Emissive material not working despite setting objects to "Static"

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I've searched for solutions all over the internet for this one but couldn't find anything useful.

In my scene I have a sphere and a room (made of "Cube" game objects). I've applied a material to the sphere which I called "emissive_red". I've set the color of the material to red and the color of the Emission to red as well. Under Emission, I've set Global Illumination to "Realtime". I've set the sphere to "Static" and I've also set the walls (i.e. the cubes) to "Static".

In the "Lighting" window, both "Realtime GI" and "Baked GI" are checked.

Unfortunately, the only change I've noticed is that the sphere just looks brighter red. But it's not emitting any light onto the wall. I've set the emission all the way up to 99. It still doesn't work.

What am I missing?

By the way, I'm using Unity version 5.6.1 (personal).

Answer 1

Hello, @TheSaviour,

I'm sorry that I don't have the answer either. I just want to back you up as there are so many outdated tutorials about it and so many people who keep suggesting useless things when it's (was) as easy as plug and play. I know from a personal friend who is a Unity expert that he doesn't use it, and it's reasonable to think most people giving answers don't use emission.

Frustratingly, I have the exact same problem as you! The very first time I was using material emissions earlier this year, it was working perfectly fine. There were no issues. Now, doing the exact same thing, it doesn't work!

I was using 5.6.0f3 when it did work. I learned about the feature earlier this year after watching this life video: [ https://youtu.be/sbAn811mSuA?t=1h35m00s ] Particularly the red quad emission got me interested. It worked for me without a hitch. If you can get something from this video to add that might help, please share. Although they are using old Unity.

I am now using 2017.1.0f3 and a month ago I noticed there was no way to get it to work.

If I ever figure it out, I will let you know.

Answer 2

Answer by Alex-Slavski · Jan 14, 2018 at 08:24 PM

@TheSaviour Had the same issue as you. Fixed it. It turns out that although my wall prefabs have been set to static, their instances in the scene have not. After checking them to static as well the issue was fixed.

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Answer 3

Answer by jeango · Jun 22, 2017 at 08:04 AM

In your lighting, are there any ongoing jobs? If not, is AuTo Generate checked? if not, have you clicked on "Generate Lighting"?

On a side note, it's generally not a good idea to check "Baked GI" when you're working on setting up your scene. The baking process can be very long, and whenever you move a static object around it's re-calculated. It's always better to check the baked GI once you're satisfied with your scene setup

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Answer 4

Answer by calighula · Sep 30, 2017 at 12:03 PM

Hi @TheSaviour and @LukeNukem44 ,

I setup my scene as you did, and I had the same problem. It looks like the problem was not in the emissive material, but on the black material. Black means an absence of light, and so it will not show any of the effects of the sorrounding lights.

Replace the black colour with a dark gray and you will start to notice the emissive material.

I hope this was your problem, otherwise I have no idea where your problem is.

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Answer 5

Answer by thetruesthfan · Nov 08, 2018 at 06:38 PM

Same problem here :/

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Emissive material not working despite setting objects to "Static"

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