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Need More Frames
Need More Frames
I see the light...let's investigate!
Overview
Overview
Here's a log sheet I created for the project that allows users to track what may be effecting performance over time. For this project, I tackled built lighting mostly as it had the greatest hit to performance from the start.
Investigating Lighting
Investigating Lighting
When opening the project for the first time, I was around 70fps at high quality settings within unreal engine. At first glance of the level there seemed to be many light sources so I wanted to inspect the settings they were at. I found all of the lights in the level to be set at "moveable" which uses an expensive light system called lumen.
Building The Lighting
Building The Lighting
I turned all of the lights to static and rebuilt the lighting in the level. The results were terrible, but I just wanted to see if there would be a jump in FPS or not. The frame rate soared from 70fps to 106fps. I knew this was a major factor in terms of optimization, so for this exercise I decided to focus my efforts here.
Disabling Lumen
Disabling Lumen
I went into the project settings and turned lumen off just to see if there would be another bump in framerate and there was 106fps to 120fps. I was happy to see this extra bump as it confirmed my belief on what was the most likely suspect on what was taxing performance.
Tweaking The New Lighting
Tweaking The New Lighting
Everything still seemed a bit too dark throughout the level so I decided to begin experimenting with a hybrid lighting solution. My goal was to only set the spot lights place throughout the level to movable. I was surprised to find that the FPS remained at 120, although there was still some work left to be done.
Reimplementing Detailed Lighting
Reimplementing Detailed Lighting
With a few more tweaks I figured I would be close to the original look again while attempting to maintain the FPS. Using my last method, I decided to switch the rectangular lights back to moveable while leaving all points lights at static. Once again I was surprised to see that the framerate remained high at 120fps, while allowing me to achieve a relatively close look to the original.
Conclusion
Conclusion
After swapping out the point lights for static and rebaking, I think the 50fps gained is worth the end result.
Resources
Resources
Tianqi Liang, https://www.artstation.com/tianqiliang8, https://store.steampowered.com/app/3554820/XELVITA/
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