Unity 6 Tutorial: Add Lightmap Texture to Material Using ShaderGraph

Welcome to this tutorial where I'll show you a game-changing technique to integrate lightmap textures directly into your Unity materials using ShaderGraph!
What You'll Learn:
Moving Lightmaps to Materials: Discover how to transfer Unity’s baked lightmaps from your scene into a material, making them portable with your prefabs.
Prefab Flexibility: Learn how this method allows you to reuse lightmap data across multiple rooms or scenes without being locked into a single scene’s baked lightmaps.
Improved Team Collaboration: See how moving lightmaps into materials can help avoid merge conflicts in large projects, enabling individual artists to work on separate rooms while developers manage the overall scene.
ShaderGraph Integration: Understand how to combine your basemap texture with the lightmap texture via ShaderGraph for a seamless visual output.
Workflow Agnostic UVs: Even if you’re not using Autodesk Maya, the process of creating a custom lightmap UV set is adaptable to any 3D modeling package.
Why This Matters: Traditionally, Unity bakes lightmaps into the scene (e.g., a scene called "Room01" creates a "Room01" folder with its lightmap data). This approach restricts the lightmap to that specific scene, making prefab reuse a hassle. My solution sidesteps this limitation by embedding the lightmap into the material itself. This not only streamlines the workflow but also makes it easier for teams to collaborate on projects like apartment complexes with multiple rooms, where each room can be worked on independently and later assembled in a shared scene.
Jump in and follow along as I break down the process step-by-step. Whether you're a developer, artist, or technical artist, this tutorial will give you a fresh approach to managing lighting in Unity.
Don’t forget to:
Like the video if you found it helpful
Subscribe for more Unity tutorials and tips
Comment below with any questions or your own experiences!
Happy developing!