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Lighting in Unreal Engine 5 for Beginners — Transcript

by William Faucher · 7,993 words · 1,107 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00today we're talking about one of the
0:01most underrated aspects of 3D and that
0:04is lighting those of you familiar with
0:06my channel know that most of my Unreal
0:08Engine videos Target the more advanced
0:10users so I figured I would change it up
0:12a bit and talk about lighting for the
0:15absolute beginner if you don't know
0:17anything about lighting or how it works
0:20let alone how to get things looking good
0:22in Unreal Engine this is the video for
0:25you and just to be clear in this
0:27tutorial we'll be using Lumen and ui5
0:30with a fully Dynamic lighting approach
0:32we will not be learning about baked
0:34lighting so I'm not going to waste any
0:36more time with the intro let's jump
0:38straight into lighting right after I
0:39tell you about my sponsor so a big thank
0:42you to CG Spectrum for sponsoring this
0:43video CG spectrum is a global top ranked
0:46training provider offering specialized
0:48online courses in realtime 3D game
0:50development animation VFX and digital
0:53painting they're an unreal authorized
0:55training center and unreal academic
0:57partner and their courses include
0:59personalized mentorship from industry
1:01professionals I helped develop the
1:03realtime 3D Technical and virtual
1:04production course I mentored their
1:06part-time myself and here are a few
1:08examples from some of my own students so
1:11if learning on real Engine with the help
1:12of an industry Mentor is something
1:14you're interested in do check out the
1:16link down below or visit CGS
1:17spectrum.com for more info you'll get
1:20the most practical and upto-date
1:22knowledge connections skills and
1:24Industry awareness that studios in both
1:27the games and film industry are hiring
1:29for for so thanks again to CG Spectrum
1:31for sponsoring this video and now let's
1:33jump straight into lighting all right so
1:36now that we're in unreal we need to make
1:37sure that our project settings are set
1:39up correctly to make sure that
1:40everything behaves as expected to get
1:43the best possible results and make the
1:45most of what Lumen has to offer so we're
1:48going to go to the settings tab up top
1:50here click on Project
1:53settings and in the search details panel
1:55we're going to search for Direct X and
1:58we need to make sure that our default
2:00rhi is set to direct x 12 and direct x
2:0311 and 12 sm5 is turned on next we're
2:07going to scroll down to the rendering
2:09tab right here and by scrolling down to
2:11the Lumen section right here we need to
2:13make sure that we have the following
2:16project settings set up correctly
2:19Dynamic Global illumination set to Lumen
2:22array lighting mode set to surface cache
2:24software bra tracing mode set the detail
2:26tracing Shadow map method set the
2:28virtual Shadow Maps beta
2:30and one more thing that I like to have
2:33turned on is support Hardware rate
2:35tracing turn this on and use Hardware
2:38rate tracing when available now keep in
2:40mind the hardware rate tracing settings
2:42are only going to work if you have a GPU
2:45that is capable of Hardware rate tracing
2:47so any of the Nvidia RTX cards will work
2:50just fine if you don't have a GPU that
2:53can do ray tracing don't worry it's not
2:56the end of the world you're still going
2:58to be able to get good results but but I
3:00like to use it because in many cases Ray
3:03Trace shadows will look much better as
3:05you're going to see a little bit later
3:07so with these project settings changed
3:10you're going to have to restart the
3:11engine and it's going to have to
3:12recompile all the shaders so go make
3:14yourself a cup of coffee and then we'll
3:16be ready to get started so I'm going to
3:18X this out and now we have a blank scene
3:20here and I'm going to show you
3:22everything you need to know about every
3:24light that is available in Unreal Engine
3:265 and in order to create our first light
3:28we need to go to the Place actors Tab
3:31and in the little lights icon here
3:33you'll have a list of all the available
3:35lights if your UI looks a little bit
3:38different than mine don't worry you can
3:40go to the windows tab load layout and
3:43I'm using the ue4 classic layout just
3:46because I like the way that it is set up
3:48to me it works a little bit better so if
3:51you want to follow along this is the
3:53layout that I am using so let's start
3:55off with the first light here and that
3:58is the directional light I'm going to
3:59drag and drop this into my scene here
4:02and as you can see as I rotate around
4:04here the directional light does what the
4:06name implies it behaves a lot like a sun
4:09or Moonlight or any kind of light that
4:11is very directional in nature so
4:14directional lights are usually used for
4:16exterior environments or when you want
4:18to have sunlight shining through a
4:20window for interior environments now
4:22what's really cool about Lumen is that
4:25it just works out of the box and as you
4:27can see here we've got some nice
4:28indirect lighting
4:30lighting up our character here because
4:32if Lumen was disabled it would actually
4:34just be pure black like this but thanks
4:36to Lumen we do get a little bit of that
4:38nice bounce lighting bouncing off the
4:41ground here now you can choose the
4:42settings of every single light in the
4:45detailed panel on the right hand side
4:47here so here we've got the transform tab
4:50we've got the mobility and the light
4:52setting so we can choose the intensity
4:54of the light like this we can choose the
4:57color of the light like so
5:00or alternatively you can shoose the
5:02color temperature by clicking on this by
