Mesh Renderer
Switch to ScriptingThe 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 Renderer takes the geometry from the Mesh FilterA mesh component that takes a mesh from your assets and passes it to the Mesh Renderer for rendering on the screen. More info
See in Glossary and renders it at the position defined by the GameObjectThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary’s Transform component.
This page contains the following sections:
Materials
The MaterialsAn asset that defines how a surface should be rendered, by including references to the Textures it uses, tiling information, Color tints and more. The available options for a Material depend on which Shader the Material is using. More info
See in Glossary section in the Mesh Renderer InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
See in Glossary lists all the Materials that the Mesh Renderer is using. Meshes imported from 3D modelling software can use multiple Materials, and each sub-Mesh uses one Material from the list.
If a Mesh contains more Materials than sub-Meshes, Unity renders the last sub-Mesh with each of the remaining Materials, one on top of the next. This allows you to set up multi-pass 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 on that sub-Mesh. However, this can impact the performance at run time. Fully opaque Materials overwrite the previous layers, which causes a decrease in performance with no advantage.
| Property: | Function: |
|---|---|
| Size | Specify the number of Materials in the Mesh Renderer. If you decrease the size of the list of Materials, Unity deletes the elements at the end of the list. |
| Element | A list of the Materials in the Mesh Renderer, in numeric order. The first element is always named Element 0. |
Lighting
The Lighting section contains properties for how this Mesh 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. EnlightenA lighting system by Geomerics used in Unity for lightmapping and for Realtime Global Illumination. 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. |
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| 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. | |
| Contribute Global Illumination | Select this property to enable the Contribute GI flag in the GameObject’s Static Editor Flags. This property includes this GameObject’s Mesh Renderer in global illumination calculations. These calculations take place while precomputing lighting data at bake time. This property only takes effect if you enable a Global Illumination setting such as Baked Global Illumination or Realtime Global Illumination for this SceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info See in Glossary. This property enables Receive Global Illumination options. |
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| Receive Global Illumination | Select an option to determine whether Unity gathers global illumination data for this GameObject’s Mesh Renderer from lightmaps or 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 at runtime. This selection does not directly affect precomputation. However, when you choose the Light Probes option, Unity does not calculate lightmaps for the Renderer during precomputation, which can significantly reduce bake times. This property is only editable if you enable Contribute Global Illumination. If Contribute Global Illumination is disabled, Receive Global Illumination defaults to the Light Probes setting. This property only takes effect if you enable a Global Illumination setting such as Baked Global Illumination or Realtime Global Illumination for this Scene. |
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| LightmapsA pre-rendered texture that contains the effects of light sources on static objects in the scene. Lightmaps are overlaid on top of scene geometry to create the effect of lighting. More info See in Glossary |
Select this option if Unity should gather global illumination data for this Mesh Renderer from lightmaps. | |
| Light Probes | Select this option if Unity should gather global illumination data for this Mesh Renderer from Light Probes in the Scene. | |
| Prioritize illumination | Enable this property to always include this GameObject in Realtime Global Illumination calculations. This is useful for affecting GameObjects that are far away from an emissive GameObject which, for performance reasons, wouldn’t normally be affected. This property is visible only if Contribute GI is enabled in the GameObject’s Static Editor Flags, your Project uses the Built-in Render Pipeline, and Realtime Global Illumination (deprecated) is enbabled in your Scene. |
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Lightmapping
This section is visible only if only if Receive Global Illumination is set to Lightmaps.
| Property: | Function: |
|---|---|
| Scale in Lightmap | Specify the relative size of the GameObject’s UVs within a lightmap. A value of 0 results in the GameObject not being lightmapped, but it still contributes to lighting other GameObjects in the Scene. A value greater than 1.0 increases the number of pixels (the lightmap resolution) used for this GameObject, while a value less than 1.0 decreases it. You can use this property to optimize lightmaps so that important and detailed areas are more accurately lit. For example, an isolated building with flat, dark walls uses a low lightmap scale (less than 1.0) while a collection of colourful motorcycles displayed close together requires a high scale value. |
| Stitch Seams | When enabled, the lightmapper identifies the pair of edges that should be stitched together and produces radiosity which is as smooth as possible across the seam. This parameter applies only to straight edges which run horizontally or vertically along chart boundaries in the atlas. This is designed to work with rectangles which are axis-aligned in UV space. |
| Lightmap Parameters | Choose or create a Lightmap Parameters asset for this GameObject. |
| Optimize Realtime UVs | Specify whether the authored Mesh UVs are optimized for Realtime Global Illumination or not. When enabled, Unity merges, scales and packs the authored UVs for optimization purposes. When disabled, Unity scales and packs, but does not merge, the authored UVs. The optimization sometimes makes mistakes about discontinuities in the original UV mapping. For example, an intentionally sharp edge may be misinterpreted as a continuous surface. This property is visible only if your Project uses the Built-in Render Pipeline, and Realtime Global Illumination (deprecated) is enbabled in your Scene. |
| Max Distance | Specify the maximum worldspace distance to be used for UV chart simplification. If charts are within this distance, Unity simplifies them. This property is visible only if your Project uses the Built-in Render Pipeline, and Realtime Global Illumination (deprecated) is enbabled in your Scene. |
| Max Angle | Specify the maximum angle in degrees between faces sharing a UV edge. If the angle between the faces is below this value, Unity simplifies the UV charts. This property is visible only if your Project uses the Built-in Render Pipeline, and Realtime Global Illumination (deprecated) is enbabled in your Scene. |
| Ignore Normals | Enable this option to prevent Unity from splitting the UV charts during the precompute process for Realtime Global Illumination lighting. This property is visible only if your Project uses the Built-in Render Pipeline, and Realtime Global Illumination (deprecated) is enbabled in your Scene. |
| Min Chart Size | Specify the minimum texel size used for a UV chart. If stitching is required, a value of 4 creates a chart of 4x4 texels to store lighting and directionality. If stitching is not required, a value of 2 reduces the texel density and provides better lighting build times and game performance. This property is visible only if your Project uses the Built-in Render Pipeline, and Realtime Global Illumination (deprecated) is enbabled in your Scene. |
When you’ve baked your lighting data (menu: Window > Rendering > Lighting > Generate Lighting ), this section also shows the lightmaps in the Scene that this Renderer uses use. Here, you can read relevant information about the Baked Lightmap and the Realtime Lightmap, if applicable.
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 Probes. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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. | |
| Anchor Override | Set the Transform that Unity uses to determine the interpolation position when using the Light Probe or Reflection Probe systems. By default, this is the centre of the bounding box of the Renderer’s geometry. | |
Additional Settings
The Additional Settings contain additional 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. |
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| 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 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. |
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