Why does my reflection probe show old reflections after lights move?

By default reflection probes are Baked — the cubemap is captured once at bake time and stored as an asset. Runtime light or geometry changes do not update it. Set the Type to Realtime so the probe captures fresh cubemaps as you tell it to.

How often should a realtime probe refresh?

As rarely as the visual quality allows. Each refresh renders six camera angles, which is roughly 6x the cost of a normal frame for that probe. Use Refresh Mode = Via Scripting and call RenderProbe only when something visibly changes (door opens, time of day shifts, the player moves into a new area).

Why is my realtime probe still cheap-looking?

Realtime probes default to a low resolution (128). Bump the Resolution and check Box Projection if your probe sits inside an enclosed room. Also confirm the probe culling mask includes the surfaces you want reflected; static scenery is sometimes excluded by accident.

Fix: Unity Reflection Probe Not Updating at Runtime

Quick answer: Switch Reflection Probe Type from Baked to Realtime, set Refresh Mode to Via Scripting, and call probe.RenderProbe() from your code only when scene lighting actually changes. Avoid Every Frame for cost reasons.

Day-night cycle ticking past noon, but the chrome car in your scene still reflects an orange sunset? Reflection probes are baked by default, and a baked probe will never see a light change again until you re-bake it.

The Symptom

Lights animate, the skybox rotates, the player opens a door — but reflective surfaces still mirror the scene as it looked when the level was last baked. The static reflection is correct for the original lighting and slowly drifts more wrong as the scene changes.

What Causes This

Reflection Probes have three Type options: Baked, Custom, and Realtime. Baked stores a cubemap on disk and never re-renders. Custom uses a manually authored cubemap. Only Realtime captures the live scene at runtime.

The Fix

Step 1: Type = Realtime. Inspector → Reflection Probe → Type → Realtime. The Bake button disappears; new fields appear for Refresh Mode and Time Slicing.

Step 2: Refresh Mode = Via Scripting. Do not use Every Frame — rendering six cubemap faces every frame is brutal even on desktop. Via Scripting gives you control over when the cost happens.

Step 3: Time Slicing = All Faces At Once or Individual Faces. All Faces is one big spike per refresh. Individual Faces spreads the cost across six frames at the cost of a 6-frame seam if reflections change mid-update. For most games, Individual Faces is the better tradeoff.

Step 4: Render when needed.

public class DayNightProbe : MonoBehaviour
{
    public ReflectionProbe probe;
    private float _lastSunAngle;

    void Update()
    {
        var sunAngle = SunDirector.CurrentAngle;
        if (Mathf.Abs(sunAngle - _lastSunAngle) > 5f)
        {
            probe.RenderProbe();
            _lastSunAngle = sunAngle;
        }
    }
}

Refresh only when the lighting has visibly changed by some threshold. For static-lit environments with one moving event (a door, an explosion), trigger a refresh on that event and never otherwise.

Box Projection for Indoor Scenes

If your probe is inside a room and reflections look like the cubemap is at infinity (everything looks tiny and far away), enable Box Projection on the probe. The probe’s Box Size becomes the assumed reflection geometry, which makes wall reflections look correct.

Resolution Tradeoff

Probe Resolution defaults to 128 — fine for matte materials, blurry on chrome. Bump to 256 or 512 for visibly metallic surfaces. The cost scales quadratically with resolution; profile before going past 512.

“Realtime type, Via Scripting refresh, RenderProbe on real change. The mirror finally sees what is in front of it.”

Related Issues

For light probes failing on dynamic objects, see light probe seams. For PBR materials looking flat, see PBR specular.

Realtime. Via scripting. RenderProbe on change.