5:04and making the light warmer or colder
5:08like that now you're going to see here
5:10we have a bit of a weird thing called
5:12mobility and you'll see we have static
5:14stationary and movable so Unreal Engine
5:17has two different lighting methods we've
5:20got baked or static lighting and we have
5:22Dynamic lighting now this tutorial is
5:25not going to cover baked lighting
5:26because baked lighting is a little bit
5:28more advanced there's way more moving
5:30Parts there's a lot more that can go
5:31wrong I myself prefer to use Dynamic
5:34lighting because what you see is what
5:35you get there's it just works very well
5:38out of the box it works extremely well
5:40with Lumen and it's actually way easier
5:43to use and is more beginner friendly if
5:45you are interested in baked lighting I
5:47do have a tutorial on baked lighting
5:49right here I'll put the link down below
5:51to like button so static and stationary
5:53lights are for baked lighting
5:55exclusively you may have seen this
5:58message over here before that's because
6:00your light is either set to static or
6:02stationary so to get rid of this message
6:05over here just set your lights to
6:06movable you'll also get better results
6:09some lights actually don't look right if
6:11you don't set up to movable the default
6:13is stationary so when you create a new
6:15light just switch it to movable right
6:17here to be safe so the next light we're
6:20going to talk about is the point light
6:23and the point light again does what the
6:25name implies it's a point of light very
6:27similar to a light bulb it emits light
6:30in all directions just like the
6:32direction of the light you can control
6:33the light color the intensity of the
6:35light here same thing next we have the
6:38spotlight and again the spotlight does
6:40what the name implies it is literally a
6:42cone that emits light in a spotlight
6:45fashion so if you want to have light
6:47being emitted in a conical pattern the
6:50spotlight is the way to do that you can
6:51control the shape of the light in the
6:53detailed panel of that Spotlight next we
6:57have the wrecked light here and this is
7:00possibly my favorite light of all time
7:03because the wreck light behaves the same
7:05way that a softbox does for any of you
7:07who are familiar with photography or
7:10film making soft boxes are what gives us
7:12very soft diffused lighting it is very
7:15appealing to use for portraits or any
7:18kind of cinematic work notice here how
7:20the Shadows are nice and soft and
7:21diffused whereas if I delete this and
7:23place a point light you'll see these
7:26Shadows are completely hard the reason
7:28for that is because because the wck
7:30light is a bigger light but we're going
7:31to get more into the specifics of that
7:33really soon so again the W light here
7:36gives us really nice soft Shadows looks
7:39absolutely fantastic and by increasing
7:41the intensity you'll see the Shadows get
7:43nice and soft as they move further away
7:45from the subject here you can change the
7:47size of the light like this by adjusting
7:49the source width and the source height
7:52to make a larger light source if we pay
7:55attention to my Chrome ball over here
7:57you'll see the reflection of the wrecked
8:00light show up and if I change the source
8:02width like this you'll see the shape of
8:05the light is actually changing in the
8:07reflection so that can be very handy to
8:09know about now the next light here is
8:12the Skylight but I'm not going to talk
8:14about that right now the Skylight is a
8:16bit of a can of worms it's a beast of
8:18its own and I've actually made a
8:21dedicated tutorial about the Skylight
8:23right here again I'll put the link down
8:25below we will be using the Skylight in
8:27this tutorial but in a different context
8:30now the last Light actor I want to show
8:32you is the hdri backdrop and if you
8:35don't see that here don't worry you just
8:38need to enable the plugin for it so
8:40we're going to go right here to the
8:41settings tab go to plugins and we're
8:44going to search for
8:46hdri and just enable this plugin restart
8:50the engine and it should show up in your
8:52list right here so the HD backdrop is
8:56awesome because by just dragg and
8:57dropping it here like like this and
9:00moving it up a little bit there we go
9:02now we have kind of a skylighting
9:04showing up and lighting our entire scene
9:06up very nicely and as a result it has an
9:10hdri projected on a dome here so if I
9:13select the sky here and press the F key
9:16you'll see the hdri is projected on the
9:18Dome if I were to change the cube map
9:20here in the details panel to something
9:23like ostrich Road 4K and going back here
9:27now we've got a nice overcast day feel
9:30very Misty cool little mountains and a
9:32road we can change the projection Center
9:35by clicking on the little Diamond here
9:37and lifting it or lowering it
9:40accordingly it's a really cool little
9:42tool to use but I wouldn't use this as
9:45my main source of light in my
9:46environments but it can give you a
9:48really good starting point we can also
9:51increase the intensity of this HD
9:53backdrop in the details panel right here
9:56so now that we have an understanding of
9:58all the light we can create I want to
10:00talk about lighting Basics and some of
10:03the most important things to know when
10:05it comes to lighting and that's Shadows
10:08so by deleting this right here I'm going
10:11to create another Point light right here
10:14if you remember just earlier when I
10:15showed you the wrecked light we had
10:17really soft Shadows that's because the
10:20light source was bigger but what if I
10:22told you that we can get soft Shadows
10:24with any of the other light actors that
10:27I just showed you so right here I've got
