UE5 Can we Still Bake Lights? and more importantly Should we?

My name is Gabriel Paiva and am an Authorize Unreal Instructor.
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[@brazelabs8451]

Could you do an update on this awesome video for unreal 5.3? Especially would be super helpful for the VR template! Some settings are quite different but it still allows GPU lightmass and raytracing.

[@GUMLIVES]

I will!

[@kthxbye1132]

@@GUMLIVES yeees please!!!

[@ExistIvy]

Really cleared a lot of doubts around lights in general. Thanks.

[@maximilianozepeda2919]

Finally, this subject is covered after a deep research. Thank you very much! Subscribed... Question from a new user of UE... do you recommend to start learning ue5 and baking this way? sacrificing nanites and baking without lumens, or is it better to go back to the previous versions of UE4?

[@Athanor3d]

VR still needs good-old baking! No Lumen in VR just yet so it seems...

[@GUMLIVES]

YEs, for now...

[@brazelabs8451]

Agreed. Lumen still kills VR performance. Convert to baking and you get smooth performance.

[@maarten176]

Lumen is fun for personal projects:) but a actual production no

[@ohwhatworld5851]

Very informative. It would have been cool to show some side by side footage of the game running with Lumin/Nanite, and the game without them but baked so we could see the quality differences. Is there much difference in the quality of the scene?

[@GUMLIVES]

Ohh, is heavens from earth. from 10fps to 120.

[@snowboyken]

Thank you for your video, I’m new and just start learning UE5 to create Archviz, really like Lumen and Nanite features in UE5, but wanna make it in VR, that’s not work for lumen and Nanite because there’s a performance consideration, guess that the best approach is using LOD and baked, your video helps but I still not sure am I need to start with UE4 if I wanna go VR, struggling for weeks.

[@GUMLIVES]

GUM will start doing only Live content in 2023! We will be able to handle all this questions live, so be on the look for the Live Streams announcements. In the mean time please help me with this: kzbin.infoUgkx34kBzBe8OO9Ez5b4TYD7avI75XPQAmTx

[@JibreelProductions]

Wow, the virtual shadow maps option is exactly what i also wanted, since my shadows were looking a bit weird in the distance and not too crisp, also i think my performance got better, wow

[@OriginRow]

Just subscribed after seeing this video. Thank you for that. I am speechless 😶

[@GUMLIVES]

Thank you for the subscription!

[@dcosta7120]

It may be me not having followed closely but it looks like you forgot to mention that in project settings you have to activate "Allow Static Lighting". Nice video

[@crazyguy7585]

wow that's amazing thanks a lot for this amazing tutorial its make my game super smooth.

[@jbach]

Thanks for sharing. One minor correction. I believe you should disable all raytracing effects BEFORE you use GPU Lightmass. The console command removes raytracing from the viewport only. See William Faucher’s explanation

[@GUMLIVES]

The actual documentation says that "is best" to use the console command to disable Raytrace features, but that is not required. You should turn the effects off after the bake because you will have a double effect on the scene.

[@maxb4101]

@@GUMLIVES wath would be the comand to turn raytracing back on? "raytracing 1"?

[@NileshDhrangu]

simply amazing explanation

[@GUMLIVES]

Glad you liked it

[@danielcogollodiaz7493]

Hey I´m working with UE5 5.0.3, and I have to make a VR project. Do you think this trick would work for running my scene in VR due to Lumen are not still ready for VR?

[@brighttidigital319]

qué tal Daniel, lograste hacerlo?

[@GUMLIVES]

Baking should be the way to go.

[@Mac_Daffy]

OTOY this month released Octane 2022.1 for Unreal Engine - 0.62. It now features OctaneLightmass, a first version of the octane lightmapper for Unreal (experimental). This GPU path tracer is free for a single GPU but the plugin can use multi-card setups. It though requires that you translate the UE materials to Octane materials, which there is an automated function to do so. I would be very curious if you see a significant difference regarding quality or speed testing it. Multi-GPU could be a game changer.

