Hi, I am very new to UE4, and I love what I know about it so far. I strongly need help with architectural visualization though. I don’t understand all of this “Lightmass” stuff, and different light settings. I see some people have different settings as I do, but I have no idea how to get access to those settings. I have a feeling its the version of Unreal I am using. I use 4.10.4, 4.9.2 and 4.0.2. I don’t know if it matters either. Also, I want to know how to change the time of my sky (sun positioning) but I don’t know how. Basically, I just need ALOT of help and explaining with lighting.
I don’t know why you would use 3 outdated versions of the same engine to start with. Just upgrade to the latest (4.11.2) so you have all the newest features available to start with!
This is a good place to start for lighting architecture. https://ue4arch.com/ue4archs-unreal-engine-4-lighting-workflow-part-1/
Thanks for sending me this article! I read it and it helped my understanding with lights a bit more, but I’m still confused where to find some of these parameters such as ‘BaseLightmass.ini’ and how to find it. Also, I don’t know where to find “LightMapSize” or “NumHemisphereSample.” Again, thanks so much for the article, it helps a bunch!
I would get a better grasp on the engine before messing around with the *.ini file. Do some beginner tutorials, find out where everything is, etc.
The .ini tweaks are only helpful once a project is basically finished and you want to tweak the results a bit. The ini files are text files that you have to edit that are in the project folders. Those tweaks are not required to get good results with the engine.
I thought all that .ini tweak stuff is basically obsolete as of 4.11?
It pretty much is. We’re now talking about tweaking build times - which is still long using the standard .ini config.
Tweaking the ini is not outdated but it’s just not as mandatory as before. Unless you really are pushing the boundaries of photorealism you don’t need to mess with that. Especially not when starting out with the engine. There are ton of more important features to learn before tweaking the baselightmass or other .ini
Ini files are just a way to access settings that are not present within the editor’s interface. Usually all you need is already accessible within the interface. Some people just want a little bit more control on some parameters.
Alright, thank you for pointing this out to me. I just have another quick question, if I were to make an Exterior to Interior scene, would I have to make two separate renders? Also, how can I change the sun positioning in the default lighting setup? Again, this helps a lot, UE is way different from Cinema 4D, I am hoping to use UE a lot more as an alternative for nature and exterior scenes.
this is basically what I was trying to get at. As much as a noob I am as well with Unreal I just don’t see the need to mess with this stuff yet 
You can do both at once. Doing separate ‘‘scenes’’ is helpful when you have so much stuff that it’s unplayable. It depends on the scope of the project.
For the sun, you can use the rotate fonction and rotate it just like any other objects.
for example :
scene 1 : interior. Lots of objects, furniture, details and only a couple of trees visible through the windows.
scene 2 : exterior. Lots of trees, vegetation, dense grass, and a house almost striped out of his furniture and objects.
That way you don’t overload your scene and get better performance and more room to crank settings up, like rendering in much higher resolution.