When you first open an Unreal Project file of a Kit from kitbash3d.com, (not downloaded through Cargo), you may notice the lighting may seem off from what is expected.
This is due to the Unreal project being created in Unreal Engine 4, which did not include the most recent dynamic lighting features from Unreal 5 (Lumen).
Lumen will not be automatically enabled if opening this project into newer versions of Unreal, as Unreal will respect the projects original settings.
In this example, you can see the shadows looking very dark without indirect lighting, and a preview watermark.
This is due to the scene using light baking instead of dynamic lighting, which is a feature from older versions of Unreal
To use the newer features of Unreal Engine 5, using the provided project as a base, you will need to adjust the project settings.
You will need to change the default Render API to DirectX12, and use the latest shader model of Unreal to support the latest render features of Unreal, such as Lumen and Nanite.
Follow these steps:
Navigate the top toolbar to Edit-> Project Settings
In the project Settings window, navigate to the Platforms Section
In whichever platforms you choose to support (In this example, Windows) Change the Targeted RHIs to either DirextX12 or Vulkan
Enable the checkboxes to support SM6
Restart the Engine as prompted
Now that support has been enabled for new rendering features, they will need to be enabled in the project to use them as the default option.
Optionally, you can configure this by level as well.
To change the default settings, revisit the project settings window as previously described, and follow these steps
In the project settings window, navigate to Engine->Rendering Sections
Here you will find many options relating to lighting and rendering that may need to be adjusted to the desired look.
In this example, we will enable the basic Lumen settings.
Adjust the following fields(Software Ray Tracing) Enable Generate Mesh Distance Fields
(Global Illumination) Dynamic Global Illumination Method; Change from None -> Lumen
(Reflections) Reflection Method; Change from Screen Space -> Lumen
(Direct Lighting) Shadow Map Method; Change from Shadow Maps -> Virtual Shadow Maps
You will be prompted to restart the engine to allow Mesh Distance fields to be supported
Any existing scenes within the project should now be using Lumen correctly unless they have been locally changed.
Additionally, you can compare project render settings to a default Unreal project newly created in 5.X to explore other options that may need to change when converting an older Unreal Project to newer versions.
You may also want to add additional lighting objects into your scene to take greater advantage of the global illumination tools in Unreal, such as Sky Atmosphere, & exponential height fog, to allow more indirect lighting from the environment.
Alternatively, you could create a new default level to use as a base for your scene instead of adjusting the settings of level that ships with the full Kit's Unreal project.
Additionally, it is recommended to change any lights placed within existing scenes to be movable, so that they will use the dynamic lighting as appropriate, instead of light baking