In addition to selecting a renderingpath, it’s important to choose a ‘Color Space’ before lighting your project.Color Space determines the maths used by Unity when mixing colors in lightingcalculations or reading values from textures. This can have a drastic effect onthe realism of your game, but in many cases the decision over which Color Spaceto use will likely be forced by the hardware limitations of your targetplatform.
Linear ColorSpace
The preferred Color Space for realisticrendering is Linear. This can be selected using the ‘Color Space’ property from(Edit>Project Settings>Player).
A significant advantage of using Linearspace is that the colors supplied to shaders within your scene will brightenlinearly as light intensities increase. With the alternative, ‘Gamma’ ColorSpace, brightness will quickly begin to turn to white as values go up, which isdetrimental to image quality.
Image comparing objects lit using Linearand Gamma Color Space. Notice how colors quickly turn to white as lightintensities increase using the Gamma Color Space.
Another main benefit of Linear is thatshaders can also sample textures without Gamma (midtone) compensation. Thishelps to ensure that color values remain consistent throughout their journeythrough the render pipeline. The result is increased accuracy in colorcalculations with improved overall realism in the eventual screen output.
Gamma ColorSpace
Unfortunately Linear Color Space is notsupported by some mobile hardware and even certain games consoles. In theseinstances, Gamma must be used instead. Linear is currently supported on PC,newer mobile hardware and current generation consoles.
It’s important to confirm that yourtarget platform supports your selected Color Space before proceeding.
For more information on Color Spaceplease see the documentation here.
Linear is always more realistic, though gammacan sometimes produce more pleasing results more easily. For outdoor scenes ifgamma is looking better, it's probably because you need to increase thebrightness of your light to compensate for the differences between the colorspaces.