makes it easy to follow.
Previously to taking this course I have read some articles about it and I can say that the instructor mentioned all the aspects and even went further to explain on those topics ( the need for two UV Maps, etc)
I thank Jesse for his contribution and I can't wait for his other courses to be published.

This course will help you get starting with understanding the different types of lights and how they work in Unity. While not really a course about how to improve lighting situations, this will get you up to speed to understanding how things work in Unity with lights. For a 2 hour course, I learned a lot and feel confident with taking it to the next level. A must for those starting out with Unity3D (or game dev).

Sometimes very interesting, sometimes a little bit hard to concentrate/focus, especially the 1st part of GI. On the other hand the light probe explanation is excellent. I would recommend this tutorial.

Good course about lighting fundamentals.
It would be a great idea to add downloadable scene prefabs to the lessons.
And may be make the course longer and include more complicated settings.

This course helps me a lot with understanding of light system in Unity, so thanks for teaching and i wish you good luck with future projects/courses)

everything is being explained detailed, and the information i got is really important for the game im working on.

This course gives you a good and focused overview of Lighting in Unity 5. It is to the point and not too long. The content is accessible. I like the fact that the teacher found the right balance between details and a broad introduction.
Even with good Unity experience, the structured overview of real-time vs baked lighting was welcomed.
It would be nice to have some more elaboration on optimisation, as my experience with architectural scenes, is that they tend to have much more geometry, slowing down everything. And alas they also pose light artefacts often. Especially the baking process becomes tricky, often leading to Unity crashing after a long time of "baking calculations".
Just one nitpick: as a guitar player myself, I am a bit picky about the intro riff, which just lacks precision. For an intro tune, it has to be spot on!... But I won't hold that against the course content ;)

Excellent course, feel like everything was covered and explained extremely well. The only thing that I would have liked to have had was some insight into the cost of light probes to a baked light scene. What is the crossover point where light probes become as expensive as using a real time light for example.

This course is a good introduction to Unity lighting, especially if you have done no lighting in Unity before. You will learn the basics.
Some useful tips can be found here and there, but I will as if this course would be better if more real world examples were provided. For example, how to setup a completely indoor scene (with no windows), how to setup an outdoor scene etc. Also, the instructor had the Realtime lightmode and baked lightmode on in the Baked and realtime baking videos. Was it necessary to leave on the real or baked mode when dealing with only real or only baked lighting? This was not mentioned.
Overall, a good course for any beginner Unity developer.

The course is very clear, Jesse explain every option of lighting panel sistematically. He show the changes visually, and have prepared a demo scenes for every lesson, no improvisation. It's a surprisely good course for Free!! Reflection probes in the future would be a great aportation. Thanks a lot!

Although this course is short, it was very valuable, and actually holds more value than some paid (and lengthy) courses that I've taken.
It has filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge/understanding of Unity (I consider myself a programmer before anything), and I'm glad to have found this course.
To the instructor: please, if you can, set some time aside to create a killer paid course (Kickstarter maybe?)
I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants the knowledge and ability to add beauty to the functionality of their games, and I think you possess the ability to deliver that.
Great course. Take it. You've got nothing to lose and you will be SO glad you did.

Great course taught by a solid instructor. If you're a little new to lighting in Unity, this course will lay an excellent foundation. Thanks!