Unreal Engine

Lighting
Technical Overview

Hristo Enchev 171005

What will this lecture cover
1.
2.
3.

4.
5.

2
Legend
1.

2.

3.

3
Lighting Types
and
Actors

4
Lighting modes docs
•

5
Lighting Actors docs
•

6
Directional Light docs
• Ctrl+L

• GI

Light vector

7
Point Light docs

• 6 times expensive

• Holding L and clicking anywhere in the editor

viewport will spawn a point light in that world
location.

8
Spot Light docs

• 6 times cheaper
•
• Inner Cone Angle
Outer Cone Angle

9
Rect Lights docs
• Inner Cone Angle
Outer Cone Angle

•
Stationary

Use Area
Shadows for Stationary Light

10
More Rect Lights docs

•
width and height of
the light

•
only used

Point Light

11
Sky Lights docs
• cubemap
capture the scene

• automatically

on load

• emissive contribution

12
Sky Lights - Distance Field Ambient Occlusion docs
• Distance Field Ambient Occlusion

Mesh Distance Fields

•
except ones close to the camera

•
Show > Visualize > Mesh Distance Fields

• Bent Normals

13
Material Light Functions docs
• Stationary Movable lights

•
filter a light's intensity

• cannot change the color

14
IES profiles docs
•
lighting industry standard method

real world

15
Geographically Accurate Sun 4.24+ docs
•

based on a geographic location

date in time

•
best to remove

• Extend default
luminance range in Auto Exposure
settings

16
HDRI Backdrop lighting actor docs

•
-

-
-
-

17
 Lighting Performance
• number of meshes
triangle count of those meshes. large radius
small radius

• quickly eat up performance

• caching

18
 Shadows

19
Shadows and their relation to mobility docs
• Static Shadows -

_BuildData

• Stationary Light Shadows

• Directional Light Cascading Shadow Maps

Dynamic
Shadow Distance StationaryLight

• Dynamic Shadows

20
Shadows and their relation to mobility docs
• two dynamic shadows

more efficient

• object’s bounds
physics asset
bounding box

• Force No Precomputed Lighting

_BuildData

• Preview
Engine/EditorMaterials/PreviewShadowIndicator
21
 Cascaded Shadow Maps docs
•
Static Shadows

•
static baked
shadows

Cascading shadow maps

22
Distance Field Shadows docs
•
movable lights

more
performant

• Source Radius

Light Source angle

23
Distance Field Shadows docs
•

in the distance

Distance Field
Shadow Distance

24
Capsule Shadows docs

• Characters

• Physics Asset

•
soft area shadowing
indirectly lit areas

• dynamic precomputed

25
Contact Shadows docs

•
Contact Shadow's length

maximum value of 1
entire screen.

•
parallax occlusion mapping

26
Lightmass
and
Global Illumination

27
Lightmass - what makes GI possible docs

•
World Settings

• Primitive level
Material

DiffuseBoost

• Use Emissive for Static Lighting

Emissive Lighting
• Intensity
controlled via a Post Process
volume
28
Lightmass - what makes GI possible docs

• Lightmass has dynamic effect

uniform 3d grid
on top of upward
facing surfaces

• generate Ambient Occlusion

• Translucent shadows

• UV unwrapped

29
Lightmass Portals docs

critical to lighting
•
more light rays
higher quality

•
Skylight, HDR image Use
Emissive for Static Lighting

• drastically
increase

30
Volumetric Lightmass docs
• Volumetric Fog dynamic objects
baked indirect lighting

• Show > Visualize > Volumetric Lightmap

• World Settings
Lightmass Settings

31
Lighting Scenarios docs
• save baked lighting

32
 Reflection probes docs

• indirect specular.

• update in real time

static

• Each pixel blends between multiple cubemaps to get the final result. Smaller Reflection Capture Actors override larger
ones, so you can refine reflection parallax accuracy in areas as needed. For example, you might place a capture at the center
of a room and then refine the reflection by placing smaller captures at the corners of the room.

33
Screen Space Global Illumination (SSGI) 4.24+ docs
• r.SSGI.Enable 1 Project Settings > Engine >
Rendering Lighting

• emissive colours

• r.SSGI.Quality

34
Lightmass Replace Node docs

• LightmassReplace

35
Post Processing

36
Ambient Cubemaps docs
•

• Texture
Intensity Tint

37
Global Illumination Intensity
• Indirect Lighting Intensity)

• SSGI

38
Exposure docs
• Auto Exposure

•
manually control
Exposure
compensation

View Mode>Game
Settings

39
Fog and Volumetrics

40
Atmospheric Fog docs
● Atmospheric Fog gives an approximation of light
scattering through a planetary atmosphere.

● This requires the Directional Light to have its

Atmospheric Light property turned on

● It can affect the Directional light tint based zenith angle

● You can control atmospheric density

● The Fog color is accessible in any material

● Works with or without Skydomes

41
Sky Atmosphere 4.24+ Docs blog post
● This is a physically-based sky and atmosphere
rendering technique. You can simulate transitions
from ground to sky to outer space with proper
planetary curvature
● Mie scattering is a height fog simulation, so it
can be used instead of an Exponential Height Fog,
but if you want to use both, you can via the
Support Atmosphere Affecting Height Fog
project setting
● A skydome can be used alongside - The material
has to be Is Sky, Opaque and Unlit

● There are a lot of exposed parameters

accessible in materials
● The docs on this are extensive, and
vital to understand its properties

42
Exponential Height Fog docs
● The position of the Exponential Height Fog Actor
matters as it will determine the base fog height, and Fog
Height Falloff can further adjust that

● As the name hints, the fog’s density is based on

height, creating more dense fog at low regions and less
in high places

● Secondary Fog Layer (4.24+) - This adds another layer

of fog with its own height and density modifiers, allowing
you to have a more distinctive fog at a certain height
level

● Using Start Distance to keep some defined area in

front of the viewer without fog is a big performance
improvement as it works by culling fog pixels
43
 Volumetric Fog docs
● Part of the Exponential Height Fog
● Controls for it are both in the fog actor
and on each light that you want to
contribute to the fog
● As the name hints, the fog’s density is
based on height, creating more dense
fog at low regions and less in high places
● Use the r.VolumetricFog.GridSizeZ
console command to control the quality
of the volumetric grid

● Thanks to the Volumetric Lightmaps, static lighting is supported, use Stationary Lighting for best results
● Static and Emissive lights affect fog without costing anything since they're all merged into the Volumetric
Lightmap
● Volume Materials influence the fog, they currently only work on particle systems with said material
● Here is a great GDC video coverage of the Volumetric Fog’s features

44
Wrapping Up

45
Lighting Workflow proposal
• Direct and Indirect first approach
a.

b.
c.

46
 Further reading and resources
•
strictly technical
• Learn tab Epic Launcher

• links docs

• specific look/feels

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 The End
Feel free to reach out if
you have any questions

This presentation was created for Breda University of Applied Sciences

Hristo Enchev 171005