10:29my Point light selected and I'm going to
10:31zoom in here and you'll see in a
10:34detailed panel here we have Source
10:36radius if I start increasing this like
10:38that you'll notice a bit of a yellow
10:40Gizmo show up around it that is actually
10:44the size of our light so we can actually
10:47give it a shape and a size and as a
10:50result notice what happen to the Shadows
10:53the Shadows got soft if I make it
10:56smaller back to zero and make it larger
10:58notice my Shadows are getting softer
11:01this is what we call the shadow
11:03penumbra and basically it really boils
11:06down to the larger your light sources
11:09relative to your subject the softer your
11:11shadows will be this is the most
11:14important part of lighting understanding
11:16how to get soft Shadows understanding
11:19when Shadows should be soft is the most
11:23defining part of taking your lighting to
11:26the next level because when you have an
11:28understanding of how when and why
11:31Shadows are soft you're going to be
11:33looking at Lighting in a completely
11:35different way a classic example to
11:37demonstrate when Shadows are soft versus
11:40when they shouldn't be soft is to think
11:41about when you're walking in a parking
11:43lot in the middle of summer on a
11:45cloudless day the Shadows are very hard
11:47and sharp very harsh lighting but then
11:51you look at an overcast day and the
11:52Shadows are all soft and you might think
11:55that contradicts what I was just telling
11:57you the larger the light source Source
11:59the softer your shadows will be but the
12:01sun is the largest light source in our
12:04solar system so why would the Shadows be
12:06sharp and the reason for that is because
12:08while the sun is huge it is also
12:11extremely far away and as a result it's
12:13just a tiny little point in the sky but
12:16in overcast day however the entire Sky
12:20becomes our light source the light is
12:22diffused by the clouds and as a result
12:24that softens our shadows even though the
12:27sky is physically smaller than the sun
12:30the sky is closer to us and as a result
12:33it softens the Shadows so we can change
12:36the source radius on every single light
12:38except for the Skylight and the hdri
12:40backdrop so by deleting this light here
12:42and if I create a directional light here
12:44that's just the movable if I increase
12:46the source angle to something like 10
12:49you'll see my Shadows got soft and
12:52notice what happens in the reflection of
12:54our Chrome ball here this little white
12:56dot here is our sun if I select my
12:59directional light and change the source
13:00angle back to default it is much smaller
13:04and our shadows are sharp again make it
13:06larger so set the source angle back to
13:0910 and it softens our shadows this is
13:12the secret sauce this is the magical
13:14setting that can really help you take
13:16your lighting to the next level now with
13:19that said I want to take the time to
13:21show you the difference between the
13:23default Lumen virtual Shadow maps and
13:26retraced shadows so to demonstrate that
13:30I'm going to create a wrecked light here
13:32going to drag and drop in here like that
13:34and what I want you to pay attention to
13:36is the following so by zooming in here
13:38you'll see the Shadows are kind of sharp
13:41they're soft but they're also kind of
13:44sharp we get this odd bending we get
13:46this artifact here the same thing here
13:48we get a bit of a hard Edge there this
13:50is a limitation of virtual Shadow Maps
13:52you can't push the shadow penumbra that
13:55far before it starts falling apart
13:57that's where R Trace Shadows come in
13:59this is why I recommend using Hardware R
14:02tracing if you have it it will make a
14:04big difference so if I select my wed
14:06light here and search for Ray you'll see
14:11here I've got cast Ray tracing shadows
14:13I'm going to set this here and before I
14:16do pay attention to the quality of the
14:18Shadows right here so to enabled you'll
14:23see the Shadows got much softer much
14:26better no more ugly artifacts the
14:29Shadows are just better in every single
14:33way it's day and night it's no
14:35comparison to demonstrate this even
14:37further I'm going to rotate my light
14:39like
14:41this put it way above like this and make
14:45my light massive so I'm going to change
14:48my source width to something like 300 by
14:51300 and so now we got this really cool
14:55Moody top down look on our character
14:57here right the shadow are very soft and
15:00diffused the lighting actually looks
15:01pretty cool but if I select my Rec light
15:04here search for Ray and revert this back
15:08to default virtual Shadow
15:11Maps notice how now the Shadows are ugly
15:15again they really look terrible
15:18especially here we get this nasty harsh
15:21lines again I'm pushing the virtual
15:24Shadow maps to they're absolute limits
15:26here don't worry in most situations
15:29virtual Shadow maps are fine I just
15:31wanted to really demonstrate the
15:33difference between R trace and virtual
15:35Shadow Maps Okay so again if I set this
15:38back down
15:39to enabled we get this really really
15:42nice soft Shadows it looks a lot better
15:45you'll notice though that when you push
15:47it too far you'll see we got a lot of
15:49noise showing up here and I hope you can
15:51see this in the video but that's an easy
15:53fix in the search details panel we're
15:54going to search for sample and we're
15:57going to set the sample per pixel to
15:59four and as a result it cleaned right up
16:02everything looks a whole lot better this
16:04does have an impact on performance
16:06however so keep that in mind now you
16:09might be wondering why I have four
16:12random spheres of different colors here
16:15these spheres are there to help you
