UV packing for baked UVs not filling the 0–1 space (smaller or bigger) has been fixed. It makes the resolution assigned to each object work much more reliably if that object’s unwrap is not filling the 0–1 space and also when its bounds are non-square. Please review the resolution on your instances for baked lightmapsA pre-rendered texture that contains the effects of light sources on static objects in the scene. Lightmaps are overlaid on top of scene geometry to create the effect of lighting. More info
See in Glossary.
Shader variant stripping was fixed for realtime lightmaps. Now each lightmaps mode (non-directional, directional and directional specular) variant can be picked for baked and realtime GI separately. Please review your settings if you previously selected a specific lightmaps mode variant in the Graphics window to make that mode work for realtime lightmaps.
Bounce scale has been changed from the arbitrary value of 0.7 to 1.0. The bounce is the product of the albedo and bounce scale. Artists should set real-life albedo values (the brightest non-metallic is snow with 0.9). This is our PBS reference http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/official–5–0-pbr-calibration-charts.289416/
Since you should author physically correct albedo, it makes sense for us to set the scale close to 1. We already clamp albedo values in the meta pass, so the bounce scale should just be 1.0f.
Please note that if you choose to set albedo to 1.0 in a custom meta pass without clamping, then the sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary can look like it’s exploding with light.
“Fixed Function” style shadersA small script that contains the mathematical calculations and algorithms for calculating the Color of each pixel rendered, based on the lighting input and the Material configuration. More info
See in Glossary (the ones that use SetTexture, Lighting On etc.) internally get turned into actual shaders at shader import time now. Upside is that they now work on all platforms (previously did not work on consoles), and with more consistency. Also a lot of code and fixed function related inefficiencies got removed from runtime, making renderingThe process of drawing graphics to the screen (or to a render texture). By default, the main camera in Unity renders its view to the screen. More info
See in Glossary a bit faster. Downside is, creating fixed function shaders at runtime - using new Material(fixedFunctionShaderString) - does not work anymore. That constructor was deprecated in Unity 5.1, and now in 5.2 it actually stopped working for fixed function shaders.
We’ve changed how Reflection Probes are rendered when using Deferred ShadingA rendering path that places no limit on the number of lights that can affect a GameObject. All lights are evaluated per-pixel, which means that they all interact correctly with normal maps and so on. Additionally, all lights can have cookies and shadows. More info
See in Glossary, in order to allow “screen space reflections” effects in the future. Short version is: in deferred shading, reflection probesA rendering component that captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions, rather like a camera. The captured image is then stored as a Cubemap that can be used by objects with reflective materials. More info
See in Glossary are per-pixel instead of per-object now.
Comparison of current behavior (reflection probes per object; in some cases hard to avoid harsh reflection transitions between large objects) and reflection probes per pixelThe smallest unit in a computer image. Pixel size depends on your screen resolution. Pixel lighting is calculated at every screen pixel. More info
See in