[@GUMLIVES]

Pathtracer its nearly ready to be used for Lightmass, it may be too little too late.

[@Mac_Daffy]

UE Pathtracer will work with multiple GPUs then?

[@OGPatriot03]

As of this post if you're trying to use GPU lightmass in UE 5.1 you need to use Nvidia driver 522.25, anything more recent than that suffers from severe baking artifacts.

[@GUMLIVES]

Yes, true!

[@Itsme-wt2gu]

Does the bake will require a rtx gpu for player using it?

[@adultdeleted]

@@Itsme-wt2gu the point of baking is that the lighting is baked to UVs...

[@melomaniakjm]

So I guess for VR best performance accross GPUs it's best to bake, even though Lumen now works in VR?

[@GUMLIVES]

Depending on the complexity and how much can you optimize, but yes, baking is still the way to go in VR.

[@IvanPetrov-f6p]

HI sir. great tutorial. When i use ultra dynamic sky system will be the same to do or ?

[@vfxRodrigo]

thanks for the utorial i was looking for something like this, thanks from Brazil.

[@GUMLIVES]

Most welcome!

[@dangerousbobstudioLLC]

Epic: Beyhold our amazing Lumen! It looks amazing, but it's so heavy you'll never get a chance to use it.

[@GUMLIVES]

Why so heavy? I have a modest rig and it runs pretty well.

[@metushelach8]

It doesn't go to 90 fps unless you have a 2000$ Graphics card. @@GUMLIVES

[@jbach]

Hi Gabriel. In 5.4 there is no longer the ability to have Ray Traced GI in your Post Process VOlume. What should be enabled instead before baking? None, Screenspace or Lumen?

[@GUMLIVES]

Now you can use path tracer as it is what’s currently been used to bake. So adjust everything to look good in path tracer and then bake.

[@grandpadark2701]

@@GUMLIVES Both ray tracing and Path tracing are removed

[@iggorr25]

Very cool :) THX for the video :) I would also like to know if I should BAKE or use LUMEN if I want to export an Arcviz scene for mobile... ?

[@ZAKarchitects]

Thank you so much.. This what i was searching about for long time and wondering why baking light doesn't work with nanite..

[@GUMLIVES]

I bet I wanted to say Lumen.

[@Thinksee3d]

Another useful video, very clear and precise thanks. If you want to put your scene in VR I guess baked lights is the way forward?

[@GUMLIVES]

Yes, for sure!

[@edgarprotsko1558]

Lumen is heavy and laggy vs baked easy and fast but you must have good lightmap texture channel on each model in each lod

[@GUMLIVES]

Lumen got awesomely fast in 5.1, test it!

[@JeanBaptisteCouche]

Very good and instructive video, thank you very much ! Can I disable every ray traced settings (in postprocess and project settings) after the bake without breaking everything ? I work on a project without ray tracing and I want to know if it is possible to enable it just to bake and disable it after ?

[@faceman2271]

how do you guys get the performance tab on top right hand side!!?

[@leitberkley]

Yes. I also want to know this!

[@dalewyatt230]

Great video! Can I bake my lighting and turn off my lights but then turn Lumen back on for the real-time reflections?

[@martinnorlin1739]

This was a great video, however can you please explain why you set the GI to brute force, Ray tracing? The GI is controlled by the bake. So it should be set to screenspace GI. Brute force is dynamic GI. Maybe Im missing something :) Thank you!

[@GUMLIVES]

GPU Lightmass differs from norma CPU Lightmass in that what how ever you see your scene with Raytrace lighting should be the end result of the baking. Is like a "What you see is what you get" Scenario, and Raytrace Bruteforce GI gives the best quality at a higher cost. But as you are not going to run it every frame, just for a pic (Bake) then use it as it will give you the best result.

[@tientam5496]

Great video, really informative to get a baked scene in UE5. I wanted to know, is there a way to export out the texture as well as the light map out of Unreal? I basically want to use Unreal just for baking and have the scene displayed in 3d outside of the engine.

[@jadtarekhaddad]

Hi, I have the same exact question. Have you figured it out? If so I would love to hear about it, thanks!

