Week 08: Stationary lighting, Vistas

Landscapes/Vistas

For the extra stuff about landscapes, I advise you to look back at the stream. You will understand it better there. Some pointers about landscapes:

Make sure that your grass is the same color as your landscape so it nicely blends.

You can use the ‘VertexNormalWS’-node to procedurally take control of what layer should show where.

Keep in mind: the more you do in your shader, the more complex → this can impact your performance.

Turn off ‘Cast shadows’ where you can.

Use billboards for far away.

We can fake light coming in through the clouds by using a light function. => Keep in mind: to use light functions, your light needs to be set to moveable.

Stationary lighting

Documentation:

https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/LightingAndShadows/LightMobility/StationaryLights/⁠

⁠

It will bake light on static meshes, and will cast dynamic light on movable meshes. Stationary lighting, is next to static lighting, a performant way of lighting. Especially when you have lower end hardware (for ex. mobile games, Switch, VR games) this can be very useful. Some pointers regarding stationary:

You need to bake the light with CPU, GPU lightbaking is not supported by stationary lights.

You need to set GI to ‘None’ when you work with stationary lights.

When to use what type of lighting?

STATIC LIGHTING:

Intensity doesn’t change at runtime

Color doesn’t change at runtime

Location/angle doesn’t change at runtime

No need for dynamic shadows/reflections

STATIONARY LIGHTING:

Location/angle doesn’t change

Intensity/Color DOES change

You want/need dynamic shadows and dynamic reflections

MOVABLE LIGHTING:

If the location/angle also changes

EXCEPTIONS

Can be better to use movable lights for big landscapes and turn off shadows.

Don’t bake light on foliage, gives you too much issues. (Volumetric lightmap)

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