You’re Probably Lighting Wrong: Physically Based Lighting in UE5 | Unreal Fest Gold Coast 2024

Join Sean Gobey for an end-to-end overview on lighting and how to make your projects shine in Unreal Engine.

Unreal Engine has wonderful physically accurate lighting and camera systems yet most developers don't fully understand how to get the most out of them. For example, the default directional light value is 6 lux, yet the sun is 120,000 lux.

So what does 6 mean? Where does this value come from and how do we tune the rest of the system if we're working with arbitrary numbers? If we're not introducing enough light, how does that affect our camera settings?

With this value, we're now using an ISO of 50,000 to get an exposure. We can certainly build a pipeline around these arbitrary numbers, but what does this mean for new artists joining our team? Swing by for answers to all these questions—and many more.