Realistic Sky in Unity: The Complete Skybox Guide

25 Jul 2025

A skybox in Unity is a way to create the illusion of an environment, usually the sky or space, that surrounds the entire scene and gives it atmosphere and depth. This is especially important in 3D games, where it is important for the player to feel like they are part of a larger space. A skybox is a texture that wraps the scene in the form of a cube or sphere, on the walls of which are images of the sky, clouds, horizon, sun, stars and other atmospheric effects. Unity allows you to use both hexagonal (6-sided) skyboxes and spherical (cubemap or panoramic) textures, which provide a realistic environment.

To create a realistic sky in Unity, start by adding a skybox via the Window → Rendering → Lighting menu. In the window that opens, the Environment tab allows you to set the Skybox Material, which determines how the sky looks in the scene. If you want to use ready-made materials, you can install the Skyboxes package from the Asset Store or Package Manager, or download HDRI images (for example, from HDRI Haven or Poly Haven), which are suitable for a panoramic skybox.

To create your skybox, go to Assets → Create → Material, set the shader type Skybox/Panoramic or Skybox/6 Sided. If you choose Panoramic, you will need to load a HDRI texture with a high dynamic range. Such textures look like stretched spherical images and are great for photorealistic lighting. In the material settings, you can change the exposure, rotation and projection (Spherical, Cylindrical, Perspective) to adjust the display of the sky depending on the desired atmosphere.

After creating the material, you need to assign it as a skybox. To do this, open the Lighting Settings again and drag your material into the Skybox Material field. To achieve realistic lighting, don't forget to click Generate Lighting at the bottom of the same window — this will allow Unity to take the sky into account when illuminating the scene and make the light more natural. This is especially important if you use Realtime Global Illumination or Baked GI in your scene.

You can also enable Atmospheric Scattering if you have URP or HDRP installed. In the Universal Render Pipeline, this is done using Volume Profiles and components like Sky and Fog Volume, where you can set up a Procedural Sky, HDRI Sky or Gradient Sky, as well as add fog, sun, lighting direction and scattering color. HDRP has even more advanced options, including physically correct light scattering, sunset hues and cloud support.

You should also correctly place the Directional Light, which imitates the sun, and set it in the Sun Source field in Lighting Settings. This will allow Unity to synchronize shadows and reflections with the position of the sun in the sky. To add realism, you can use Lens Flare or animate the light by time of day, creating a day and night effect.

The skybox in Unity is not just a background texture, but an important part of the visual perception of the scene. It affects the lighting, atmosphere, reflections and even the mood of the player. With support for HDR, panoramic textures, dynamic lighting and procedural skies, Unity provides flexible tools for creating realistic and beautiful skies in any game.