[@Constantinesis]

Hello, once you do this baking, can you export GLTF with all the baked materials so you can use it in an web renderer? I know that the GLTF export plugin has some options for baking materials. Is that any different than the Lightmap baking? Your method seems much easier and complete!

[@GUMLIVES]

Sorry its not possible, even when you get access to the atlas baked textures the atlas UVs are inaccessible. Sorry.

[@Constantinesis]

​​@@GUMLIVES So what happens if you export the baked scene as gltf? Is it going to mess up the uv and textures ? That would be a real shame if there is no workaround. Its the only thing that's missing from UE bu I guess they don't have any interest in doing that. I would like to be able to share a scene on a webgl platform.

[@DaysVFX]

Lumen baking would be so good. Can't wait.

[@maymayman0]

Whats the point of baking real-time GI when you can just bake lighting better than real time quality though 🤔

[@khalhorik]

@@maymayman0 It still look better with lumen and its faster to iterate than doing baked lights. I think the advantage of being able to bake lumen would be that you could take advantage of lumen's ease of use and bake everything when you're happy with the result. At the moment, if you go back to baked stuff, you won't get the same result as with Lumen; you'll have to tweak the parameters until you get something similar, which means extra work.

[@soulsalivedev9793]

At the end of the video you use a console command to disable Raytracing. Can't you just change the setting in the post process to achieve the same result? Or is this something you have to repeat everytime you bake lights I have a game that uses nanite but not lumen. And I am currently baking lights...what do you mean that building lights does not work with nanite? Thanks a lot in advance for you time. Cheers

[@GUMLIVES]

Hello, i just used the command to show that the scene was baked and not the Raytrace effect. But yeah i could have just set GI to none in the PPV. Nanite will work but some viewmodes like to check light texture resolution do not work.

[@soulsalivedev9793]

@@GUMLIVES Thanks a lot fornyour answer. I love your content, I always learn something useful. Please, dont stop doing them. Cheers

[@arkalexx]

Nice, but if I'm still doinging changes in my enviremment, moving object and changing textures I thing I have to rebake

[@JasonAdank]

Does capturing reflections no longer work? I have an HDRI backdrop in my scene, and after doing this, all the diffuse lighting baked fine but now all my specular and HDRI reflections are gone... reflection captures arent picking anything up except the other geometry

[@maxb4101]

i have the same issue

[@GUMLIVES]

@@maxb4101 Have you build your reflections?

[@GUMLIVES]

Remember to build or rebuild your reflections from the build top menu list.

[@JasonAdank]

@@GUMLIVES I tried rebuilding several times, no effect. I have to make the lights and hdri backdrop visible again to get them back.... But I thought the reflection captures would bake those in...

[@saeedzamani1503]

wonder what is the point of using lumen and nanite when they destroy performance

[@Fallen_Ninja]

Real time and better dev experience.

[@Ilya_Yatsko]

My scene turns black after baking no matter what I do. All the settings are the same as yours.

[@bobye6978]

I have the same problem. You have to unable lumen related settings. Give it a try.

[@ghazinspace]

bake light or build light are same thing?

[@GUMLIVES]

Yes, the same

[@Ksj392os7]

Why can't we bake the lumen result for a much more performance, for example, I have a game that the light hardly changes and the objects hardly changes. why does lumen have to be calculated every frame for everything? wouldn't this be amazing???

[@flotto7045]

Why even bother and not bake raytraced lights at that point tho?

[@ValenQpr]

Watching this video and considering the UE 5.1 update, do you think that baking is still a viable option to launch a video game with static scenarios? Or can lumen be given a chance?

[@GUMLIVES]

Lumen is not ready for baking or to share its features with a baked level, for now. Anyway I believe that even when Lumen start sharing with baked Lit scenarios Its going to be Pathtracer the actual GI solution for baking. IMHO.

