no idea why it got shinier

[open zodiac]

What are the meshes using for lighting and reflections currently?

Path tracing doesn't have to approximate reflections like baked and realtime rasterized lighting have to, so the result will be different

They will have to rely on reflection probes, specular reflections from mixed lights and screen space reflections if available

[scarlet salmon]

at this moment I changed from using 2 point lights to 2 spotlights as they didnt have any weird circles that appeared when I turned up the radius or whatever its called

and i have like a bunch of reflection probes scattered around the room

and a probe volume that, if I used it correctly, shouldve been making the particles and such reflect the lighting in the room

[open zodiac]

What type of lights, and what type of baked lighting are the meshes using, if any?

[scarlet salmon]

so is the thing that it is impossible for it to be recreated without path tracing

[scarlet salmon]

both spotlights are mixed and pretty much everything is marked as static

i tried setting the lights to baked earlier but all the lights disappeared when I did that

there are very few moving things in the scene

and the camera doesnt either

[open zodiac]

That's weird and initially suggests that the meshes are not properly lightmap static

[scarlet salmon]

for the record ive already gone and used the recorder to capture the thing I needed so now its just about me learning how to use HDRP

[scarlet salmon]

i guess so?

some of them are default unity shapes

like quads and such

[open zodiac]

The type of mesh isn't significant, but the "contribute GI" and "receive baked lightmapping" settings are

[scarlet salmon]

iirc that was ticked on everything static

[open zodiac]

Mixed lights are calculated as a baked light + realtime light, but with some extra behaviour depending on shadowmask mode

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/LightMode-Mixed-Shadowmask.html

If mixed lights show up after baking, baked lights should show up as well

[scarlet salmon]

from what I could see, shadowmasks looked strcitly worse

so i left it on distance shadowmask

if that means anything

hold on ill open the project again

[open zodiac]

If both baked-only lights and distance shadowmask seem to fail individually, it suggests there's definitely something amiss

But I'm not sure what, there's two dozen things you have to get right for baked lighting to look right

[scarlet salmon]

yeah

which is unfortunate cos baked only lights are definitely important

for furture projects

this one was just for a video

[open zodiac]

My best advice is to do simple test bakes and just experiment to find out the process to make each feature work as described in the manual

[scarlet salmon]

does anything here look off

[open zodiac]

Once you're familiar with all the steps, it stops failing mysteriously

[scarlet salmon]

for a static object

[open zodiac]

Nothing weird here

But also in the images of your gramophone I'm not seeing any signs of baked lightmapping

[scarlet salmon]

which is really strange

[open zodiac]

Have you made sure it has viable lightmap UVs

[scarlet salmon]

this is what it looks like right now

[scarlet salmon]

sorry what do you mean by this

as in like, if I change the view mode to lightmap UV anything appears

*baked lightmap

[open zodiac]

Every mesh that receives lighting from baked lightmapping needs a generated or authored lightmap UV

[scarlet salmon]

where would I be able to check that

[open zodiac]

In the mesh import settings

[scarlet salmon]

ahh

i did find myself fiddling with import settings not to long ago on some stuff with overlapping UVs

mostly for the models exported out of Paint 3D

[open zodiac]

That's one of the most basic steps of this process so I really suggest looking up more guides and familiarizing yourself with the whole thing

[scarlet salmon]

yeah this is another case of things i have always just winged and learned as i went along

the only issue is like

[open zodiac]

This is one of the things I recommend not doing that to

[scarlet salmon]

some of the meshes here are just default cubes and quads

so why aren't they fine

[open zodiac]

They do come with lightmap UVs so they should be fine

In that regard

[scarlet salmon]

right

that is lightly confusing

so just like

i need to make sure things have "generate lightmap UVs" turned on?

