UNREAL ENGINE RENDERING PIPELINE

STATIC LIGHTING /
BASEPASS SHADOWS REFLECTIONS POST PROCESSING

Static Instanced Skeletal Procedural Geometry Etc

Staticmeshes Landscapes Meshes
Ahead of Rendering Meshes Meshes Collection
Some parts related to rendering have to be
run ahead of the actual render process.
Visibility most notably.

Reflections Bloom #3
Volumentric Volume Lighting Captures
Lightmaps Samples Store reflections locally per
Used for storing pre- The older and less powerful probe. Static, fast, and
calculated indirect lighting to
light dynamic actors.
but faster version of provides the foundation.
Bloom #2 Chromatic
Volumetric LM.
Aberration

HLOD Higher quality - standard Cheaper

Bloom #1
Vignette Lensflares
Drawcalls
The drawing of the drawcalls
Only for regular meshes
FRAME 0 CPU
that make up the frame -
Which one depends one settings
coming from different sources.
Planar
Reflections
Useful for flat and highly
Grain Dirt Mask
reflective surfaces.

Static Light
Actors as Placed Standard Convolution Burley SSSSS Gaussian Bokeh Circle Cinematic
in the World Mtli-stage bloom - layers High quality and precision All forms of sky, fog
Burley SSSSS. Newer and
Standard Gaussian DOF - High quality but expensive High quality DOF with good
All actors marked as Static different bloom layers of bloom - expensive. Cheapest. DOF - Will be removed at performance meant for
different sizes and colors. more physically accurate for some point. PC/Console.
(or Stationary) in the world. improved skin shading. PP Materials
Dynamic Basepass
All Logic Lightmaps Lightmass
Instancing Materials Stand alone application, with
Catch all for all logic related work The basepass requires
Part of the material rendering support to act as a swarm,
- gameplay, animations etc. Automatic drawcall batching
reduces drawcalls. and shading is handled
the Lightmaps to do its
initial shading. to calculate and bake the Screen Space
already in the Basepass. static lighting.
Reflections
SSR is fully real time but does
not reflect everything.

Lightmass
Importance
Volume Tonemapper Bloom SSAO SSSSS SSGI Depth of Field Exposure Blendables Camera Effects
Identifies where to prioritize Color and tint correction Bloom camera effects Screen Space Ambient Screen Space Global All forms of sky, fog Gamma correction based on Blend materials into PP for Various build in camera
light calculations. Higher Screen Space Sub Surface
Occlusion Illumination Three types of DOF. brightness levels. advanced effects effects such as Vignette.
quality area. Scattering
- ex. underwater.
Global
Raytraced
VISIBILITY Static Dynamic
Illumination /
Radiosity
Lightmass bakes the
Reflections
Precise and entirely
raytraced reflections.
lighting with full GI and
Radiosity support.

FRAME 1 CPU

GBuffer
A set of images, one per
Occlusion / Early Z Pass Basepass render pass for the frame.
Visibility Dyn Lighting / Reflections Additional Post Processing
Processes
Start of Rendering Prepass to reduce pixel The major basepass stage
Shadows Various additional things - It is possible to have multiple
Final Frame
overdraw. Also Scene Depth handles geometry, and some All types of reflections and
The actual rendering process now has is rendered. of the material rendering. related shading work. highlighting the two most different agents.
Determines what geometry is what it needs and starts - 2 frames Various forms of dynamic
important ones here The image as seen by the viewer.
visible and should be included behind on when the CPU began. lighting and shadows.
in the frame.

FRAME 2 CPU DYNAMIC LIGHTING /

Hardware
Occusion SHADOWS ADDITIONAL PERFORMANCE
Software Visibility Culling
Occusion Real time visibility testing and
culling of all remaining actors.

Mesh Direct Indirect

LODs
Atmospherics
Scan Depth All forms of sky, fog Translucency
Scene Depth Texture - used Buffer A and volumetrics. All types of tranlsucency.
by various later parts of the World Normals
deferred rendering pipeline.
Light Shadow Light Shadow Stats View Modes
Scalability GPU Profiler
Materials A wide range of render Snapshot of frame - average
Display real time detailed
information about
In-Editor displays and
approximations of things like
quality affecting rendering perofrmance
perfomance. collision, shader expense,
Not always used scalability commands. expense overview.
lightmap density etc.
Precomputed
Visibility Optionally via
Optional - Use precomputed a material
visibility data stored in cells
spread over the world.
Volumetric Fog Lighting Mode Refraction
Seven different ways of Refraction / Distortion as
Height Fog can be volumetric - shading and rendering caused by translucent surfaces.
Buffer B Capsule
and it would use the Vol
Lightmaps aoung other
translucent surfaces.
Specular/Roughness/ IES Profiles Light Functions Light Raytraced GI DFAO Raytraced AO
Metallic values Blends a material on top of
Shadows features if so.
Alters the projection and
intensity of light sources - a light to create effects Propogation Fully raytraced
Global Illumination.
Simplistic shadows for use
Ambient Occlusion using
Distance Field Meshes.
Accurate raytraced
Ambient Occlusion.
- ex. water caustics or Older real time Global with characters - when scale
also works for static lighting.
cloud shadows. Illumination system. or performance is critical.
CVars

Material
Distance
Field Meshes
Physically Based Volumetric
Frustrum Culling Sky Atmosphere Materials
Standard frustum culling. Buffer C Accurate earth like atmosphere Distance Fog Materials configured as Volume
Base color and sky system with support Materials, applied via a
Height or Atmospheric Fog.
for dynamic time of day. particle system.

Shadow
Dynamic Caching
Inset Shadows Volumetric Vertex
Shadows NonDir NonDir
"Higher" quality shadow
Regular dynamic shadows
- see Per Object.
as cast by for
example pointlights.
Volumetric Vertex Dir
Dir
Optionally supports soft
Buffer D shadowing when using DF Translucency Forward
Addtional Volume Shading
Distance Culling
The standard, most common, Cascaded
and Culls actors if further than
Shadow Maps Contact Raytraced
X from the camera perspective.
Distance Used for outdoor Shadows
Fine detail shadows for when
Field Meshes environments - cascades
different quality shadow two objects are close to
maps up to a certain range. each other.

Buffer E
SCALABILITY EXAMPLE
Addtional

Distance Field Per Object

Shadows Shadows Etc...
Used primarily for distant Smaller scale dynamic
outdoor lighting - Using DF shadow that casts a limited
for shadows speeds
up rendering.
size Shadow Map. Console

High end deferred

Adreno Force Force Force View Foliage Material
PC / Forward Mesh Material Particle Distance Density Fully 1000+ More
2000 Shading Settings
Editor LODs Quality LOD Multiplier Multiplier Rough
Android

Raytraced Mobile Etc...

Shadows
Full on raytraced shadows - Etc...
including soft shadowing.

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