16:16gauge the exposure and lighting of a
16:18scene we've got a black one with an albo
16:21of
16:220.04 because no natural material out
16:25there is pure black coal has an albo of
16:2804 for so I'll be using that as my
16:30Baseline we've got a white one with an
16:32albo of
16:330.85 because the albo of fresh snow is
16:37about 0.8 to
16:390.9 no object or material out there
16:42reflects 100% of all the light
16:45everything absorbs at least a little bit
16:48of light so you don't want any material
16:50in your scene to have an albo value of
16:53one it's not physically possible and it
16:55will throw off your lighting then we
16:58have a great ball here with an albo of
17:010.18 which is actually the middle gray
17:06value you would think that the middle
17:08gray value between 0 and 1 is 0.5 right
17:1150% gray well not quite exposure is a
17:15bit more complicated than that and it is
17:18not linear this may seem
17:20counterintuitive but 18% gray is in fact
17:23the middle gray between black and white
17:26this gray ball helps you figure out
17:28theur cor exposure of a given scene at
17:32least it should give you a really good
17:34starting point then lastly we have a
17:37chrome ball which helps us see what is
17:39being reflected in the scene I recommend
17:41having these in your scene at all times
17:44when lighting they're really going to
17:46help you now one of the main advantages
17:49of using Lumen involves the ability to
17:51control the indirect lighting so to
17:53demonstrate this I've created an amazing
17:56looking house right here so by going
17:58inside side here we'll see we do have a
18:01little bit of indirect lighting coming
18:03in on the top here and a little bit on
18:05the side but it's not very much and
18:08fortunately we have three different ways
18:10to control the amount of indirect
18:13lighting using Lumen the first and
18:15easiest way is to select your light and
18:17increase the intensity of your light so
18:19let's say if I set this to 50 you'll see
18:22as a result we get way more indirect
18:24lighting coming inside here but you know
18:27it's still not very much
18:29the next thing we can do is again
18:32selecting our directional light and
18:34you'll see here we have indirect
18:36lighting intensity if I set this higher
18:39to something like five you'll see our
18:41indirect lighting has been accentuated
18:43quite a bit but that leaves us our third
18:47option and this is actually the option
18:50you should keep in mind most of the time
18:52when you're using Lumen the albo or the
18:56base color value directly contributes to
18:59the amount of light being bounced around
19:01so by selecting this wall right here and
19:04opening up the material itself you'll
19:06see this base color of this material has
19:08a value
19:10of8 as I increase this value the
19:13indirect lighting will be accentuated
19:16accordingly so if I set this to 0.
19:18five notice how now we have way way more
19:23indirect Lighting in our scene because
19:26like I said the base color is the the
19:28reflectance of our object so the
19:31brighter our object is the more it's
19:33going to reflect light this is the
19:35exactly how materials behave in real
19:38life so if you notice that your
19:39environment feels a little bit dark and
19:42the indirect lighting isn't really doing
19:44what you think it's supposed to be doing
19:46make sure your materials are not too
19:48dark this can help you get some extra
19:50indirect lighting for free basically
19:53without having to change any other light
19:56setting and alternatively if you want to
19:59reduce the amount of light being bounced
20:00around you can turn down the
20:03brightness like this and as a result
20:06very little light will be reflected this
20:09is very important to keep in mind when
20:11you're lighting your environment always
20:13pay attention to the base color or the
20:15albo value of your textures and your
20:18materials hey so future will chiming in
20:21here I just wanted to take a quick
20:22moment to talk about something I get a
20:24lot of questions about and that's in
20:26regards to very shiny reflective or
20:30metallic material so zooming in here on
20:32my Chrome ball here you'll see we get
20:35some Reflections but this doesn't really
20:38look like a chrome ball at all right
20:40because everything is black this doesn't
20:42feel very metallic and you might be
20:45wondering why the reason for that is
20:47because there's nothing to reflect in
20:49the scene you'll see we have a totally
20:51black empty blank scene and as a result
20:54metallic or reflective materials are not
20:56necessarily going to look right because
20:59shiny reflective materials are dependent
21:01on having something to reflect so a
21:04quick and easy way to get something to
21:06reflect in here is to add an hdri
21:09backdrop like we added
21:10earlier like this and you'll see right
21:13away we have our sky and our environment
21:15around it working just fine and the
21:18reason that's working is because this HT
21:20backdrop has a skylight actor in it so
21:23I'm going to delete this and I'm going
21:24to create a skylight I know I said I
21:27wasn't going to show you the sky light
21:28in this part of the video but in this
21:30case it is actually kind of important in
21:33the search details panel here we've got
21:35Source type we've got SLS captured scene
21:38and that's essentially going to
21:40basically create an hdri based on what
21:42is around the Skylight again I talk
21:45about that in my Skylight video right
21:46here but what we're going to set it to
21:48right now is SLS specified Cub map and
21:51this is basically where you load in an
21:54hdri and so contrary to the hdri
21:57backdrop the Skylight is not going to
22:00create an actual Dome around you this is
