UE4 Directional Lights

Unreal Engine 4.9

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Types of Lights

The Directional Light simulates light that is being emitted from a source that is infinitely far away. This means that all shadows cast by this light will be parallel, making this the ideal choice for simulating sunlight. The Directional Light when placed can be set to one of three Mobilitysettings:

Static - (pictured left) which means that the light cannot be changed in game. This is the fastest method for rendering and allows for baked lighting.

Stationary - (also pictured left) which means the light will only have its shadowing and bounced lighting from static geometry baked by Lightmass, all other lighting will be dynamic. This setting also allows for the light to change color and intensity in game, but, it does not move and allows partial baked lighting.

Moveable - (pictured left) which means the light is totally dynamic and allows for dynamic shadowing. This is the slowest in terms of rendering but allows for the most flexibility during gameplay.

Below you will see a representation of sunlight being cast through an opening in a roof.

Directional Light

Directional Light Shadow Frustum

The left image shows just the light, the right image has its Shadow Frustum enabled in order to see that the Directional Light is casting parallel light rays.

Light Direction (pictured left) is indicated by an arrow that points in the direction the light will emit which is useful for placing and orientating your light as needed.

Directional Light Properties

The properties of a Directional Light are broken up into 5 categories: Light, Light Shafts, Lightmass, Light Function and Cascaded Shadow Maps:

Light

Property	Description
Intensity	Total energy that the light emits.
Light Color	The color that the light emits.
Used As Atmosphere Sun Light	Uses this Directional Light to define the location of the sun in the sky.
Affects World	Disables the light completely. Cannot be set at run time. To disable a light's effect during runtime, change its Visibility property.
Casts Shadows	If the light casts shadows.
Indirect Lighting Intensity	Scales the indirect lighting contribution from the light.
Min Roughness	Min roughness effective for this light, used for softening specular highlights.
Shadow Bias	Controls how accurate the shadows from this light are.
Shadow Filter Sharpen	How much to sharpen shadow filtering for this light.
Cast Translucent Shadows	Whether this light is allowed to cast dynamic shadows through translucent objects.
Affect Dynamic Indirect Lighting	Whether the light should be injected into the Light Propagation Volume.
Cast Static Shadows	Whether this light casts static shadows.
Cast Dynamic Shadows	Whether this light casts dynamic shadows.
Affect Translucent Lighting	Whether the light affects translucency or not.

Light Shafts

Property	Description
Enable Light Shaft Occlusion	Whether to occlude fog and atmosphere inter scattering with the screen space blurred occlusion from this light.
Occlusion Mask Darkness	How dark the occlusion masking is, a value of 1 is no darkening.
Occlusion Depth Range	Everything close to the camera than this distance will occlude the light shafts.
Enable Light Shaft Bloom	Whether to render light shaft bloom for this light.
Bloom Scale	Scales the additive bloom color.
Bloom Threshold	Scene color must be larger than this to create bloom in the light shafts.
Bloom Tint	What color to tint the bloom coming from the light shafts.
Light Shaft Override Direction	Can be used to make the light shafts come from somewhere other than the light's actually direction.

Lightmass

Property	Description
Light Source Angle	Angle that the directional light's emissive surface extends relative to a receiver, affects penumbra sizes.
Indirect Lighting Saturation	A value of 0 will completely desaturate this light in Lightmass, 1 will be unchanged.
Shadow Exponent	Controls the falloff of shadow penumbras.

Light Function

Property	Description
Light Function Material	The light function material to be applied to this light.
Light Function Scale	Scales the light function projection.
Light Function Fade Distance	The distance at which the light function should be completely faded to the value in Disabled Brightness.
Disabled Brightness	Brightness factor applied to the light when the light function is specified but disabled, say from the property above: Light Function Fade Distance.

Cascaded Shadow Maps

Property	Description
Dynamic Shadow Distance MovableLight	How far Cascaded Shadow Map dynamic shadows will cover for a movable light, measured from the camera.
Dynamic Shadow Distance StationaryLight	How far Cascaded Shadow Map dynamic shadows will cover for a stationary light, measured from the camera.
Num Dynamic Shadow Cascades	Number of cascades to split the view frustum into for the whole scene.
Cascade Distribution Exponent	Controls whether the cascades are distributed closer to the camera (larget exponent) or further from the camera (smaller exponent).
Cascade Transition Fraction	Proportion of the fade region between cascades.
Shadow Distance Fadeout Fraction	Controls the size of the fade out region at the far extent of the dynamic shadow's influence.
Use Inset Shadows for Movable Objects	(Stationary lights only) Whether to use per-object inset shadows for movable components, even though cascaded shadow maps are enabled.

