UE 5.1 vs 5.0 Lighting difference

Imported my 5.0 project into 5.1 for the first time and the lighting is very different. Almost like it’s overexposed. Auto exposure and Lumen are off in project settings. Any ideas what could have caused this change?


the second image looks better. there are not those hard dark shadows anymore. is a matter of taste, yes, but i like the second one.

okay but they weren’t asking about lookdev. they were asking about overexposure. speaking as someone who actually does lookdev, i see where you’re going with the first image.
have you checked your camera settings? i imagine these aren’t the problem but rather the way 5.0 and 5.1 calculate lighting is slightly different

Indeed, Lumen is receiving changes with each update. I would be more surprised if it looked the same after an upgrade.
You should take a look at the full changelog for lighting to see what places to investigate further.

There was actually a bug in 5.0 with lighting where lightmap directionality wasn’t calculated properly. For us it made the scene darker. You can find more info here: UE 5.0.3 Does not bake directional lightmaps

Now that they have fixed the bug your scene will look different in 5.1 compared to 5.0.

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Marking as solution, thank you!