# Confusing about light building and mobility of lights **URL:** \ **Category:** World Creation\ **Tags:** unreal-engine, UE5-0, Level-Design, question\ **Created:** [August 10, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/confusing-about-light-building-and-mobility-of-lights/625535 "2022-08-10T13:54:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Clinker](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/clinker/32/1096913_2.png) [@Clinker](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Clinker)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/confusing-about-light-building-and-mobility-of-lights/625535/1 "2022-08-10T13:54:37Z")
Hello, I am trying to figure out light types and their mobility features like static, stationary, and movable. I was trying to make a test with these three types of light I expected static light would not create shadows for movable objects ( I pushed a cube in the game and expected no movable shadows ) But static light created movable shadows? How is it possible? After that, I built the lights and tried again, that time my static light turned off. ![light_question_1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/c/3/c/c3c30a6919a89f519ed129049a8507a9d9acace6.jpeg) ![light_question_2](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/9/a/a/9aa582cea071b39af67b4676205482853e7c22ae.jpeg) After I moved it in the editor, it turned on back. I searched about mobility features of light types in Unreal Engine but I can’t find a decent difference. What is exactly “Baked light” and why do we use it after Lumen? Can I use stationary lights in all of my levels? Can you explain me clearly? Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![AngelBieliukas](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/angelbieliukas/32/88714_2.png) [@AngelBieliukas](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/AngelBieliukas)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 2:24pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/confusing-about-light-building-and-mobility-of-lights/625535/2 "2022-08-10T14:24:25Z")
Hello Clinker! Yeah, in Unreal we have these 3 types of lights, right? **Statics** , which are lights that will “Bake” the light (Creating what we know as “Lightmap”) **Stationary** , which are the half between Statics and Movable. It will bake lights, but for movable objects it will generate dynamic shadows. **Movable** , wich are the lights that are not baked, they are constantly calculating the position of all the objects on the map, and therefore, they are the heaviest in terms of resources. What you are appreciating at your level, and why it looks different once you bake lights, is because, for purposes of seeing what you are doing, **if you move a Static Light it will convert in a Movable Light until you bake lights again**. Because Static Lights, when you bake light, stop to generate light, it will bake it in a texture, so if this didn’t happen and you moved the light, you wouldn’t see how it illuminates. The process of Baking Light is, in short, to make another texture in every object and paint the light so that Unreal does not have to calculate the direction of the lights and shadows at each frame. Statics lights are amazing for iluminate the scene objects, but it will not generate dynamic shadows so surely need another light, Stationary or Movable, for generating shadows. You can use Stationary lights in all your levels without much problem! I’ll give you the link of the documentation of type of lights, so you can learn more about it: > **[Light Mobility](https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/LightingAndShadows/LightMobility/)** > > Light Mobility and how it affects lighting and shadowing. I hope it helps you! ---
**Author:** ![Clinker](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/clinker/32/1096913_2.png) [@Clinker](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Clinker)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 3:51pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/confusing-about-light-building-and-mobility-of-lights/625535/3 "2022-08-10T15:51:00Z")
Hello, Thanks for your attention but I still have same confusing Let me explain to you, I created another light test there. First I placed 2 props in the scene and a “static” point light ![qL1](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/f/e/b/feb240fee31ef17661ef48e22090f3d52d07f21f.jpeg) After that, I built the light and my scene turned black. It is because baked light doesn’t cast light I guess? ![qL2](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/e/8/6/e86329b41e0f0758b50dc1ca5918958f9f41a0c2.jpeg) Secondly, I put a movable light to see the baked light effect in textures as you said. Fake light effect on props and shadows. ![q3LL](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/f/a/d/fadfba646b01fdf31613dc393fc8a074e21fb5b1.jpeg) But I couldn’t observe the static light effect on my props and their shadows. They still had dynamic shadows. ![qL4](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/8/5/e/85e3eefe190a65fff65bf23a2784ece33448ad95.jpeg) What am I missing? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![AngelBieliukas](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/angelbieliukas/32/88714_2.png) [@AngelBieliukas](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/AngelBieliukas)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 6:18pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/confusing-about-light-building-and-mobility-of-lights/625535/4 "2022-08-10T18:18:45Z")
Ooh, I found the answer in this another forum. > [@Building Lighting turns objects black. Again](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/building-lighting-turns-objects-black-again/561808/4): > > Problem solved !! The issue was given by the Lumen system in UE5. It doesn’t support light baking and disable all lightmaps !! Lumen only works with Movable Lights, doesn’t support light baking. That’s why everything turns black when you bake lights. ---
**Author:** ![Clinker](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/clinker/32/1096913_2.png) [@Clinker](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Clinker)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 6:42pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/confusing-about-light-building-and-mobility-of-lights/625535/5 "2022-08-10T18:42:41Z")
Hello again AngelBieliukas, Thank you again for your kind respond if that’s the case, stationary lights can’t be used with Lumen or not? Because stationary lights cast “partially” baked lights? ![stat](https://d3kjluh73b9h9o.cloudfront.net/original/4X/b/3/f/b3fe0aceb7f8b7ffee2489c14572836910574df5.png) ---
**Author:** ![AngelBieliukas](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/angelbieliukas/32/88714_2.png) [@AngelBieliukas](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/AngelBieliukas)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/confusing-about-light-building-and-mobility-of-lights/625535/6 "2022-08-10T19:03:07Z")
No problem at all. Technically not. Stationary lights also bake the lighting, the difference is that it will make dynamic shadows, but the light itself is baked the same as the Stationary. So it will generate dynamic shadows, but it will not illuminate at all.