Lighting

Lighting captures the surface direction (normals) of your source and uses it in two ways:

Normal maps for your game’s 2D lights. Export writes one per sprite sheet and links it automatically.
Fixed lights in the Preview, and optionally baked into the exported sprites for hand-shaded looks.

Lighting also unlocks the Lit and Normal draw modes in the Preview.

Settings

Setting	What it does
Normal Map Steps	Rounds the normal map to this many levels per axis, so 2D lights shade in flat facets like hand-shaded pixel art. Lower values give fewer, larger facets; 1 keeps smooth normals. Default 5.
Palette Affects Lighting	Shown when the profile has a Color Palette. On: the palette snaps the lit result. Off: the palette snaps the base color before lighting.

An ambient light that brightens every pixel evenly.

Setting	What it does
Enabled	Turns the global light on or off.
Color	Color of the light.
Intensity	Strength of the light. 0 turns it off. Default 0.5.

A light from one direction that gives the sprite a lit side and a shaded side.

Setting	What it does
Enabled, Color, Intensity	As for the global light.
Lighting Steps	Number of brightness bands on the lit side. 1 gives a single hard lit/shadow split; higher values give smoother shading.
Light Threshold	Where the light turns into shadow. Lower values give more lit pixels. Default 0.35.
Backlight Strength	Adds a stylized rim when the light moves behind the sprite.
Backlight Width (px)	How far the rim spreads inward from the silhouette, 1 to 10 pixels.
Direction	Light angles in degrees. X is vertical, Y is horizontal.

Turn on Show Directional Light Gizmo in the Preview’s gear menu to see the light direction while you tune it. It shows in Lit mode.

Setting	What it does
Export Lit Sprites	Off (default): exported sprites keep their unlit colors, and the lights above only affect the Lit preview. On: the lights are baked into the exported sprites.
Export Normal Map	Also export a normal map for each sprite sheet, in a `Normals` folder, linked to the sprites as their `_NormalMap` secondary texture. On by default.
Normal Map Suffix	Added to each normal map’s file name, for example `Run_Right_N.png`. Default `_N`.

Export with Export Normal Map on

Each sprite sheet gets its normal map as the _NormalMap secondary texture. You don’t need to change any import settings.

Use a lit sprite material

Use a SpriteRenderer with the URP 2D Renderer’s default lit sprite material (Sprite-Lit-Default).

Enable normal maps on your 2D lights

On each Light 2D, under Normal Maps, set Quality to Fast or Accurate.

Choose between the two approaches:

Dynamic lighting in your game: keep Export Lit Sprites off and use the normal maps with 2D lights.
A fixed, hand-shaded look: turn Export Lit Sprites on. The sprites carry their shading, and you can still export normal maps.