I noticed that the same map with similar lighting looks different on version 5.5. Namely, the shadows, they are too dark, too contrasting. I migrated the same map to version 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5. On versions 5.4 and 5.3 it looks similar, but on version 5.5… I am attaching skinshots. First Scrinshot From version 5.3, the second one from 5.5:
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Could it be due to “Local Exposure Shadow Contrast” in the project settings? (set too high)
Other than that another option might be due to Material Ambient Occlusion.
It gives more granular details in the AO pass.
What settings do you have for GI?
As @3dRaven said, in 5.5 epic changed the default value of local exposure to 0.8 instead of 1.0 so probably it could be this
No, that’s not it. I forgot to mention that I also imported all the render settings into the project, I double-checked, the values are identical. If I lower this parameter, the shadows become lighter, but not warmer, they just turn bluer. This surprised me, everything except the engine version should be identical! Thats result if parametr set to 0.5:
Perhaps it’s just a bug in 5.5? It is still only a preview version. Does the direct light acting as the sun have the exact same parameters? Is the scene using any type of color grading via post processing?
Apparently this is really a bug. Like I said, I just migrated the scene into the engine and didn’t change anything in it. The main parameters are identical, and they should not have changed. Yes, there is a post process in the scene. The only thing that is different is that in 5.3 I have DLSS installed and activated, but can this really affect the world? I mean, everything looks like this even in the viewport, if nothing is rendered, and there was no 5.4 DLSS either, but there the scene looks exactly like in 5.3.
To me it looks like the skylight or GI is acting differently, I’d flip through the debug views, try deleting and undoing the lights, and playing with the intensity.
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Hey @Slumsnake I’m having exactly the same problem. Just updated from 5.4 to 5.5 and the shadows are way darker! All lights and the PP are the same. I also checked if something is changed by default in the project or scalability settings but found nothing.
I have a lot of differences in my scene, due to indirect lighting.
UE 5.4
UE 5.5
Did you found any solution?
Unfortunately no, and I suspect that such a solution does not exist. I had a backup of an earlier version and rendered it. The final version 5.5 was released quite recently, I have not yet checked whether this has been fixed (I noticed this bug in the preview version).
Nah, they don’t fix it. I got the same issues . . .
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I am having the exact same issue. Here are some screenshots comparing the lighting in 5.3 VS 5.5.
Scene in 5.3:
Scene in 5.5:
Not only is the lighting significantly darker, but decals don’t render properly and roughness maps stand out way more than they used to.
The settings are identical, I have tested this on two different computers swapping between DX11, DX12 and Vulkan. Did anyone find a solution to this?
OOC, could you post screenshots of your surface cache? I’m just curious if cache is encoding the meshes differently and that may be leading to strange lighting behavior.
Also, if you disable lumen and just look at direct lighting, is the behavior as you expect it?
Sure, here are the screenshots.
This is the 5.3 surface cache.
And this is the 5.5 surface cache.
As far as I can tell, they are identical. I also took some screenshots on medium settings (lumen off)
This is 5.3 with lumen off
And this is 5.5 with lumen off
Again, they seem to be identical and nothing seems broken. I know 5.5 intruduced some Lumen changes, perhaps the lighting is technically more accurate but doesn’t fit the style anymore? At the same time the improvements they showcased in their patch notes don’t mention any drastic change in lighting behaviour… so, not sure…
A quick update, everyone. We seem to have fixed it, but I believe this is a bug with Unreal Engine.
As you can see, if the Lumen final gathering quality in your Post Processing is set to 0.5, the scene becomes really dark and renders incorrectly.
However, changing this value to a higher / lower one will completely fix the issue. As you can see here, I have changed the final gather quality to 0.25 and then to 1.
Other values will work, but there seems to be a threshold where everything darkens. Something between 0.4 and 0.8. As you can see in this short video, the behaviour is really weird. It almost appears as if something is switching on and off. Notice how little I’m tweaking the value.
This might explain why the issue doesn’t seem to be wide spread. I assume most people aren’t interested in tinkering with the lumen gathering settings. If your lighting looks different, perhaps it’s because your values are close to 0.5
Hope this can help someone
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Sometimes probe placement and filtering settings can lead to weird corner cases- I was wondering why this was happening too, but it’s good to know an answer was found.