Realistic Night

Render Mode: Full Lighting
Directional Mode: MonoSH
Light Probe Mode: L2
Bounces: 3 outdoors, 5 interiors
GI Samples: 32 draft, 64 final if needed
Skylight Samples: 16 to 32
AO: subtle, 0 to 0.25 max
Indirect Boost: 1
Emissive Boost: 1
Reflection Probes: bake or update after lighting

Night scenes usually work best when built from low ambient sky fill plus practical lights. Avoid solving readability by simply raising ambient brightness. That usually flattens the scene.

Use warm local lights, window glow, signage, emissive meshes, and reflection probes to define readable structure. Reflection probes matter a lot for wet surfaces, glass, metal, plastic, glossy materials, and eyes.

Use L2 probes for avatars and dynamic objects so they do not feel detached from the environment. In VRChat, that usually matters as much as the static environment bake itself.

tip

Keep the sky contribution low enough that local lights still matter. If shadows fill too evenly, the scene may stop reading as night.