Creating Natural Lighting in Unreal Engine: A Step-by-Step Guide

hello everyone my name is kha I'm senior lighting artist at Ubisoft and today I'm going to give you some tips in Unreal Engine for how you can get lighting mood like this image or the image like this because I know many of you many times you ask yourself how we can reach this kind of mood and I know it's quite tricky but believe me I'm going to give you some nice tips and I think it's going to be the first time you see this so before we start I just want to show you something uh whenever you work on Unreal Engine or any other software you have to make sure when you add the light just try to make your light natural as much as I can because any scene you are seeing here has different color than the natural color it's because the postprocessing effects so we have uh tweaked the the colors we have to tweak the contrast effect but the main idea to get the natural color and the lighting as the rear wet if you reach this you will be able to change your mode to any other mode and I'm going to show you how you can create this so the first thing I'm going to use this modood uh this scene okay and believe me you can use any kind of scene to get the same result okay so I'm going to use the h i okay just move it down here and from here I'm going to add uh the intensity 100 okay and in Skylight let's add uh 600 okay and from here I will select specific Cube map okay so I have this nice hdri okay so I'm going to drag it here I I just try to find a like this image or this Sky okay so I add it here and also I will go back to the HRI and drag it and drop here okay as you can see here everything is overe exposure right so the second uh step we're going to add post processing to set up the exposure okay so I will search for Infinity oh we didn't add it all sorry let's add it here Infinity okay and now let's go to post processing exposure turn on the exposure and from in uh and Max uh I will add maybe eight okay I think eight it's a good value but I have to search for the HD again here and then see oh okay I think because we didn't uh change the the size so let's change the size to something like this okay so try to make the size bigger uh as you can okay so as you can see here now everything's too bright okay so I will go back here and let's see 10 Okay so compare the the sky now we can start see the sky color which is looks very nice compare to the sky and the the balance of the Skylight it looks okay but we'll try to uh make some tweak so let's add 11 so 11 it's very good value because we don't need that overexposure we need some low uh uh uh low exposure okay so now we have nice uh balance between this uh between the sky and the environment but I feel the environment it's a bit uh dark so we can go back here to the Skylight and or uh we can select this and maybe add yeah no I think the balance it's it's okay the balance it's fine okay for me the balance is fine so for me I almost finish 80% of the mood okay because now I have this natural color and if you check this there is no Direction light but for sure we're going to add Direction light but we'll just put some very low intensity so now how we can reach this mood okay so before we add the mood I'm going to add Direction light to give us some nice uh Shadow and a light uh if you remember when I showed you how to get uh some uh realism look uh because we use the real value in exposure so now if you reach the max of the light you will you can't see anything so in this case I'm going to use maybe uh 1,500 okay and move the light direction to this side okay I will keep it white and maybe just add thousand we we just need very low intensity you see we can see the light but it's it's low and because we have the Skylight the light should be uh the the shadow should be soft okay so here we can add maybe uh 50 okay now we have this nice shadow okay so the next step we going to add uh the fog okay I believe there is a fog here in the in the scene still working yes so we can move this here and just turn this off okay so we'll search for fog and just drag it and drop here and from here all we need to just turn on this one okay volumetric fog and start to add the fog to just have this nice blending between the sky and uh uh the environment okay so we can increase the value so if you don't want the the The Fog to be near to the camera we can change the start distance to have the fog only in the background here okay so now we have this nice mod okay uh or we can just bring it more fade outs here so now it looks for me very nice so as you can see here now the light looks very natural so the second the third step we going to work on the post processing uh believe me will will not do too much thing in the post processor it's just few uh um few few setting and then we're going to reach the details okay we're going to use for sure the chromatic because if you look at this image the as you can see here there is some chromatic effect but we'll not use it right now so the first thing I'm going to go to the uh search for oh sorry yeah go here we're going to use the mid tune because the mid tune it's a secret to reach this mod okay and we're going to turn on again and see the magic now so once we start to move this wow that happened can you believe this just see the difference between this mode and this