Billboard Renderer

The Billboard Renderer renders Billboard AssetsAn asset that is a collection of pre-rendered images of a more complicated Mesh intended for use with the Billboard Renderer, in order to render an object at some distance from a Camera at a lower level of detail (LOD) to save on rendering time. More info
See in Glossary. Billboards are a level-of-detail (LOD) method for drawing complicated 3D Meshes in a simpler way when they are far away from the CameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info
See in Glossary. When a MeshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
See in Glossary is far away from the Camera, its size on screen means there is no need to draw it in full detail. Instead, you can replace the complex 3D Mesh with a 2D billboard representation.

Certain features, such as SpeedTree, export Billboard Assets, but you can also create them yourself. For information on how to create a Billboard Asset, see the BillboardAssets Manual page and the BillboardAsset Script reference page.

Properties

Properties on this component are split into the following sections:

General
Lighting
Probes
Additional settings

General

This section contains general properties in the root of the component.

Property:	Function:
Billboard	Specifies the Billboard Asset this component renders.

Lighting

The Lighting section contains properties that specify how this Billboard Renderer interacts with lighting in Unity.

Property:		Function:
Cast Shadows		Specify if and how the Mesh casts shadows when a suitable Light shines on it.
	On	The Mesh casts a shadow when a shadow-casting Light shines on it.
	Off	The Mesh does not cast shadows.
	Two Sided	The Mesh casts two-sided shadows from either side. EnlightenThe lighting system by Geomerics used in Unity for computing global illumination (GI). More info See in Glossary (deprecated) and the Progressive LightmapperA tool in Unity that bakes lightmaps according to the arrangement of lights and geometry in your scene. More info See in Glossary do not support two-sided shadows.
	Shadows Only	Shadows from the Mesh are visible, but not the Mesh itself.
Receive Shadows		Enable this option to make the Mesh display any shadows that are cast upon it. This is only supported when using the Progressive Lightmapper.

Probes

The Probes section contains properties relating to Light Probes and Reflection Probes.

Property		Function
Light Probes		Set how this Renderer receives light from the Light Probe system. For more information, see Light ProbesLight probes store information about how light passes through space in your scene. A collection of light probes arranged within a given space can improve lighting on moving objects and static LOD scenery within that space. More info See in Glossary.
	Off	The Renderer doesn’t use any interpolated Light Probes.
	Blend Probes	The Renderer uses one interpolated Light Probe. This is the default value.
	Use Proxy Volume	The Renderer uses a 3D grid of interpolated Light Probes.
	Custom Provided	The Renderer extracts Light Probe shaderA small script that contains the mathematical calculations and algorithms for calculating the Color of each pixel rendered, based on the lighting input and the Material configuration. More info See in Glossary uniform values from the MaterialPropertyBlock.
Proxy Volume Override		Set a reference to another GameObject that has a Light Probe Proxy Volume component. This property is only visible when Light Probes is set to Use Proxy Volume.
Reflection Probes		Set how the Renderer receives reflections from the Reflection ProbeA rendering component that captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions, rather like a camera. The captured image is then stored as a Cubemap that can be used by objects with reflective materials. More info See in Glossary system.
	Off	Disables Reflection Probes. Unity uses a skyboxA special type of Material used to represent skies. Usually six-sided. More info See in Glossary for reflection.
	Blend Probes	Enables Reflection Probes. Blending occurs only between Reflection Probes. This is useful in indoor environments where the character may transition between areas with different lighting settings.
	Blend Probes and Skybox	Enables Reflection Probes. Blending occurs between Reflection Probes, or between Reflection Probes and the default reflection. This is useful for outdoor environments.
	Simple	Enables Reflection Probes, but no blending occurs between Reflection Probes when there are two overlapping volumes.

Additional Settings

This section contains additional renderingThe process of drawing graphics to the screen (or to a render texture). By default, the main camera in Unity renders its view to the screen. More info
See in Glossary properties.

Property		Function
Motion Vectors		Set whether to use motion vectors to track this Renderer’s per-pixel, screen-space motion from one frame to the next. You can use this information to apply post-processing effects such as motion blur. Note that not all platforms support motion vectors. See SystemInfo.supportsMotionVectors for more information.
	Camera Motion Only	Use only Camera movement to track motion.
	Per Object Motion	Use a specific pass to track motion for this Renderer.
	Force No Motion	Do not track motion.
Dynamic Occlusion		When Dynamic Occlusion is enabled, Unity culls this Renderer when it is blocked from a Camera’s view by a Static Occluder. Dynamic Occlusion is enabled by default. When Dynamic Occlusion is disabled, Unity does not cull this Renderer when it is blocked from a Camera’s view by a Static Occluder. Disable Dynamic Occlusion to achieve effects such as drawing the outline of a character behind a wall. See documentation on occlusion cullingA Unity feature that disables rendering of objects when they are not currently seen by the camera because they are obscured (occluded) by other objects. More info See in Glossary for more information.

Trail Renderer

Billboard Asset

Unity Manual