22:02only going to light your scene with an
22:05hdri so in the cube map section right
22:07here I'm going to select none and just
22:10load in whatever Cube map that is
22:12already loaded you can import any HD you
22:15want a great place to find these is by
22:17going to poly haven.com they have a huge
22:20library of free HD to choose from so
22:23great resource right there I'm going to
22:26use the HD Forest right here and you'll
22:29see now we have our forest HD in here
22:33now you'll see the bottom of the Horizon
22:35is totally black and that's because in
22:37the Skylight if we scroll
22:39down in the advanced tab we have lower
22:43hemisphere is solid color I'm going to
22:45turn this off and now you'll see if I
22:48hide this plane here we now have our HD
22:52affecting our Chrome ball the way we
22:54would expect so that is how you can get
22:56reflective or metallic material
22:59to kind of render correctly so to speak
23:02again reflective materials are dependent
23:05on having something to reflect and if
23:07there's nothing there they're not going
23:08to reflect anything So Pro tip and with
23:12that said let's go back to pest will now
23:15one last thing I want to show you before
23:16we start lighting our environment that's
23:19emissive materials so I'm going to
23:21create what we call an emissive material
23:24because Lumen actually allows emissive
23:27materials glob materials to emit light
23:30as I'll demonstrate right here so we're
23:32going to right click in our content
23:34browser create a new material I'm going
23:36to call this emissive 01 I'm going to
23:39open this material up and I'm going to
23:40create three
23:42nodes I'm going to press and hold the
23:44one key and click press and hold the
23:47three key and click and press and hold
23:50the m key and click I'm going to select
23:53these two nodes right click convert to
23:56parameter and I'm going to call call
23:58this one light
24:01color and I'm going to call this
24:04one light intensity I'm going to plug
24:08light intensity into B of the multiply
24:11node and plug the light color into the a
24:14of the multiply node and plug the
24:16multiply into emissive color I'm going
24:19to set the light intensity to something
24:21like
24:22100 and set the light color to something
24:25ridiculous like a bright flashy orange
24:28or something like that and hit
24:32okay now we're going to hit save I'm
24:35going to make this window smaller and
24:37I'm going to apply this material to one
24:40of our spheres
24:42here like this and if I hide this
24:44wrecked light you'll see this emissive
24:47material is actually casting light it is
24:50actually casting
24:51shadows and this is awesome because it
24:55can help give your environment a little
24:57bit of oomph but don't want to rely on
24:59this too heavily because if I zoom out
25:01here you'll see a if I zoom out too far
25:04the light disappears and you'll also
25:06notice that the light itself is very
25:08noisy and splotchy so like I said you
25:10don't want to have your entire scene
25:13being lit exclusively with emissive
25:15materials it's not going to look very
25:17good but I still wanted to take the time
25:19to show you that this does work so now
25:23that we have an understanding of how the
25:25lights work how to bend and shape the
25:28the light the way we want now we're
25:30ready to get started and light this
25:32entire scene here from scratch so I'm
25:35going to go ahead I'm going to delete
25:36all of these lights and start off with a
25:38completely blank slate and you'll see
25:41it's a whole lot easier than you might
25:42think so I'm going to be using the mega
25:45scans abandoned Apartment scene that you
25:47can find for free on the Epic
25:50Marketplace so go ahead and download
25:52that if you want to follow along now
25:54before we get started I want to do a
25:56little segue into explaining that Lumen
26:00works a lot better with nanite meshes
26:02performance- wise you're going to get
26:04much better frame rates if you convert
26:06as many meshes to nanite as possible
26:09I've made a dedicated video on nanite
26:11right here so you can check that out if
26:13you're so inclined but if I go here to
26:15LIT go to Nite visualization triangles
26:18you'll see everything that has a
26:20colorful triangle on it is actually a
26:22nanite mesh this project here the mega
26:25scan the Benton apartment scene does not
26:27have manite turned on by default so what
26:30I did is in the content browser I
26:33filtered by Static mesh and I selected
26:36the static measure I wanted to
26:37convert right clicked nanite
26:41enable again I don't want to dive too
26:43deep into the advanced settings here
26:45because this is a beginner tutorial but
26:47still I wanted to point you in the right
26:49direction so with that little segue done
26:52I'm going to delete all of the lights in
26:54our scene here and start off from Total
26:58scratch and just so you know this
27:00environment here has a Skybox in the
27:02scene we can delete that for now we're
27:04not going to need it so if you're like
27:06me and you've deleted your lights and
27:08you still have some lights in here as in
27:12it's not totally black like I had it the
27:14reason for that is because there is
27:16still some baked lighting information in
27:18the scene we're going to click on the
27:20settings tab up top here go to world
27:23settings and we're going to search for
27:25force and we want to click on Force no
27:28pre-computed lighting click on this hit
27:32okay and now we just need to go to the
27:34build button up top here and click on
27:36build lighting only and now once you do
27:39that all of your lights will be
27:41completely gone there are no more lights
27:44no Bak lighting information and we're
27:46ready to go so now you'll see we have a
