Baked Lighting

Light Baking & Reflections

• Static Lighting Effects

• Preview word shows on unbaked lighting
• Baked lights cannot move/update without rebaking

• Light Mass Building

• Build menu > Lighting

  Control+Shift+; hotkey Quality levels:

  • Preview (fastest)
  • Medium
  • High
  • Production (most expensive)

  Uses Swarm agent for computation

• Importance Volume

• Required for good results
• “Directs where light rays concentrate”
• Settings found in world settings:

  Controls bounce count Indirect lighting quality

• Force no pre-computed lighting must be disabled

• UV Requirements

• Each mesh needs lightmap UV
• Low resolution = poor lighting display
• Large floors need cast shadows disabled

  “Prevents performance hits”

• Reflection System

• UE5 handles differently than UE4
• Sphere Reflection Capture needed

  Place in Visual Effects menu Projects lighting info back to actors “Fixes black metallic materials”

• Modern Recommendations

• “Do not use lightmass”
• Use GPU lightmass instead

  Enhanced version Much faster Better for future projects

Baked lighting requires careful setup with importance volumes and reflection captures for proper results. While lightmass works, GPU lightmass is recommended for modern development needs.