ProbePolisher

ProbePolisher is a Unity Editor plugin for editing light probes. It works both on Unity Basic (free) and Unity Pro.

Rationale

Light probes are useful for filling gaps between the static lighting and the dynamic lighting. However it is needed to place a lot of light probes at proper positions.

Meanwhile, light probes are also useful for making ambient lights. It can represent several environmental factors (e.g. skylights, reflections from the ground, etc.) unlike the conventional fixed-intensity/fixed-color light. Even more, it is possible to combine with the image-based lighting method to make a complex lighting environment.

To make ambient lights, it needs only a few probes which is suffice to cover the entire scene. And combined with some tricks, it is possible to modify the lights after baking.

ProbePolisher is an editor plugin designed for these tasks.

Polishable probe

ProbePolisher creates a set of light probes which supports editing after baking. For convenience, we call it polishable probes in this document.

Baking polishable probes (Pro only)

Note - Although you need Unity Pro to bake polishable probes, you can use pre-baked probes on Unity Basic (some pre-baked probes are included in the package).

1. Set up a scene for baking as you like.
2. Create a baking jig from "Create" -> "Baking Jig".
3. Bake the scene on the Lightmapping window.

Tips - You should select the Single Lightmaps mode before baking to get a proper result.

Then a Light Probes asset will be created in the directory which has the same name as the scene. You can copy/duplicate the asset to use it in another scene, or export the asset for another project.

Using polishable probes

First, you have to set the Light Probes asset in the Lightmapping window.

![Setting A Light Probe] (http://keijiro.github.io/ProbePolisher/setting-a-light-probe.png)

Then enable the 'Use Light Probes' option in renderers.

![Enabling The Light Probes] (http://keijiro.github.io/ProbePolisher/enabling-the-light-probes.png)

Tips - To get better results, it is recommended to enable Linear Lighting in the Player Settings.

You can edit polishable probes on the inspector.

There are two factors on the inspector -- the base ambient and the skylight. The base ambient is the lighting information which is baked in the light probe. You can adjust the influence from the base ambient with the Base Intensity value.

The skylight is additional lighting to the light probe. It represents a kind of an area light source made from two hemispheres (the upper hemisphere and the lower hemisphere).

With using these options you can modify the color of the ambient light without re-baking the light probe.