27:48completely dark scene and what we're
27:50going to do now is use unreal's most
27:53underrated tool the environment light
27:56mixer so going to window
27:59EnV light mixer and we have a new tab
28:02showing up here and what we're going to
28:04do if we're going to create Skylight
28:07create atmospheric light zero create Sky
28:10atmosphere create volumetric cloud and
28:13create height fog you'll see uh okay we
28:16have something here but if we move to
28:18camera outside you'll see we now have an
28:21entire atmosphere Sky system done for us
28:25with just a few clicks if I press and
28:27hold a control L shortcut and move my
28:30mouse you'll see the sun moves in our
28:32Sky the clouds react accordingly and our
28:36Sky changes color based on the position
28:38of the sun in the
28:40sky this is such an amazing tool and I
28:44use this every single time I start a new
28:47project hands down every time doesn't
28:50matter if I'm making an exterior
28:51environment or an interior environment
28:54this provides you a fantastic starting
28:57point so I hope wholeheartedly recommend
28:59that you use this moving forward if
29:01you're working on an exterior
29:03environment this gets you 90% of the way
29:06there on the first try so now we're
29:08going to go down here back into our
29:10scene I'm going to use the control L
29:11shortcut to get the sun shining in a
29:14rough angle that I want it to so
29:16something like that but you'll notice
29:18that depending on where you're looking
29:21where you're pointing to camera to now
29:23you'll see the interior of our scene got
29:25a bit brighter but as I move the camera
29:27this way
29:29oh everything gets dark again the reason
29:31for that is because of Auto exposure and
29:34the next step is to actually turn off
29:37auto exposure because that's really
29:38annoying and I don't like that I don't
29:40want unreal to automatically adjust the
29:42brightness of my scene for me no bad dog
29:45so what we're going to do is we're going
29:47to create a postprocess volume and this
29:50is quite possibly one of the most
29:52important Tools in your scene the
29:55post-process volume is where you control
29:57the exposure if you're scene some camera
29:59settings the all the Lumen quality
30:02settings your ray tracing settings so
30:03you need to have a postprocess volume in
30:06your scene just so you know I will call
30:08this the ppv moving forward it's easier
30:10to say so now in the place actors tab
30:14I'm going to search for post and dragon
30:17drop a post process volume in my scene
30:19like this the actual position of the ppv
30:23does not matter because in the search
30:26details panel here we're we're going to
30:28search for
30:29Unbound and set the infinite extent
30:31Unbound on this means that the
30:34postprocess volume is going to affect
30:36the entire scene regardless of where it
30:39is in the level by the way Pro tip if
30:41you want to hide these icons here you
30:44can press the G shortcut now we need to
30:47select our ppv and search for exp short
30:51for
30:52exposure and this is where we're going
30:54to disable auto exposure so now we need
30:57to change a few things metering mode
31:00we're going to set this to manual and
31:02now you'll see it goes totally black
31:04that's fine don't worry next we need to
31:06check apply physical camera exposure and
31:09turn this off so now this is how you can
31:13easily disable auto exposure because now
31:16regardless of where the camera is
31:17looking it's not getting brighter and
31:20that's good we we don't want unreal to
31:22do that for us but you know it it's way
31:25too dark obviously like it doesn't look
31:27like Lumin doing anything for us why is
31:29that and you'll see that the sky is
31:32actually well exposed right the sky
31:34looks great it's fantastic and you might
31:36think that's weird but this is exactly
31:39how cameras behave in real life and
31:41looking at this example here if you've
31:42ever been inside and you try to take a
31:44photo of something outside if you expose
31:47for the outside the inside of your house
31:49or your apartment or whatever will be
31:51completely underexposed alternatively if
31:54you try to expose for something inside
31:57the windows will be completely blown out
31:59Overexposed way too bright this is how
32:02cameras behave in real life because
32:05cameras don't really have the dynamic
32:07range to capture both the very very
32:09bright areas and the very very dark
32:11areas okay so understanding exposure is
32:16really important as a lighter I cannot
32:19stress this enough it's so important and
32:21so I'm going to demonstrate how we can
32:23drastically change the look of the scene
32:25with one slider you do not need to go
32:28ahead and select your directional light
32:31and you know increase the brightness yes
32:33that will work like that but we don't
32:35need to do that because then it kind of
32:37throws off the brightness of all the
32:38other lights if you have multiple light
32:39systems in your scene I'm going to leave
32:42everything at default and all I'm going
32:44to change is in the post process volume
32:48change the exposure compensation slider
32:51here and I'm going to increase this
32:54slowly you'll see now this is before and
32:59this is after by adjusting one little
33:01exposure slider we haven't changed any
33:04default settings of any of our lights it
33:07just works really well just like that
33:10and now we have Lumen doing all the hard
33:12work for us by lighting up the rest of
33:14the apartment with indirect lighting see
33:17here the light is kind of shining
33:18through the door hitting here and
33:20bouncing up and lighting up the rest of
33:22our scene it's fantastic and if I hold
33:25the control L shortcut you'll see the
33:28lighting changes
