Enable shadows

Each Light in a 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 cast the following types of shadows:

• Real-time shadows. Unity stores the shadows cast from each Light in shadow map textures. The textures update each frame; shadows move when the lights move.
• Baked shadows. The Unity lightmapperA tool in Unity that bakes lightmaps according to the arrangement of lights and geometry in your scene. More info
  See in Glossary stores the shadows received by each GameObjectThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
  See in Glossary in static lightmapA 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 textures, shadow mask textures, or Light ProbesLight probes store information about how light passes through space in your scene. A collection of light probes arranged within a given space can improve lighting on moving objects and static LOD scenery within that space. More info
  See in Glossary. Shadows don’t move when the lights move.

To configure which type of shadows a Light casts, use the InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
See in Glossary window of the Light component. For more information, refer to the following:

• Setting a light as real-time or baked.
• Lighting Mode, if you set the Light ModeA Light property that defines the use of the Light. Can be set to Realtime, Baked and Mixed. More info
  See in Glossary of a Light to Mixed.

Set a GameObject to receive shadows

GameObjects receive real-time shadows by default.

To set a static GameObject so it receives shadows from baked shadows, follow these steps:

1. Select the GameObject.
2. In the Inspector window, in the Mesh RendererA mesh component that takes the geometry from the Mesh Filter and renders it at the position defined by the object’s Transform component. More info
   See in Glossary component, enable Contribute Global IlluminationA group of techniques that model both direct and indirect lighting to provide realistic lighting results.
   See in Glossary.
3. Set Receive Global Illumination to Lightmaps.

Set a GameObject to shadow other GameObjects

Follow these steps:

1. Select the GameObject.
2. In the Mesh Renderer component of the Inspector window, set Cast shadows to On.

Configure shadows

To configure shadows for your whole project or a specific scene, refer to the following:

• Lighting window reference
• Graphics settings
• Universal Render Pipeline (URP) asset reference
• Universal Renderer asset

Additional resources

• Shadows in URP
• Shadows in the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP)
• Use shadows in a custom URP shader