AVC 200 - Week 7 - Spring 2026

Week Overview

Monday covers this lecture covers advanced Unity lighting techniques including procedural and HDRI skyboxes, reflection probes, and baked lighting for indoor scenes. The second half focuses on particle systems, covering sprite creation, randomization, environmental effects, and interactive particle events. Wednesday focuses on students presented their 3D modeling and texturing projects using Substance tools, followed by troubleshooting common issues and a detailed tutorial on Substance Modeler's primitive workflow and ID mapping in Substance Painter.

Lighting Particles Skybox Baking VFX Shaders Student Projects Substance Modeler Substance Painter Unity Integration 3D Modeling Texturing

Monday

March 02, 2026

Unity Lighting & Particle Systems

This lecture covers advanced Unity lighting techniques including procedural and HDRI skyboxes, reflection probes, and baked lighting for indoor scenes. The second half focuses on particle systems, covering sprite creation, randomization, environmental effects, and interactive particle events.

Watch Full Lecture →

Lighting Fundamentals

0:00 Introduction and Setup

1:53 Unity Lighting Window Overview

6:00 Procedural Skybox Creation

10:45 HDRI Skybox Implementation

17:00 Reflection Probes Setup

Indoor Lighting Setup

29:00 Indoor Lighting Techniques

33:00 Baked Lighting Fundamentals

42:00 Particle Systems Introduction

Particle System Basics

56:00 Custom Sprite Creation

1:04:00 Particle Variation and Randomization

1:14:00 Environmental Particle Effects

1:23:00 Lit vs Unlit Shaders

Advanced Particle Effects

1:33:00 Advanced Particle Techniques

1:47:00 Unity Particle Pack Examples

1:56:00 Texture Sheet Animation

2:02:00 Interactive Particle Events

Key Concepts

Procedural skyboxes control outdoor lighting and atmosphere
HDRI images provide realistic environmental lighting and reflections
Reflection probes create accurate reflections within defined areas
Baked lighting improves indoor scenes through pre-calculated illumination
Particle variation using random ranges creates more compelling effects
Lit shaders respond to lighting while unlit shaders maintain constant brightness
Texture sheet animation enables complex particle behaviors
Interactive particles can be triggered through code events

Wednesday

March 04, 2026

Student Project Reviews & Substance Workflows

Students presented their 3D modeling and texturing projects using Substance tools, followed by troubleshooting common issues and a detailed tutorial on Substance Modeler's primitive workflow and ID mapping in Substance Painter.

Watch Full Lecture →

Technical Setup

0:00 Introduction and Technical Setup

Student Project Presentations

10 projects

2:31 Student Work: Rail Cart Project

8:55 Animation Timeline Troubleshooting

15:12 Student Work: Multiple Technical Issues

37:42 Student Work: Garden Environment

42:04 Student Work: Character Assets

47:45 Student Work: Pool Scene

51:09 Student Work: Console and Textures

56:23 Student Work: Ashtray and Books

1:02:27 Student Work: Party Hat Creature

1:08:10 Student Work: House Environment

1:21:31 Student Work: Technical Difficulties

Substance Workflow Tutorial

1:26:41 Substance Modeler Cake Tutorial

1:34:02 Substance Painter ID Maps

Assignment Planning

1:50:17 Next Week Assignment

Key Concepts

Substance Modeler primitive workflow enables soft boolean operations for organic shapes
Vertex colors from Modeler can create ID maps for selective texturing in Painter
Multiple materials per object creates performance issues in game development
Proper UV unwrapping and texture organization is crucial for efficient workflows
Animation keyframes require proper timing and interpolation for smooth motion
Substance Painter's bake mesh maps feature generates ambient occlusion and ID data
Control-drag materials onto objects automatically creates masked fill layers