Removing Lightmaps
In Unreal Engine 5, Epic Games introduced Lumen, a fully dynamic global illumination and reflection system. Prior to this, the precomputed (or “baked”) lighting method was used, where the light and shadow information was permanently “baked” onto the surface of 3D objects, thus moving the lights or changing their color and intensity would not have any effect. The only way was to re-bake the lights, which would usually take anything from minutes to hours, depending on the complexity of the scene. With Lumen, all light properties and positions are changeable in real time. This is an absolute game-changer!
To take advantage of the Lumen real-time lighting, we will need to ensure that we remove all remnants (if any) of baked lights in the scene. Here’s how to do so:
- Go to the Window drop-down menu and select World Settings.
Figure 4.16: Opening the World Settings panel
- In the World Settings...
