Lighting Quality

Lighting quality is controlled by several graphics settings, not one setting only. Lighting Quality chooses the main light manager path, while Shadow Quality, dynamic reflections, mirrors, clouds, PostFX, HDR output, and the overall graphics preset all affect how lighting is perceived.

Physically based light values do not change between quality settings. A light set to 1000 cd still uses the same physical value, but lower settings may render it with simpler lighting, lower shadow resolution, disabled reflections, reduced clouds, or missing PostFX.

Current quality model

The current graphics presets combine several independent settings. For example, the Normal overall preset already uses High Lighting Quality, while Low and Lowest disable many expensive effects.

Overall preset	Lighting Quality	Shadow Quality	Dynamic reflections	Cloud quality	PostFX lighting effects	Preview
Lowest	Lowest	Lowest	Off	Low	GTAO+, screen-space shadows, DOF, and motion blur off
Low	Low	Low	Off	Low	GTAO+, screen-space shadows, DOF, and motion blur off
Normal	High	Normal	Off	Normal	GTAO+, screen-space shadows, DOF, and motion blur on
High	High	High	On	High	GTAO+, screen-space shadows, DOF, and motion blur on
Ultra	Ultra	High	On, higher update/size	High	GTAO+, screen-space shadows, DOF, and motion blur on

Lighting Quality

Lighting Quality currently has four modes: Lowest, Low, High, and Ultra. There is no separate Normal Lighting Quality mode; old numeric values or "Normal" are upgraded to High.

Basic Lighting

Used by Lowest Lighting Quality.

Basic Lighting is a simplified fallback renderer intended for performance. It is not representative of the final physically based lighting result.

On this setting:

• Shadows do not exist
• Materials look flatter.
• Glossy and metallic surfaces may appear less accurate.
• Many PostFX effects are unavailable or unsupported.
• Reflections and screen-space effects may be reduced or missing.

This mode is useful for very low-end settings, but should not be used for authoring final lighting or materials.

Advanced Lighting

Used by Low Lighting Quality.

Advanced Lighting provides a more complete lighting pipeline than Basic Lighting. It supports dynamic lights, soft shadows, and better material response, but it is still a fallback compared to Advanced Lighting 1.5.

Advanced Lighting 1.5

Used by High and Ultra Lighting Quality.

Advanced Lighting 1.5 is the main lighting path for physically based rendering. It is the recommended mode for content creation, material checks, local lights, emissives, reflections, and final scene lighting.

Shadow Quality

Shadow Quality is separate from Lighting Quality. It changes the global shadow texture scale used by shadow maps.

Lower Shadow Quality can make shadows appear blurrier, blockier, or missing. This can affect interiors, headlights, street lights, foliage, and small prop details.

Lighting Quality also affects shadow behavior through the light manager and shadow disable level: Lowest can disable more shadows, Low can still disable some, and High/Ultra keep the advanced shadow path enabled.

Shadow Quality controls shadow-map resolution, while Ultra Lighting Quality enables PCSS penumbra filtering for sun shadows. Clustered local lights on Advanced Lighting 1.5 can use contact-hardening filtering when their shadow softness is greater than zero. Screen-space shadows are a separate PostFX effect.

See Lighting Techniques for the differences between shadow maps, PCSS, screen-space shadows, and GTAO+.

Reflections and mirrors

Dynamic reflections and dynamic mirrors are separate from Lighting Quality. The overall presets control whether they are enabled and how expensive they are:

• Lowest / Low disable dynamic reflections and mirrors.
• Normal keeps dynamic reflections off, but enables dynamic mirrors.
• High / Ultra enable dynamic reflections and mirrors.
• Ultra uses higher reflection and mirror update/texture settings than High.

This affects vehicle paint, glass, mirrors, wet roads, glossy props, and other reflective surfaces. Correct lighting should still have cubemap and material fallbacks, because some users will run without dynamic reflections.

Clouds, ambient, and fog

Cloud quality is now a separate graphics setting with Low, Normal, and High modes. It changes volumetric cloud sampling and shadow/transmittance update cost.

Cloud quality can affect lighting because clouds feed into sky ambient lighting, cloud transmittance, and fog/cloud consistency. Lower cloud quality may make dynamic weather less accurate or less detailed, even if Lighting Quality is High.

Fog and ambient lighting also depend on the current exposure, sun direction, sun radiance, sky SH9 ambient data, and cloud transmittance. When checking outdoor lighting, test weather and cloud settings, not only local lights.

PostFX and exposure

The lower overall presets disable several PostFX effects that affect perceived lighting:

• GTAO+ ambient occlusion
• Screen-space shadows
• Bloom
• Depth of field
• Motion blur

GTAO+ and screen-space shadows add view-dependent occlusion and shadow detail. Bloom affects bright emissives, headlights, and highlights. Do not tune physical light intensity only to compensate for these effects being disabled on lower presets.

See Lighting Techniques for how these effects complement shadow maps and where their screen-space limitations apply.

Auto Exposure, local exposure, and tone mapping are part of the current lighting pipeline and should be evaluated on the main advanced lighting path. Lowest/low-end settings are fallback checks, not the authoring target.

HDR output

HDR output is controlled separately from overall quality. The game tracks whether HDR is requested and supported, and uses settings such as paper white, peak white, and UI multiplier when HDR is active.

Content should not be authored separately for SDR and HDR. Use physically meaningful values and check that highlights, emissives, and exposure remain readable in both output modes.

Impact on content creators

Lighting Quality changes how accurately the scene is rendered, not how lights should be authored.

You should still use:

• Real light units such as lumens, candelas, lux, and nits
• Correct exposure values
• Realistic color temperature
• Proper roughness, metallic, and clear coat values
• Cubemap and reflection fallbacks
• Reasonable shadow use and shadow texSize values

Avoid increasing light intensity just to compensate for lower quality settings. That can make the same light too bright on High or Ultra.

Recommended workflow

When creating lighting or materials:

1. Work on High Lighting Quality or better.
2. Use Normal or High Shadow Quality for normal authoring, and Ultra only when checking maximum shadow detail.
3. Use the High or Ultra overall preset for final checks involving reflections, mirrors, clouds, and screenshots.
4. Set exposure before adjusting light intensity.
5. Use real-world reference values.
6. Check Normal, Low, and Lowest only after the main setup is correct.
7. Make sure the scene remains readable without relying only on PostFX, dynamic reflections, or subtle shadow detail.

Best practices

• Use High Lighting Quality as the minimum baseline for PBL work.
• Use Ultra Lighting Quality for sun shadow penumbra checks and final screenshots.
• Test lower presets for fallback behavior.
• Do not rely on subtle shadows being visible on all presets.
• Do not rely only on PostFX for key lighting.
• Provide cubemap and material fallbacks for reflective materials.
• Keep physical light values correct and adjust exposure/setup instead of using “magic” intensity values.