[@mrlightwriter]

Hi there! At 7:40 you say that we shouldn't change Lumen to Standalone Ray Traced in the Project Settings, since it's being overridden by the PostProcessVolume. However, when I change those parameters to Standalone Ray Traced in the Project Settings, my fps increase dramatically to 120fps, the lighting becomes different and the lights are indeed baked in (when I delete a mesh the shadow remains). Am I right in this?

[@GUMLIVES]

Yes, check that the PPV is set to unbound and that it is enabled. The PPV should be able to override any project settings atribute.

[@mrlightwriter]

@@GUMLIVES Thanks for the info!

[@mathajar9563]

so for game is better to do this?instead of lumen?\

[@GUMLIVES]

Exactly.

[@맛집전문가]

Gpu baking only works with rtx cards. I have to use cpu baking 😩

[@JibreelProductions]

Crashed hard, i guess no baking for my scene, perhaps it's too big or idk what I did wrong, it was a bit unoptimized to be real, especially textures... Perhaps i will bake the next project.

[@Sparkles1290]

Does nanite work with ray tracing tho, cause I don’t think it does at least for reflections. Also what’s the difference between static lights and stationary lights? edit: never mind u did anwser the question in the video, but can I still ask for the difference between static, stationary and moveable lights

[@SolarTara]

You can use Nanite with baked lighting, I have tested it and works fine using CPU baking, but I have not tried GPU baking. Static - The light does not move and cannot move during runtime. It is baked into the mesh light maps when baking (What he uses in the video and cannot move ever after baked or it breaks) Stationary - Middle ground between static and movable. It is a light that can change its colour, and brightness at runtime but cannot move, rotate or change influence size. (ex: flickering light) Movable - Is not baked at all when baking lighting and can move during runtime (ex: a light on a moving platform that turns on and off and moved)

[@GUMLIVES]

Yes!

[@GUMLIVES]

GUM will start doing only Live content in 2023! We will be able to handle all this questions live, so be on the look for the Live Streams announcements. In the mean time please help me with this: kzbin.infoUgkx34kBzBe8OO9Ez5b4TYD7avI75XPQAmTx

[@hyrumusic]

I tried using GPU lightmass, but i received an error "Your GPU dont support GPU lightmass" My video card is an RX5500Xt 8gb How will I be able to bake the lights?

[@Dyako_010]

6000 series and above supported

[@SolarTara]

Nanite doesnt work with baking? I think you are mistaken? This is simply not true and nanite does work with baking. However I did not try nanite with GPU baking.

[@Alexander_S_K]

So it seems they do support baked lighting as long as you enable the use of virtual shadow maps. However, these would be an overkill for non-nanite objects so probably per-static mesh optimizations should be made (havent tested if thats even possible though).

[@GUMLIVES]

Maybe I meant Lumen, my mistake.

[@pwhv]

beautiful and well explained, helped so much, subscribing!

[@GUMLIVES]

You are most welcome!

[@emotionamusic]

Good stuff

[@IstyManame]

what's your rig?

[@GUMLIVES]

For now, AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core Processor 4.25 GHz, 32.0 GB RAM, Nvidia 3060 12GB VRAM. One better is on its way!

[@juancarlospaco]

UE 5.1, Build --> GPU Lightmass does not exist anymore (shown at 8:30 in video), I tried everything, GPU supports RTX, plugin is Enabled, theres no way of opening that GPU Lightmass window anymore???.

[@GUMLIVES]

Did you enabled the GPU Lightmass Plugin?

[@juancarlospaco]

@@GUMLIVES Yes.

[@paladin995893]

Much needed🎉🎉🎉

[@RomasNoreika]

Thank you good Sir.

[@GUMLIVES]

Thank you!

