Panoramic skybox
To generate a skyboxA special type of Material used to represent skies. Usually six-sided. More info
See in Glossary, the Panoramic ShaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary wraps a single Texture spherically around the 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.
For information on how to create a Material that uses this skybox Shader, as well as details on how to render the skybox in your Scene, see Using skyboxes.
Render pipeline compatibility
| Feature | Built-in Render Pipeline | Universal Render Pipeline (URP) | High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panoramic skybox | Yes | Yes | No |
Prerequisite Textures
To create a Panoramic skybox, you need a single 2D Texture that uses latitude-longitude (cylindrical) mapping, like so:
To make sure the Texture is 2D:
- In the Project windowA window that shows the contents of your
Assetsfolder (Project tab) More info
See in Glossary, select the Texture. - In the 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, make sure the Texture Shape is set to 2D.
To generate the best ambient lighting, the Texture should use a high dynamic range (HDR).
Properties
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Tint Color | The color to tint the skybox to. Unity adds this color to the Textures to change their appearance without altering the base Texture files. |
| Exposure | Adjusts the skybox’s exposure. This allows you to correct tonal values in the skybox Textures. Larger values produce a more exposed, seemingly brighter, skybox. Smaller values produce a less exposed, seemingly darker, skybox. |
| Rotation | The rotation of the skybox around the positive y-axis. This changes the orientation of your skybox and is useful if you want a specific section of the skybox to be behind a particular part of your Scene. |
| Spherical (HDR) | The Texture this Material spherically wraps around the Scene to represent the sky.For information on how to create a CubemapA collection of six square textures that can represent the reflections in an environment or the skybox drawn behind your geometry. The six squares form the faces of an imaginary cube that surrounds an object; each face represents the view along the directions of the world axes (up, down, left, right, forward and back). More info See in Glossary Asset from your input Textures, see Cubemap Asset. |
| Mapping | Specifies the method this Material uses to project the Texture to create the skybox. The options are:6 sided: Uses a net format to map the Texture to the skybox.Latitude Longitude Layout: Uses a cylindrical wrapping method to map the Texture to the skybox. |
| Image Type | Specifies the angle around the y-axis that this Material projects the skybox to. The options are:180: Draws the Spherical Texture as a hemisphere with the peak in the direction of the positive z-axis. To change which side of the Scene this Material draws the Texture to, modify the Rotation property. By default, the back of the skybox is black, but this Material can draw a duplicate of the Spherical Texture on the back instead. To do this, enable Mirror on Back.360: Draws the Texture as a full sphere representation that wraps around the entire Scene. |
| - Mirror on Back | Specifies whether the Material should duplicate the Spherical Texture on the back of the skybox instead of drawing it as black.This option only appears when Image Type is set to 180. |
| Render Queue | Determines the order in which Unity draws GameObjectsThe 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. For more information on Render Queue, see SL-SubShaderTags. |
| Double Sided Global IlluminationA group of techniques that model both direct and indirect lighting to provide realistic lighting results. Unity has two global illumination systems that combine direct and indirect lighting.: Baked Global Illumination, and Realtime Global Illumination. See in Glossary |
Specifies whether the lightmapperA tool in Unity that bakes lightmaps according to the arrangement of lights and geometry in your scene. More info See in Glossary accounts for both sides of the geometry when it calculates Global Illumination. When true, if you use the Progressive Lightmapper, back faces bounce light using the same emission and albedo as front faces. |