Free Night and Dusk HDRIs

Night HDRIs carry very little energy, which is the point and also the problem: a scene lit only by one will be too dark to read. Treat the HDRI as your reflections and ambient tint, then add your own practical lights for anything the player needs to see. Dusk maps are the more useful half of this category, since they leave enough sky light to shape geometry while still reading as night.

Everything here is free to download from the source site. These results come from Poly Haven, AmbientCG. Licences vary by file and are shown on each card. Nothing is hosted by us, and every link goes to the original page so you get the current version and the real licence terms.

Blaubeuren NightPoly Haven · Andreas MischokCC0Blue Lagoon NightPoly Haven · Greg ZaalCC0Clarens Night 01Poly Haven · Dimitrios Savva, Jarod GuestCC0Clarens Night 02Poly Haven · Dimitrios Savva, Jarod GuestCC0Cobblestone Street NightPoly Haven · Greg Zaal, Jenelle van HeerdenCC0Courtyard NightPoly Haven · Greg ZaalCC0Dikhololo NightPoly Haven · Greg ZaalCC0Dresden Station NightPoly Haven · Greg ZaalCC0Lakeside NightPoly Haven · Greg Zaal, Jarod GuestCC0Modern Buildings NightPoly Haven · Greg ZaalCC0Night BridgePoly Haven · Sergej MajborodaCC0Pond Bridge NightPoly Haven · Greg ZaalCC0Qwantani NightPoly Haven · Greg Zaal, Jarod GuestCC0Qwantani Night (Pure Sky)Poly Haven · Greg Zaal, Jarod GuestCC0Night Sky HDRI 003AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 008AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 001AmbientCGCC0Night Environment HDRI 008AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 007AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 014AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 016 AAmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 009AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 004AmbientCGCC0Night Environment HDRI 002AmbientCGCC0Night Environment HDRI 009AmbientCGCC0Night Environment HDRI 010AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 002AmbientCGCC0Night Sky HDRI 006AmbientCGCC0

Search all HDRIs in the live asset library →

Using an HDRI in a game

An HDRI is an equirectangular image with brightness values well above white, which is what lets it act as a light source instead of just a backdrop. Every major web engine can load one as an environment map, and doing so gives you ambient lighting and reflections in a single step.

Resolution should be chosen for the job. If the sky is never visible, 1K is plenty, since you're only using it for light and reflection. If the player can look up, 2K or 4K is worth the download. The 8K and 16K versions are for offline rendering.

If you want a sky that doesn't exist in any library, the skybox generator makes a 360° environment from a text description.

Licences, briefly

CC0 means public domain: use it commercially, modify it, ship it, no credit required. That covers everything from Kenney, Quaternius, KayKit, Poly Haven, and AmbientCG.

Freesound and OpenGameArt host a mix. Some files are CC0, others are CC-BY (credit required) or CC-BY-SA (credit required and derivatives must carry the same licence, which is a real constraint on a commercial game). The licence is set per file by whoever uploaded it, so check the source page before you ship.

The complete guide to game asset licences covers what each one actually requires and where teams usually get it wrong.

More free HDRIs

Free HDRI Skies · Free Sunset and Golden Hour HDRIs · Free Studio HDRIs

Or search every source at once, and see the complete guide to free game assets for the full picture on where this art comes from and how to use it.