mode just one touch it can change your scene completely but again the idea is to to make your light natural as as much as you can and with a just few step now you will be able to make some areas dark make some area bright so it's all up to you so now we can go to the post processing and go to the global okay and yeah one more thing as you can see here the the color it looks okay but sometimes I would prefer to put the saturation in this kind of modes as 0.8 or 0.7 to have low uh saturated because if we pack go back here you see here he wear red and he wear green but we can't really see this color because the color is has some low saturated okay so this is something also you have to uh to think about so think about the saturation of the modood you you are looking for so to do this it's very uh simple so we can create sphere okay and from here I'm going to create material and just drag it and drop here uh press three from the keyboard right click convert to parameter and color and press one from the keyboard and just I need this to be fully uh no roughness okay and just do this okay now we have the white okay and I'm going to create material instance okay from here we'll make this value 0.5 which is going to be gray okay and be careful the white is not should it shouldn't be uh White completely so uh there is also a value for the white so we can put the value 0.9 okay to get the real value okay and also from here we can add this one and start to get your favorite colors like red so if I you are looking for the red so I'm going to get the full red from here to just make sure that I have the right color of red okay so now if we go back to the post processing okay and just turn off this one you see the red here is too has too saturated but if you put 0.7 now we have this natural color which is going to match with this color so that mean you don't have to change the color in the character uh textures or any other assets no just keep everything natural with the with the natural color and the lights and then from post processing we can reach this details okay like in movie or any other uh uh cinematic shots or even in the in the games even in the games we always use the same principle we put the light as a natural and then we apply another post processing on top of this to create our customer uh customizing uh uh our customization uh mod okay so yeah I think 0.75 which is very good value for me okay so now we can remove this okay so we can go back here and turn on contrast you can start to add more contrast as you can see here now we have more contrast and because this area is too dark we can go back here and make the fade out of the fog list so now you see the difference between this and this one now we have more fed out for the fog okay so that's it look at this if we go back to the post processing and you want for example to reach the second uh mod here it's very simple so all we need we're going to add more fog okay to make it more bright in the background and also we going to change the game to have more bluish effect now we have this one and let's turn on uh chromatic okay and from the fog I'm going to add the fog here and let's add something like this so now we reach the same details you see it's very simple very easy if you get the natural color you can you will be able to change anything now we have this nice mod okay so there is another good T we always using in games uh I just want to show you something sometimes you have the scene which is you apply HD and it makes all you're seeing is too bright but sometimes you you ask yourself how we can get some area darker than the background because in the in the image visualiz visualization uh we have something is called I catching and the vit point which is you can make the the assets near the to the camera is dark and the background is prite or you can uh inverted this to make the the assets near to the background prite and the background to be dark okay so how we can reach this in this case we use something is called just I just want to go back here we use something is called it GI plocker or the light blocker it's very simple but it's it's a bit tricky but you will see the difference okay so all I all I'm going to do so you can create planes you can create cubes so whatever the shapes you can use it but in this case I'm going to use uh pox okay and let's scale it okay and I will just put it here on top okay so we can scale as much as we can and now let's say I need to keep the background it's Sprite and from the top it's uh and the the near camera it's dark like the image we saw here okay so like this one so now we can move move it here okay depend on where exactly you want the acid to be dark okay let's say you need to make the camera move like this or you want to take the the um the shots from this side but here we have a problem the uh the box it's still visible in the scene so it's very simple we're going to create a material okay new material and from here we just change the material to to be masked okay and press one and left click from the uh from the mouse and just add opacity mask save it and apply to your cubes Okay so just take a look on when we turn this off boom we have this Sprite now we have this area is dark and now there is no box so now we you can get some nice darker area and you can call this uh light block