Lighting systems
One of the main challenges in game engine development has always been rendering global illumination (GI) through lighting. Over the years, several solutions have been developed. Today, there are two primary approaches to lighting in Unreal Engine 5:
- Dynamic (real-time) lights: Real-time lights calculate GI using different algorithms
- Baked lights: They incorporate lighting into textures called lightmaps through a process called light building
Both lighting types can be further subdivided into different sub-categories.
Dynamic (real time)
This includes the following systems:
- Lumen: Unreal Engine 5’s new fully dynamic GI and reflections system works by using voxel-based cone tracing to calculate indirect lighting in real time. It’s the main light system we will be using.
- Path Tracer: A progressive hardware-accelerated rendering mode that utilizes ray-tracing architecture built into Unreal Engine. It offers physically...
