Reflecting Metallic Objects in Lumen (UE5)

By default, Lumen handles metallic objects appearing in reflections poorly. Surface cache offers only a matte base color that doesn't look metallic, and the higher quality hit lighting only shows pure black. We can set up a cubemap as a fallback when the screen trace fails to give a much more metallic look. This combination of old school techniques with the new Lumen technology provides results that rival true raytracing for much less performance cost.

Custom Node Text:
#if LUMEN_CARD_CAPTURE
return InputA;
#else
return InputB;
#endif

[TechArtAlex]

Since releasing this video, Lumen has added support for multi bounce reflections. However, I'll leave this up as it may still prove useful for some projects.

Also it turns out it is possible to enable lumen in scene captures to further improve the results. This thread has instructions on how. It requires some minor modifications to the engine so you'd need to be comfortable building from the source code - but I did test it and can confirm it works.

[tmaintv]

Would you please be so kind to share your material on the paste bin at all?

[makerchess]

lumen reflection make metallic material is blurry. how to fix it?

[gandepuun]

Fantastic tutorial. The custom node text only works with the source build of the engine?

[JamesKellyWickerman]

My one question is how do you even find the macros to include in the Custom Node? Is there a list somewhere or do you just need to dig around in source code hoping to find something?

[hieuhoang]

can you share the material file, please?

[mvmeeut]

i can't find "Lumen Switch", can you help me?