Certain items very bright | Official Unity Discord | Page 1

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 4:02 PM

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I'm trying to build a swamp scene. I bought some cattail models to add. They are super bright when added. My ground is also really bright. Can someone help me adjust the brightness of these two things?

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Here is the directional and environmental lighting settings currently. Thank you.

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 5:34 PM

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Can you show the material thats on the plants?
Also your ground should be made less smooth to reduce the reflection/wet look

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Ideally you would also use a normal map so it doesn't look soo flat.

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 5:50 PM

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The plant model I purchased and uses a number of materials :

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For the ground. I am using the terrain system. Attached is the paint terrain option. It uses tga files. I attached them as well. This is all very new to me. My apologizes if I did something and if I didn't give the info you needed...just let me know and I'll try again. Thanks @lofty gyro

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 5:57 PM

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I hate to break it to you but a tiny basic plant needing like 6 materials is VERY BAD

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presuming its just this

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This may be why the ground looks shiny, does that dirt have data in Alpha?

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 6:45 PM

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@lofty gyro : I'm open to hearing anything. I don't really know much about these things. The plant was a model I purchased. Do I need to find a new model? I assume using 6 materials is bad because of resource usage? I'm building a mobile game so that is very much a thing I am trying my best to take that into consideration.

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Do you know how I determine if my ground has alpha? I just looked at it and it is a terrianlayer...I'm not even sure how to open that up/look at its contents.

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If I open the diffuse box in the terrianlayer...it is a tga which when I open in photoshop does not have any transparency. Is that alpha means?

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 6:50 PM

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Multiple materials means extra draw calls. Ideally you want grass/plants on terrain to use 1 material only to get the best performance.

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 6:51 PM

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So I assume I have to use a different model? Swapping in a single material for all the existing ones won't help?

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 6:52 PM

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It would take effort to modify this model to use 1 material so unless you have that knowledge dont bother

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 6:52 PM

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The problem is, I don't know how to tell before I buy the next one but I'll explore that later...

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 6:52 PM

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Just find some better free ones on the asset store

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 6:52 PM

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Either way....I clearly don't know how lighting works properly

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Can we try to figure out why the lighting is bad on the cattails or is it waste of time because it changes based on the model?

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And figure out the ground?

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 6:54 PM

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If you spawn the cattails normally (not via terrain) do they look wrong still? Tbh the materials look fine so I cant see a good reason for them to be lit incorrectly

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 6:55 PM

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I can't get the cattails to work with the terrian system...I spent 4/5 hours trying. All the ones you see are just normal meshes

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 6:55 PM

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You can drag the model into the scene

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or a prefab if provided

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 6:56 PM

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Thats what it is currently/what I originally posted

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I'm finding this impossible...coding has been pretty much great but I've got 40/50 hours into just trying to make this one scene and I have no idea what to do

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 8:03 PM

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What happens in a new scene with 1 directional light? You can also try checking if there is a difference in unlit mode/lit mode (using the scene view controls)

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Could be something dumb like there being another light and you restricting max lights per object (urp settings)

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Also here are some flat texture versions that look similar
https://rawcatalog.com/asset/3302/
https://rawcatalog.com/asset/3315/

Raw Catalog

Lolium Perenne

Download free texture atlas lolium perenne from the category stems. Decals can be used for spikelet, the texture has green color. PBR material was created using the photometric stereo method in a dimensional ratio 0.5 x 0.5 m.

Raw Catalog

Timothy Grass

Download free texture atlas timothy grass from the category stems. Decals can be used for spikelet, the texture has green color. PBR material was created using the photometric stereo method in a dimensional ratio 0.5 x 0.5 m.

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 8:46 PM

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I brought the cattails into a seperate scene with a single directional light. I also added another directional light directly at the grass. It all seemed to respond to lighting as it should except the grass is just horribly brighter.

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There is only one directional light in the scene.

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I'm trying to download the files you linked to. The download rate is like 50k

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any ideas about my ground?

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It looks likes it coated in water

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 9:23 PM

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That still will be due to the terrain layer settings (too smooth and also perhaps too metallic making it reflect the sky)

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 9:24 PM

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safe vapor I brought the cattails into a seperate scene with a single directional light. I ...

Only one directional light works at a time so that is pointless. Test with a point or spot light

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 9:47 PM

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Ok....assuming I am the right settings (screenshot) the metallic was already set to 0. I changed the smoothness source to constant and set it to 0 and that seems to help a ton. Do you have any suggestions on trying to get it looking better? Is there a map I could generate or something to give some semblemance of height texture?

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I wasn't sure exactly what to do with that link you gave me. I created a material with all the maps (basemap, metallic map, normal map, occulusison map, height map). Then applied it to a quad and...its not working and I don't think its going to work for what I want style wise. I need something to look decent in this scene and I want it to be the cat tails. Having them be flat seems like its not going to look good.

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 9:58 PM

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Ah my bad the opacity is not in diffuse already (this is geared for 3d rendering)

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you would have to add it to diffuse yourself (meaning use an image editing program or texture packer)

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 9:59 PM

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And thats a 2d solution correct? If you look at from the side it will be a flat line?

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 10:00 PM

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Yea you would need to make a more interesting mesh to use that.
Perhaps thats not the right avenue for you.
Double check metallic + smoothness for that plant model to make sure that is not the cause as otherwise I am out of ideas

safe vapor Feb 14, 2026, 10:01 PM

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Ok. I think I'm gonna start by just finding a better model. I'll research it more from there. Would you be willing to discuss the ground briefly with me? Is there any tricks to make it look better?

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That last thing on my list is water. Right now it just a flat plane...I tried adding shaders and none of them worked. Could you point me in the right direction...maybe a search term or something on how to approach the water? I don't need something amazing...I want this to run on mobile...I just want it to look decent

lofty gyro Feb 14, 2026, 10:11 PM

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I think its better if you just go explore unitys own urp forest demo https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/unity-terrain-urp-demo-scene-213197?srsltid=AfmBOoqKgRt4dVwgL7-5YSyYbfNeDxXBTTsDMwgYFCUfK7-orZQa-qCJ

Unity Terrain - URP Demo Scene | 3D Environments | Unity Asset Store

Elevate your workflow with the Unity Terrain - URP Demo Scene asset from Unity Technologies. Find this & other Environments options on the Unity Asset Store.

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Poor material setup produces bad results and this is always the case. Ask for more specific help in a new thread later

#Certain items very bright