Unreal Engine 5 Documentation has been moved to the Epic Developer Community

Types of Lights

The types of lights available in Unreal Engine 4.

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Unreal Engine 4 has four light types: Directional , Point , Spot , and Sky . Directional lights are primarily used as your primary outdoor light or any light that needs to appear as if it is casting light from extreme or near infinite distances. Point lights are your classic "light bulb" like light, emitting light in all directions from a single point. Spot lights emit light from a single point, but have their light limited by a set of cones. Sky lights capture the background of your scene and apply it as lighting to your level's meshes.

Below you will find links to quick references for each of the light types.

Light Types

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Directional Lights

The basics of Directional Lights.

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Sky Light

An overview of using Sky Lights with environment and scene lighting.

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Spot Light

The basics of Spot Lights.

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Point Lights

The basics of Point Lights.

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Rect Lights

Describes how RectLight Actors emit light into the scene, and the settings you can use to affect their behavior.

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