Cave environment lighting

[neon wind]

That makes sense, what would you recommend to get the effect of environment lighting in this case?
My aim is to light up my darkest darks so they are visible.

Cave environment lighting

[distant depot]

I haven't done it that way
The darkening tends to be the desired effect
I guess if you disable ambient occlusion from the lightmap bake and purposefully brighten the reflection probe then those brighter reflections probably should take illuminate the dark areas of the cave

You should be able to see the effect by having the cave's reflection probe in a bright area to confirm it works

[rotund holly]

For interior scenes (including caves), I would try using a local post processing volume and bumping up brightness or exposure to a suitable level.

[distant depot]

That can help but only if you've got some light to work with in the dark corners

[neon wind]

Thank @rotund holly , unfortunately it doesn't work in my case. As @distant depot mentioned I do have darker corners.

I tried reflection probes and the result is more glossy than I'd like (first picture).

Another idea I tried is to fake environment lighting with multiple directional lights that don't cast shadows (second picture). It will require more fine-tuning. An actual lighting artist can do a better job (I'm a tech).

The third picture shows the environment light before baking.

[distant depot]

Interesting, I wouldn't have known to expect that kind of glossy look
Shadowless directional lights are definitely one option, but may be kind of expensive in forward rendering path

[neon wind]

I'm using the forward rendering path so this is gonna be a challenge 🙂