How To Create A Day & Night Cycle In Unity (Tutorial 2025)

In this tutorial I want to show you, how to create a realistic Day & Night Circle effect! This comprehensive guide dives deep into implementing dynamic day and night cycles using Unity's skybox feature.
Learn step-by-step how to seamlessly transition between daytime and nighttime environments, leveraging scripting, lighting adjustments, and material manipulation. Whether you're a novice or a seasoned developer, this tutorial offers invaluable insights into creating immersive experiences in Unity. Master the art of captivating day-night cycles for games or simulations with this in-depth tutorial

Drum and Base from outro:
Track: Andromedik & Pirapus - Ride or Die (ft. Indy Skies) [NCS Release]
Music provided by NoCopyrightSounds.

best wishes, jd ♥

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[nvtebird]

Could you post the code for Time Manager so that I could compare mine to the original? No problems compiling or errors, I added the script as a component onto an empty GameObject but when I hit play the time never changes, I also don't have the options for:
Minutes, Hours, Days, Temp Second
that are shown on screen at 6:29 in the video underneath where I added the textures to the script, I feel I may have missed something along the way.

[AA_AmericanAbroad]

Thanks for the guide. Had a few issues with creating the material from the Shader. For people who might have this issue, Unity marks it under .compute, so make sure to rename it to .shader and it'll run smooth

[jjonojj]

Hey, i really like your videos and don’t understand why some people say that you are only “okay” at making videos / games. I’m also making a game in unity and it’s hard. Your game is great

[cristianhoger]

thank you for the video, it is just what I was looking for

[GauravKumar-vyhg]

how to use shader code that you put in the description box

[rdux]

Yeah, nice one! The directional light rotation was around the Y-axis though was kinda weird - if anything I would have put it on the X-axis so it goes below the horizon (and perhaps disabled it when it did so & replaced w/ a moon directional light or something), but that would have made for a far more complex tutorial so I can see why you did what you did.

The fog and gradients were definitely pretty cool - good work, dude - much appreciated!

[sharpoon]

is there a way i can make it start at a random time?

[leeleesplat]

I have a small issue which i cant figure out how to fix. When i am playing the game the sky box and lighting changes as it should, however when i stop playing the game, they lighting resets back to the original but the skybox and blend doesnt, Any ideas how to fix?

[SashoSuper]

I was lazy to make it a smooth transition, so i just made it so that the player chooses when night begins, because that is when the second part of the game begins. Anyway, thanks for the tutorial

[TidaliCreatives]

1:31 statt den timer auf 0 zu setzen würde ich ihm um eins dekrementieren. Die Millisekunden rechnen sich irgendwann hoch ;) hab auch mal was davon gelesen, dass floats nicht optimal sind, aber das ist glaube ich meckern auf hohem Niveau

[YoreHistory]

To be fair a seasonal cycle is a circular path so you werent completely incorrect lol. Another great video!

[bigmanmaraud]

having an issue where the day cycle doesnt reset back to the beginning when i stop running the scene, it just stays at the point the cycle was on when the scene was stopped, any tips? :)

[mbahadirb]

First of all thanks for the tutorial, but I have a problem with it. I am using URP render pipeline(not sure but I know this is important) and couldn´t find the 2DTextures that you used in the Skyboxes package. There is only materials and I cant use them neither in material nor in TimeManager.

[youngdollarzs]

I know it is just samantics as it doesn't factor much to the end code which is amazing btw, But tech shouldn't you have subtracted 1 to the tempSecond instead of setting to 0 in order to keep the sec smooth. I may be wrong and if so please feel free to correct me.

[nothing-nnil]

how to import shader into unity? its just txt file

[The_Wyatt_Earp]

My skybox material keeps getting reset upon calling the SkyboxLerp function. What is the reason for this?

[Alex-dtd]

How to do a programmatic day night cycle, including flowing clouds

[TheMaxx-YouTube]

hey, why does my terrain not get affected by whatever time of the day it is?

[tprczghost]

How do I make my Visual Studio have the intellisense?.

[whyareless]

Any chance you could do a tutorial like this one with the Unity 2023 HDRP version too? They've got a Moon and Sun to use as default now in the project 👀👀