33:29drastically as the sun changes that is
33:33the beauty of lumen Lumen makes lighting
33:37so much easier with just a few clicks
33:39using the environment light mixer and
33:41adjusting the exposure
33:43compensation we got our scene in a very
33:46good place I would say we're about 85 to
33:4990% done already but they're still one
33:53or two more things we can do to really
33:54push this scene to the next level and
33:57what we're going to do now is we're
33:59going to select our exponential height
34:01fog scroll
34:03down and we're going to turn on
34:05volumetric fog because I want to have
34:07some God Ray shining through here and
34:10I'm not a huge fan of like the bluish
34:12tint that the fog has here switching
34:14this to volumetric fog is going to fix
34:16that for us so by clicking here you'll
34:19see now we got rid of the bluish ugly
34:22tint and we got a bit more God Ray
34:25shining through you'll see the god rays
34:26are not very visible though
34:28so we can go accentuate those very
34:30easily by selecting our directional
34:33light and scrolling down and we see here
34:36we have the volumetric scattering
34:38intensity I'm going to set that to 10 to
34:40really exaggerate it for effect and
34:43you'll see now we have God Rays shining
34:46through our Windows thanks to volumetric
34:49fog so you'll see environment light
34:52mixer exposure compensation volumetric
34:55fog and we've gotten our Rene in a very
34:58good place as I rotate the Sun the fog
35:00is going to update automatically it is
35:03frankly ridiculous how easy it is to get
35:05the scene looking so good so quickly now
35:07I do want to show you a Nifty little way
35:09to Art direct the volumetric fog a
35:11little bit if I zoom in here and you'll
35:14see the volumetric fog invisible from
35:16the side right what we can do is we can
35:18change the way that the volumetric fog
35:20behaves and how it looks by clicking on
35:22the exponential he fog actor here
35:24scrolling down to the volumetric fog
35:26section and we're going to change the
35:28scattering in distribution value to
35:30something like .9 and your first
35:33reaction may be oh no we lost our God
35:35rays but not quite they're just visible
35:38differently if I move the camera to have
35:41it looking up towards the light like
35:43this you'll see it's a very dreamy light
35:45shaft shining through here depending on
35:48your shot this can absolutely be the
35:49result you want to go for if I were to
35:52revert this back to default settings
35:54which is 0.2 right here you'll
35:58see it's similar but it's not quite the
36:02same look right
36:04again9 it's a little bit more of a a
36:07slightly dreamier look there's no right
36:10or wrong answer here this is purely an
36:12art Direction setting this allows you to
36:15get full control over the look of the
36:17shot you're going for but for now I'm
36:19going to leave it back at default
36:20settings right here because I do like
36:23the god Rays being visible from the side
36:25like that now while we're here you may
36:27notice that we have a little bit of
36:28flickering up here sometimes in some of
36:30the indirect lighting areas we get a bit
36:32of jitteriness I hope you can see that
36:34in the video it's not always very
36:36obvious but hopefully it just gets the
36:38point across there's a few things we can
36:40do to fix that or at least make it a
36:43little bit less noticeable so we're
36:45going to go into our
36:47ppv in a search details panel we're
36:49going to search for Lumen and the
36:52setting we want to change here are the
36:54Lumen scene lighting quality final
36:57gather quality
36:58and the final gather lighting update
37:00speed I'm going to set this to
37:02two set this to two as well and set this
37:05to
37:060.5 and now hopefully you can see the
37:09jitteriness is not quite as apparent
37:12it's still kind of there but it is a lot
37:15better than it was if I revert this back
37:17to
37:19default you'll see it's definitely a
37:22little bit worse so using these values
37:24can definitely help your scene Jitter a
37:26little bit less
37:28this may not be the finest example but I
37:30hope it gets the point across so here
37:32I'm going to show you real quick how to
37:34utilize the four spheres I talked about
37:36earlier in the video by placing them
37:38right here you'll see this gives us a
37:40pretty good indication of what the
37:42exposure of the scene is at and what the
37:45brightest and darkest materials are
37:47looking like so you'll see we can
37:50clearly tell the shape of every single
37:52one of these spheres that tells us that
37:54this scene is pretty well exposed if for
37:57example I select my postprocess volume
37:59and underexpose a little bit something
38:01like that this part of the scene might
38:03seem fine but looking at the black
38:06sphere here it almost disappears in the
38:09shadows that tells us that our scene is
38:11a bit underexposed anything that has a
38:14very dark material will just be clipped
38:16and may disappear conversely if I were
38:19to overexpose the scene a little bit
38:21something like that this might seem
38:24great looking at this hallway here this
38:26might seem really good
38:28but we can kind of tell that we've lost
38:30some detail in our white sphere here
38:32it's not an exact science these spheres
38:35are really there to just guide you more
38:37than anything else so going back to the
38:39exposure that it was before you'll see
38:42now all of our materials are kind of in
38:44a good place but neither one is so
38:46extreme that we lose detail in the
38:48highlights nor do we lose detail in the
38:51shadows that is how these can really
38:53help you especially the Chrome ball the
38:55Chrome ball should always feel feel
38:57pretty well integrated in the scene it