blocking okay you can even create the box from um that's what I always do so I can create uh uh blueprint okay and I can call this uh light block okay double click and add Cube okay and from here just oops scale it as much as you can and you can create some different shapes okay like sphere or Slender uh whatever you want okay and from here I'm going to apply the material okay and yeah that's it so let's turn off this one okay and drag and drop this one okay now we have this okay so as you can see here we can see the uh the guide for The Box so we know where exactly the box so we can scale it we can move down we can move more higher so boom we have this nice shet okay so that's everything uh there is nothing more to show you here but yeah it's it's as I told you it's something very uh uh very tricky and I'm always use this uh if you go back to the post processing and start play with the with the game for example you just take a look if we change the mood to have green effect and maybe we can go back to the exposure and just make the exposure value low can you see the difference so it's it's a mod like uh Call of Duty okay so or you can even change the intensy let's say uh here 100 and from here we can use 500 to have less light so wow now we have this kind of mod uh you can go back to the direction lights okay and you can add some volumetric scuttering like have maybe five okay and uh you can use also uh light function to get uh I don't know if there is a cloud effect here no yes we have some uh nice Cloud here I just want to take a look on this one uh not sure about oh no it's not a light faction but uh I would like to find the textures oh I think there is no textures but we can create some Alpha this one oh it's the same uh uh it's not going to be useful but I need some uh textures as black and white uh just I'm going to try to create a new material okay and from here I'm going to change this to light function oh convert textures yeah let's drag it and drop here okay save it oh my gosh uh okay so I think yeah I sa it here so we can now drag it and drop here okay and now we can get some nice G Rays you see boom but for sure we can change the make some nice splending between the black and white or we can uh increase the uh the tiles for the textures okay okay uh so let's try to have maybe 15 wow look at this so now uh also there is a nice uh tips I'm always using so I would prefer to connect the direction light to the hdri so once you put the light in the in the right direction so let's say you put the light Direction here to just match with this uh uh uh intensity of the light so now it looks more uh makes more more sense so now whenever you move the direction light the light will be move also boom so now you can get this nice mood uh from the direction light we can start to increase the value so you can add more light and from here let's bring it this back to 10 so yes that's it you see but again we have to you can for example create a multiply and add here like you can write anything and just one save it okay so now we can control of black and white so just move this a little bit here so now we we can start to see the difference between the the colors okay and just go back here five and we can change the scale boom you see now it looks differ if you go back to the poster processing effect and start to change the mood wow it's crazy right uh but I would like to move the direction light a little bit like here okay so that's it that's everything so but the fog here is too much so I don't want to have this uh kind of fog so we can just have this nice yeah for me this better than this so now it looks more natural we have some nice gut Rays so yeah you can switch to the mood uh to the night mode uh also you can change the color you can go to the temperature or the tend you can get more yellowish if effect or here now it's it's more at night okay if you change ear Boom you see it's just some uh tweak of the setting boom you can change the mood from the day to night by one uh or two steps so that's it now we have this night mode you don't have to think that much on on how you can reach the night lighting mode so here is the secret create uh nice bance of Lights by using H ey and the Skylight and then you can use the post processing even uh in the in the movie sometimes he shoot the the the the shots at the uh in the daytime and but when the uh the edit in ad Premier or or any other software like combusting you can Z can change the mood from day to night by using the BST processing so here is that's called the power of the post processing effect okay so that's it I wish you like this video you can try this tip and please don't forget to subscribe my YouTube channel and share it with your uh uh Network and uh yeah don't forget to leave your comments uh and for sure I'm accepting donation you can give me uh some uh donation on the YouTube and yeah that's it and I wish you like this video see you in next video and bye-bye

Channel: Karim abou shousha

Views: 56,268

Keywords: Karim Abou Shousha, كريم ابو شوشة, أنريل إنجن, Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 4, Unreal Engine 5, ثري دي, 3D, انريل انجن 4, game engine, صناعة لعبة, انريل انجن, unreal engine 5, ‏‎Lighting Artist, ‏‎lighting artist

Id: FP_GThNxEgk

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Sat May 25 2024