[@grandpadark2701]

Both ray tracing and Path tracing are removed in unreal 5.4

[@grandpadark2701]

So we can only use old versions？

[@BernhardRieder1]

Are you 100% sure Lightmass Baking doesn't work with Lumen? Of course, Nanite doesn't work. But where in the documentation does it say, Lumen can't be used for CPU Baking? Love your video, keep rocking. Cheers

[@GUMLIVES]

GUM will start doing only Live content in 2023! We will be able to handle all this questions live, so be on the look for the Live Streams announcements. In the mean time please help me with this: kzbin.infoUgkx34kBzBe8OO9Ez5b4TYD7avI75XPQAmTx

[@JavadRezaii]

Thank you , I did the job as you said and everything is look cool in my scene but when click the play button everything is get darker! any idea why this is happening!? (Auto Exposure is already off)

[@OGPatriot03]

If you're on UE 5.1 make sure you using Nvidia driver 522.25, anything more recent than that suffers from major baking artifacts.

[@GUMLIVES]

Yes. Am still using August Nvidia driver version.

[@itscoldcoldwinter]

can we make it to bake with gpu not cpu

[@GUMLIVES]

Hello, the GPU Lightmass uses GPU to bake the lights, not the CPU. Is a separated plugin from the regular CPU Lightmass.

[@HussinKhan]

Thank you this is what I wanted to know! 😊

[@GUMLIVES]

You are welcome!

[@OGPatriot03]

Hey if you're baking on 5.1 make sure you use Nvidia driver 522.25, anything more recent suffers from severe baking artifacts. (Spreading the word because it took me forever to discover the fix)

[@washerr1942]

this is excellent tutorial

[@GUMLIVES]

Thanks!

[@OriginRow]

Does baked lighting from GPU lightmass works for mobile devices?

[@GUMLIVES]

They do, it only changes how you make the actual Light Textures but from there on the workflow is just the same, only faster.

[@matiascasag]

Can Lumen be used for light baking?

[@GUMLIVES]

Hello, not for the moment. Unreal 5 is in this awkward time when Lumen still cannot be use, or to be used, with baked lights. So that leave us with the difficult decision of abandoning Lumen if we bake lights in our scene, but at the same time Raytracing Deprecated wont work in tandem with bake lights. So Right now there is not much use of any stationary lights apart from using UE5 as it was UE4, with no real GI method (other than SSGI).

[@daniel6sharma]

After I bake and turn off ray tracing etc there is no volumetric scattering in my scene. Does that only work with movable lights or How do I set it up?

[@GUMLIVES]

Have you try setting up that light as a stationary light?

[@OGPatriot03]

If you're on UE 5.1 make sure you use Nvidia driver 522.25 and not anything more recent (as of this post), the newer drivers cause severe issues that break GPU lightmass results on 5.1

[@jecosci]

Very well explained. Thank you. Anyway, just wanted to ask, can we bake lights for scenes with moving/interactive objects? (Like opening/closing doors and windows, Turing lights on/off)

[@gothicanimeangel96]

moving doors isn’t an issue to bake, the shadow will just be on them statically, but if you want to turn off/on a light you have to set that light to movable. that doesn’t mean you have to set every light to movable, you can mix them.

[@GUMLIVES]

GUM will start doing only Live content in 2023! We will be able to handle all this questions live, so be on the look for the Live Streams announcements. In the mean time please help me with this: kzbin.infoUgkx34kBzBe8OO9Ez5b4TYD7avI75XPQAmTx

[@GameoverCyberClub]

is it ue 5.02? or its github version?

[@GUMLIVES]

That may have been 5.0

[@vivektrivedi8086]

U r god bro

[@GUMLIVES]

No, YOU are good!

You know.

[@OGPatriot03]

You know to use Nvidia driver version 522.25 and nothing newer as of this comment because the latest drivers break GPU lightmass results on UE 5.1

[@GUMLIVES]

Yeas, latest Nvidia drivers make Unreal not too happy.

[@GUMLIVES]

No, YOU KNOW!

@@GUMLIVES You no, you know no you.

[@cexatvpsre2402]

Can you do a video about using landscape vs using nanite meshes/megascans to create big worlds/semi open world? Because it seems like the new workflow is to simple uses meshes for everything and not use landscape, but i am not buying it imo

[@GUMLIVES]

You can still use landscapes, even Nanite Landscapes if you need to. But with Nanite you can create "hero" near camera ground planes if you need to and dress them with Quixel blending material and foliage.