38:59should accurately reflect whatever is
39:02around it if you're noticing some weird
39:04highlights or some weird light shining
39:06on it you'll know right away what's
39:07causing it so now that we set up a very
39:10quick and easy daylight system like this
39:13this is all fine and great but what if
39:15we wanted a totally different mood right
39:17so this is kind of a very dreamy late
39:20afternoon type of feel but what if we
39:22wanted to make this scene a gloomy dark
39:26overcast day a feel how would we do that
39:30again we're going to select all of our
39:32lights and start from scratch I'm going
39:34to select everything except for the ppv
39:37and the fog because I want to keep both
39:39of those again now we have a totally
39:42dark scene to work with what we're going
39:44to do now we're going to create the hdri
39:47backdrop and drag and drop it into the
39:50scene like this I'm got to move it down
39:52a little bit
39:53lower and just like that I mean
39:57literally one
39:58click we're in a pretty good place
40:01already it's not perfect but as you can
40:04see the H backdrop did a whole lot of
40:07work for us right we got some nice soft
40:09lighting coming through the door here
40:11nice light coming in through the opening
40:13in the wall it looks really good now
40:16again we're only about 80% done there's
40:19still one or two more things we can do
40:21here to really make this okay so as
40:24you'll see right here in this video we
40:25got a whole lot of Jitter in here and
40:28that's again usually due to the fact
40:30that it's only indirect lighting so
40:33we're going to add a bit of direct
40:34lighting to help with that and what
40:36we're going to do is I'm going to go
40:38create a new wrecked light right
40:41here going to move this up like that
40:44move it
40:46outside rotate it towards
40:49us and I'm going to make it much larger
40:52so something like 200 by 200 like that
40:57so like this and maybe I'm going to make
40:59it a little bit it's a little bit bright
41:01now so I'm going to make it a little bit
41:04darker scroll down set the intensity to
41:07one or two so this is with it off and
41:10this is with that two you'll notice the
41:13W light really gave us a bit more of
41:15those specular highlights those little
41:17pings on the leaves it helped make
41:20things pop a little bit more so again if
41:22I just toggle this light on and off it's
41:25subtle but it makes a difference having
41:27these spheres in the level is very
41:29helpful and tells us that our scene is
41:32pretty well exposed the black material
41:34is pretty dark but not so black that we
41:37lost any and all detail on it and the
41:39white sphere here is also bright but the
41:43highlights are not completely clipped
41:44either the gray ball tells us that
41:46that's the midpoint and the Chrome ball
41:48as always accurately reflects whatever
41:51is in the level now if you remember back
41:54in the lighting basics part of this
41:56tutorial I use Ray Trace Shadows to get
41:59some better Shadow detail and I'm going
42:00to do the same thing here so by
42:02selecting this light here search for Ray
42:05and I'm going to turn R tray Shadows
42:09on everything gets a little bit softer a
42:12little bit better just before and after
42:15before and after it does soften things
42:19quite a bit so now I'm going to go ahead
42:21and do the same thing to this window
42:23here by selecting my light press and
42:25hold the ALT key and drag to duplicate
42:29the light I'm G to move it here rotate
42:32it like that and I'm going to make the
42:34light a bit smaller revert it to a
42:36default size and kind of find a nice
42:39point for it something
42:41like something like that I think looks
42:44pretty good it's nice to get that extra
42:46little bit of light coming in from the
42:48side here it looks pretty good and now
42:50I'll do it one more time for the door
42:53over here just to get a little bit more
42:55light coming through the doorway here
42:57press and hold the ALT key
43:00drag and I'm going to move this light
43:03right over here just outside our door of
43:06our scene
43:07here like that go into the hallway and
43:11see how this
43:12looks let's say something like that
43:15there we go before and after I may
43:19actually make this light a bit darker
43:20because it's a bit strong here for my
43:22taste so maybe a brightness of one this
43:24is off and this is one so just just a
43:27little bit any just a little bit
43:29helps there we go and now just to get a
43:32bit more mood in here I'm going to
43:35select this light and I'm going to set
43:37the volumetric scattering intensity to
43:39something crazy like
43:40100 this may be too much 50 20 so this
43:46is off and this is 20 I just want to add
43:49a little bit of haze just to add a tiny
43:52little bit of localized fog right here
43:55just a little bit to help give our scene
43:58a little bit of oomph here and just like
44:00that with two or three Rec lights with
44:04one HD backdrop we've got our overcast
44:07scene looking pretty good it's in a very
44:10good place right now and that's what I
44:12mean lighting doesn't have to be
44:14complicated you just need to know about
44:16the tools that are available to you it's
44:18really as simple as that and that's it
44:20guys you've learned everything you need
44:22to know to get started with Lighting in
44:24Unreal Engine so guys I know this was a
44:26long one
44:27most of my videos have been really long
44:29lately I'm not sure what the deal is
44:30with that but hey it is what it is I
44:33hope you found this video helpful and if
44:34you did do consider subscribing and
44:36giving it the old thumbs up thank you so
44:38much for watching and as
44:40always happy rendering

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