UE5 Environment Lighting Tutorial (Part 1): First Pass & Fundamentals

Welcome to this two-part lighting tutorial for Unreal Engine 5.

I'm going to be using an environment called Spectrum Galaxy, but the principles apply to any other environment that you would like to work with.

Before we start, I want to walk you through the environment so you become familiar with the spaces that we're going to be lighting.

This modern lab area is good practice for lighting something that's completely enclosed.

The workspaces and lounge area are good places to practice with different colors.

They contain decorative elements that are good opportunities to create focal points with lighting.

Right now we're looking at the daytime version of this map, but for the tutorial I want to focus on creating nighttime lighting.

As you can see here, this command center area is partially open to the sky.

The Grand Hall is a very open space, so we're going to be using sunlight primarily to light it.

And finally we're lighting the suites gallery, which is similar to a hotel corridor with panoramic views.

This environment is available in the Unreal Engine marketplace.

It contains hundreds of modular pieces, IES profiles for lighting, PBR shaders, lens flares, and more.

First, I want to show you the settings that I'm using for the post-process volume.

These settings are already set on the included maps, but feel free to pause the video if you would like to copy any of these settings.

I set the bloom method to convolution as it creates a very nice reflection on the floor.

The exposure curve that I'm using here comes installed with the Unreal Engine.

If you don't wish to use it I will recommend setting the exposure compensation to 1 instead of 0.

Here I'm using the film settings to remove some of the contrast.

I'm gonna turn it on and off so you can compare.

Doing this will allow us to have more control over the contrast with the lighting.

These lumen settings are not turned on by default in the project. You would need to check mark them to use the high quality settings that I'm using here.

Ultimately, I would recommend you to use the settings that work best for your system.

Here I'm going to do a quick comparison between hardware and software ray tracing on this specific scene.

As you can see here when I toggle it on and off, the reflections change but the lighting stays the same.

And finally I have Extend Luminance Range turned on.

We're going to be working with another map that is included is called Galaxy Simple Unlit.

This is a version of the map that doesn't have any lighting, blueprints, or cinematics.

To get started we need to add a directional light and a skylight. The lighting that you are seeing on the ceiling comes from the emissive materials, we're going to be changing those later on in the tutorial.

Now we're going to add a height fog, volumetric clouds and a sky atmosphere.

The volumetric clouds are using a material instance that is installed with the Unreal Engine.

Feel free to make a copy if you would like to experiment with its settings.

In this environment, I included two versions of this material that already have unique settings.

I'm going to go ahead and apply one of them and show you how it looks like.

It essentially lowers the density, tweaks the colors and shape of the clouds.

I'm going to leave the night version of this material as I want less clouds in the sky in this nighttime scene.

We're going to start by adjusting the directional light. I went ahead and moved it to the Grand Hall area as this is the space that is affected mostly by the sun.

I'm going to rotate it so the sun is visible through the windows and you get long shadows for an added dramatic effect.

I'm thinking of keeping this angle here. I like the way the foliage is highlighted and the reflections on the floor.

Here we can see that the bloom being set to convolution adds a very unique glow on the floor.

I adjusted the temperature to be cool for this nighttime scene.