Emissive material not visible in VR pass-through (Meta XR / Quest 3)

Development Platform & Builds XR Development
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1

Hi, I’m working on a VR mixed reality project using Meta XR (Quest 3) in Unreal Engine 5.

I noticed that emissive materials (even with high intensity) are not visible when seen directly over the pass-through background — they only show up when there’s virtual geometry behind them. This includes both static meshes and Niagara ribbons using additive or translucent materials.

Is this a known limitation with pass-through rendering on Quest 3?
Does anyone know a reliable way to make glow-like effects (that normally rely on emissive) actually show up over the real-world background?

Thanks in advance for any insights or workarounds!

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Since the frame is alpha blended with the passthrough by the system compositor after rendering, it’s not possible to do true additive blending with it inside the game. This is a limitation with pretty much all compositor-based passthrough systems. It will only blend in areas with opaque alpha written to them. You’d have to fake it with a blend mode that writes alpha, like Translucent or Masked.