How to disable Lumen in Unreal Engine

Information

Lumen is Unreal Engine's real-time global illumination and reflections system. It looks great, but it is not always the right fit for every project. Did you know that you can disable it at runtime? This article goes through a few ways to disable Lumen for your project, either permanently or temporarily.

If you do not want to use Lumen at all, consider using Forward Shading to improve performance even more.

Disable Lumen for the whole project

Open Edit > Project Settings, then go to Engine > Rendering.

In the Global Illumination section, set Dynamic Global Illumination Method to None. In the Reflections section, set Reflection Method to Screen Space or None, depending on what you want for your project.

If Lumen is still enabled, check your post process volume, which can override the project settings.

Disable Lumen temporarily with post process volumes

Unreal Engine allows Dynamic Global Illumination Method and Reflection Method to be overridden with post process volumes. When you select the post process volume, go to the Global Illumination section in the Details panel and change Method to something else. In the Reflections section, set Reflection Method to Screen Space or None.

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