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Best 'cheap' alternative to a point light?
I'm creating a game with a pretty dark environment (game is 3d).
I want certain things to nicely stand out (bullets, items, etc.). I had been doing so using point lights until I realized the max lights that one object can have affecting it is 4, before some start to toggle off.
Are there any eye-popping effects that are cheap that don't actually render in realtime?
I.e. attaching a flare to an object that sticks out on the camera but isn't providing realtime illumination.
Thanks!
Answer by enigmatic · Feb 22, 2016 at 09:18 AM
I guess you could go with Halo effect. You can find the option under Component>Effect>Halo.
As an alternate you could drop any small geometric gameObject( i.e Sphere) in the scene then add component to the object. But this would be suitable for short range only, but surely you can test in your scene. :)
That's what I was looking for! Thank you.
These are both great answers, I wish I could accept both. :P
Answer by Eno-Khaon · Feb 22, 2016 at 03:44 AM
Specifically, you're limited to four simultaneous point lights under Forward Rendering limitations. For the good and the bad that comes with it, and not counting shaders with transparency (they're always Forward Rendered), you may want to look at changing your cameras/project default Rendering Path to Deferred Shading instead.
It will eliminate the light quantity limit, but results in numerous other changes to the rendering pipeline and rendering overhead.
Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying that Deferred Rendering is a good or bad choice for any given project. Instead, I'd say to simply take a look and see whether it proves to be more or less resourceful for your project.
Answer by WaffleOctopus2 · Dec 18, 2020 at 12:57 PM
You can enable more point lights by going: Project Settings -> Quality -> Pixel Light Count [Set above 4]. Then go to each point light in Inspector, and change its Render Mode to 'Important'. Lighting is expensive though, so be careful on that slippery slope.