Unreal Engine 4.9

• SHARE:

Types of Lights

The Directional Light simulates light that is being emitted from a source that is infinitely far away. This means that all shadows cast by this light will be parallel, making this the ideal choice for simulating sunlight. The Directional Light when placed can be set to one of three Mobilitysettings:

Static - (pictured left) which means that the light cannot be changed in game. This is the fastest method for rendering and allows for baked lighting.

Stationary - (also pictured left) which means the light will only have its shadowing and bounced lighting from static geometry baked by Lightmass, all other lighting will be dynamic. This setting also allows for the light to change color and intensity in game, but, it does not move and allows partial baked lighting.

Moveable - (pictured left) which means the light is totally dynamic and allows for dynamic shadowing. This is the slowest in terms of rendering but allows for the most flexibility during gameplay.

Below you will see a representation of sunlight being cast through an opening in a roof.

Directional Light

Directional Light Shadow Frustum

The left image shows just the light, the right image has its Shadow Frustum enabled in order to see that the Directional Light is casting parallel light rays.

Light Direction (pictured left) is indicated by an arrow that points in the direction the light will emit which is useful for placing and orientating your light as needed.

Directional Light Properties

The properties of a Directional Light are broken up into 5 categories: Light, Light Shafts, Lightmass, Light Function and Cascaded Shadow Maps:

Light

Property	Description
Intensity	Total energy that the light emits.
Light Color	The color that the light emits.
Used As Atmosphere Sun Light	Uses this Directional Light to define the location of the sun in the sky.
Affects World	Disables the light completely. Cannot be set at run time. To disable a light's effect during runtime, change its Visibility property.
Casts Shadows	If the light casts shadows.
Indirect Lighting Intensity	Scales the indirect lighting contribution from the light.
Min Roughness	Min roughness effective for this light, used for softening specular highlights.
Shadow Bias	Controls how accurate the shadows from this light are.
Shadow Filter Sharpen	How much to sharpen shadow filtering for this light.
Cast Translucent Shadows	Whether this light is allowed to cast dynamic shadows through translucent objects.
Affect Dynamic Indirect Lighting	Whether the light should be injected into the Light Propagation Volume.
Cast Static Shadows	Whether this light casts static shadows.
Cast Dynamic Shadows	Whether this light casts dynamic shadows.
Affect Translucent Lighting	Whether the light affects translucency or not.

Light Shafts

Property	Description
Enable Light Shaft Occlusion	Whether to occlude fog and atmosphere inter scattering with the screen space blurred occlusion from this light.
Occlusion Mask Darkness	How dark the occlusion masking is, a value of 1 is no darkening.
Occlusion Depth Range	Everything close to the camera than this distance will occlude the light shafts.
Enable Light Shaft Bloom	Whether to render light shaft bloom for this light.
Bloom Scale	Scales the additive bloom color.
Bloom Threshold	Scene color must be larger than this to create bloom in the light shafts.
Bloom Tint	What color to tint the bloom coming from the light shafts.
Light Shaft Override Direction	Can be used to make the light shafts come from somewhere other than the light's actually direction.

Lightmass

Property	Description
Light Source Angle	Angle that the directional light's emissive surface extends relative to a receiver, affects penumbra sizes.
Indirect Lighting Saturation	A value of 0 will completely desaturate this light in Lightmass, 1 will be unchanged.
Shadow Exponent	Controls the falloff of shadow penumbras.

Light Function

Property	Description
Light Function Material	The light function material to be applied to this light.
Light Function Scale	Scales the light function projection.
Light Function Fade Distance	The distance at which the light function should be completely faded to the value in Disabled Brightness.
Disabled Brightness	Brightness factor applied to the light when the light function is specified but disabled, say from the property above: Light Function Fade Distance.

Cascaded Shadow Maps

Property	Description
Dynamic Shadow Distance MovableLight	How far Cascaded Shadow Map dynamic shadows will cover for a movable light, measured from the camera.
Dynamic Shadow Distance StationaryLight	How far Cascaded Shadow Map dynamic shadows will cover for a stationary light, measured from the camera.
Num Dynamic Shadow Cascades	Number of cascades to split the view frustum into for the whole scene.
Cascade Distribution Exponent	Controls whether the cascades are distributed closer to the camera (larget exponent) or further from the camera (smaller exponent).
Cascade Transition Fraction	Proportion of the fade region between cascades.
Shadow Distance Fadeout Fraction	Controls the size of the fade out region at the far extent of the dynamic shadow's influence.
Use Inset Shadows for Movable Objects	(Stationary lights only) Whether to use per-object inset shadows for movable components, even though cascaded shadow maps are enabled.