NOVA - Gameplay Lighting

I am thrill to share the in-game lighting work I did for the student game NOVA developed over 8 months using Unreal Engine 5 during my final year at ESMA Montpellier.
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| Project Context |
Play as Nova and save the lunar creature that has fallen from the sky to restore the world’s harmony.
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On this project, I was responsible for the lighting artistic direction and technical aspects.
Throughout the project, I collaborated closely with environment artists to ensure a PBR-friendly workflow that lets the lighting fully express the game’s mood. My lighting base is built around a physically based lighting setup based on the end of a day, with a single Post Process Volume with dynamically adjusted exposure.
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| Artistic Direction |
The lighting design is inspired by Romanticism, an artistic movement that explores human fragility and tragic beauty. This influence is reflected in the use of soft, diffused, and desaturated light, creating a mystical, melancholic atmosphere that supports the game’s emotional tone.
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| Technical Approach |
The entire game is lit using Unreal Engine 5's Lumen system, carefully optimized to maintain strong visual quality while ensuring good performance:
- No hardware ray tracing used. Lumen settings have been tuned to minimize impact on performance while keeping consistent visual fidelity.
- Screen Space Reflections (SSR) are used for performance and quality.
- Cascaded Shadow Maps (CSM) have been adjusted to blend efficiently with Distance Field Shadows, with a dynamic shadow distance optimized.
- Distance Fields and Far Shadows to enhance large-scale visibility and depth in this large-scale environment.
- Volumetric clouds are optimized (lower density), and the Sky Atmosphere is enhanced with a dome mesh that adds motion, shifting colors, and a starfield, reinforcing the game’s sense of magic and mystery.
And more…
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| Lighting Progression |
Lighting evolves throughout the player's journey:
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After the fall of the moon, we are in the diffuse, desaturated light of the creator star, which blends different cool and warm hues. The clouds are dense but soft. And to reinforce the living aspect of the light source, we made it pulsate slowly. This setup creates a strong contrast with the magical elements such as the receptacles or the celestial animal, which are more saturated and luminous.
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As the end approaches, the sky darkens further, the atmosphere becomes warmer, and the light of the star begins to disappear behind the clouds. This reinforces a sense of tragedy and urgency.
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Feedback is always welcome, thank you for reading!
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Crédits :
BLAYA Thomas :
Lighting artist, GD, ND, Producer, Cinematic director, Tech artist, VFX
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CHMIELEWSKI Lea :
3D artist, 2D artist, Character designer : Nova
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DIONET Anthony
3D Animator : Nova, 2D artist
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DROGUE Alan :
LD, ND
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GARCIA Solène :
3D artist, 2D artist, Character designer : astronomers
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GONGORA Ethan :
GPP : 3C, Tool programmer, Tech artist, Rigger : Nova
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HERREMAN Valentin :
3D artist, 2D artist, Character designer : ermine
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HIRSCH Sacha :
3D Animator : ermine, GPP, menus, Rigger : ermine
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PICOT Samuel :
Tool programmer, Tech artist, VFX
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SERROEN Livy :
3D artist, 2D artist
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GLINEVICIUTE Evelina :
Compositor, SFX