[open zodiac]

Yes

[scarlet salmon]

cos that's always on by default no?

yes all of these have it ticked

oh

actually I think i manually ticked it for some of them

yeah the table doesnt have it ticked

[open zodiac]

It's a complicated process
When someone presents with lightmapping problems I have to assume they've gone through all the basics in order, because they're too much to go through one by one for every case

[scarlet salmon]

idk i guess I assumed the software the models were made in might do a better job and that lightmap UVs were included with models

[scarlet salmon]

yeah

if theres one thing ive realised in the course of working with 3d game dev software is that lights and lighting are so much of the work

maybe thats just my biased perspective though

[open zodiac]

To an extent, yes
Rasterized rendering has just many different lighting approximations in a trench coat trying to emulate path tracing

Each with its own process, quirks and limitations

[scarlet salmon]

yeah absolutely

i checked and all the meshes except for the table had "generate lightmap UVs" ticked

[open zodiac]

Then the problem is something else

[scarlet salmon]

yeah must be

let me try it again

maybe its working now

nope

everything went black again

[open zodiac]

https://forum.unity.com/threads/lightmapping-troubleshooting-guide.1340936/

I wwould recommend this in addition to doing some lightmapping tutorials in a simple test scene

Honestly the way I learned the process was just baking a scene with cubes with different settings until I no longer ran into problems

Then with custom meshes and more varied lighting setups

[scarlet salmon]

that seems to be an effective option

ill pin that page

thanks for bringing it to my attention

ill go through this later and try and figure out what is causing the issue

my video finished rendering so imma go and deal with it before it gets too late

thank you for all the help tho

[open zodiac]

After I could do it without errors in the simple scene, I went through the features as the manual describes them
Basically learning and testing how everything works from mixed lights, shadowmasks, light probes, emissive materials..

[scarlet salmon]

thats also a fairly logical approach

was this when you first started out or like

later on just going back to iron out your understanding

[open zodiac]

I tried winging it at first, but I got nothing but problems and quickly realised that wasn't the way

[scarlet salmon]

right

thats probably what I need to do i guess

ive definitely not used HDRP nearly as much as I have built-in and universal

[open zodiac]

HDRP always adds an extra level of complexity as it has so many different types of lighting acting at once

Makes it hard to eyeball it if your meshes are getting lightmapping or not

Especially in non-ideal testing conditions

[scarlet salmon]

yeah totally

you really cant get by without knowing what you're doing

i guess that applies generally everywhere tho

[open zodiac]

Pretty often true in game dev in general, but I think baked lightmapping is especially just due to the sheer number of checkboxes and settings that need to be checked

The problem often manifests as 'it just doesn't work' and the cause could be that they're not lightmap static, not receiving lightmapped lighting, don't have correct UVs, don't have correct type of lights shining on them, don't have correct lightmapping settings, have wrong kind of UV settings...

Or more insidiously "doesn't look as expected"

Which is something you can get past only really by understanding what kind of results you can get and how to work around the limitations to get them

[scarlet salmon]

nothing is worse than something working indescribably unexpectedly

[open zodiac]

I don't think you have to go through all the features like I did, unless lighting is something you really want to master for its own sake

But doing a couple of beginner tutorials and test scenes just so you iron out a path that works for you, and learn to identify what the baked lights should look like when they function correctly I think is really important

[scarlet salmon]

i mean it's the difference between looking like a beginner unreal project or a triple A game besides framerate

well its usually the difference

[open zodiac]

Most scenes are not so complex that you need to have mastered lights to produce them, just that you know the basics well enough

So that hopefully you can avoid situations where some features seem to fail for some unknown reason

I still don't know why my first bakes failed, but now it doesn't happen anymore

[scarlet salmon]

i guess that's all that matters lmao

[scarlet salmon]

i mean that is like 90% of game dev, it comes with the territory

thank you for all the help and advice

[open zodiac]

Sure, but I do stress that other parts of unity, or even other parts of lighting aren't so much a "path of pitfalls" as baking ^^

[scarlet salmon]

yeah

i suppose thats why ive waited so long to actually experiemnt with it despite me personally finding good looking scenes important

these tutorials and guides will be next on my to-do list

[open zodiac]

And prepare for that there will be more pitfalls even after that, as more complex scenes produce more room for error