Different Lights in Unity

Guide To Beautiful Games In Unity

Objective: View different types of light in unity

There are four types of light in unity.

Directional light

This type of light source provides light to infinite length in a particular direction thus the name. This light is useful for creating a sunlight. It can be placed at a random location without effecting the light; it only cares for the direction.

Point Light

It provides light in all direction with its center as its light source. The intensity of light decreases further away from the source eventually reaching zero at its maximum specified range.

Spot Light

It is like a torch light with a limited angle range and distance. Besides that, it acts just like a point light. Spot lights are generally used for artificial light sources such as flashlights, car headlights and searchlights.

Area Light

An Area Light is defined by a rectangle in space. Light is emitted in all directions uniformly across their surface area, but only from one side of the rectangle. Since the lighting calculation is quite processor-intensive, area lights are not available at runtime and can only be baked into lightmaps.