Environment & HDRi
Lights aren't the only way to illuminate a scene. The Sky gives your scene an environment: a surrounding image that lights every surface from all directions at once and shows up in reflections. It's what makes materials — especially metals and glossy surfaces — read as if they're somewhere real.
You'll find it in the scene's page settings, in the Sky panel, with a toggle to turn it on. There are two modes:
| Mode | What it is |
|---|---|
| HDRi | An equirectangular environment image — a studio, an interior, a landscape — wrapped around the scene |
| Physical | A simulated sky and atmosphere, with a sun position and weather |
HDRi
Pick an Image from the built-in presets — neutral and colored studios,
interiors, landscapes, gradients — or upload your own. Alongside regular image
files, .hdr and .exr files are accepted, which is what you'll get from an
HDRi library.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Image | The environment image, from the presets or your own upload |
| Rotation | Spins the environment around the scene, from 0° to 360° — use it to move highlights and reflections where you want them |
| Blur | Softens the environment. Sharp environments give crisp reflections; blurred ones give smooth, diffuse light |
| Show BG | Whether the image is drawn behind the scene, or only used to light it |
| Affect Lighting | How much the environment drives the scene's lighting — see below |
| Light Intensity | Multiplier on that lighting |
Turning Show BG off is the classic product-render setup: the environment still lights the scene and appears in reflections, but your flat background color shows behind the objects instead of a photographic skybox.
Presets you pick are stored in the file, so a scene stays self-contained when you share it or hand it off.
Physical
Instead of an image, the Physical mode simulates a sky. Set the Time of day to place the sun, choose a Weather preset from clear through to storm, and the atmosphere and light color follow.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Time | Time of day, which drives the sun's position |
| Weather | Cloud-cover preset, from clear to overcast and storm |
| Clouds | Turns the cloud layers on and off |
| Wind and Animate Wind | How fast clouds drift, and whether they move in real time |
| Weather Seed | Regenerates the cloud pattern |
| Exposure | Overall brightness of the sky |
| Affect Lighting, Light Intensity | Same as HDRi — how strongly the sky lights the scene |
How environment lighting works
With Affect Lighting on, the environment becomes a light source: the scene gets a dome of light taking its color from the environment, plus a directional light following the sun. While that's on, the scene's own Ambient light steps aside — the environment dome replaces it — and comes back when you turn it off.
The setting has three positions:
- Off — the environment is only a backdrop and reflections; your own lights do the lighting.
- Low — full sky-driven light, but environment reflections are limited to the surfaces where they're most visible, like metals and glossy materials. A performance dial for heavy scenes.
- Full — every physical material samples the environment.
The Physical sky renders on the WebGPU pipeline. Check your scene's Renderer setting before publishing — see Play Settings.
Getting the most out of it
- Environments and PBR materials go together. Roughness, metalness and reflections have nothing to reflect without an environment, which is why a metal object can look flat and grey in an unlit scene. See PBR Materials.
- Rotate before you add lights. Often an environment rotation gets you the highlight you were about to add a light for.
- Blur for mood, sharp for product. A blurred environment reads as soft studio light; a sharp one puts recognizable detail in your reflections.
- Combine with your own lights. The environment handles ambient light and reflections; a Directional Light or Spot Light still gives you control over shadows and accents.