Unreal Engine: Starter Content - Advanced Lighting Map

Earlier this week we took a look at the Starter Content and the map. Today we’ll be looking at the the Advanced Lighting map which comes with the Starter Content.

What is the Advanced Lighting Map?

This map allows you to see your creations in an ideal light setup. So it’s a good way to take a look at different assets with great lighting created by the Unreal Engine development team.

How does it work?

When the map is open, you can place assets on the SM_AssetPlatform stage.

The BP_LightStage Blueprint behaves as a combination of several different light sources to create a brilliant lighting effect on the map.

It contains the following behaviours:

Directional Light
Skybox Sphere
HDRI Background
Atmosphere
Height fog
Sky Light
Lightstafts

As a result, designers have one location for most of their lighting settings. However, it’s possible to rotate the BP_LightStage Actor in the level which causes the Sun Direction and HDRI rotation to move. In addition to this, the Atmosphere will also react to the rotation.

Migrating

It’s also possible to use the Advanced Lighting assets in an existing project. Designers can “Migrate” the Advanced_Lighting map and it’s associated assets. “Migrating” is simple the word for copying an asset to another project. It also takes any dependent assets with it so you don’t need to manually migrate every asset separately.

We’ll be going over Migrating in more depth later this week.

Minimal Default

When you first load into the Starter Content, this will be the level you see. It’s a basic map with a few assets, audio and good lighting. As a result, this is a good starting point for those looking to play with the different features in the Starter Content pack. Just like with any other level, it’s possible to edit and modify the level in full.

This post was provided by Clare from Lunawolf Gaming