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Rendering artifactBaked Lighting

Lightmap Seam and Bleed

Check the assigned lightmap channel, chart padding, UV coverage, and effective lightmap resolution.

LightmasslightmapsUVsbaked lightingstatic meshes

What you're seeing

Baked lighting shows dark seams, light leaks, or shadow color bleeding along UV chart boundaries.

Likely causes

  • Lightmap UV charts do not have enough padding.
  • The mesh uses the wrong Lightmap Coordinate Index.
  • The effective Lightmap Resolution is below the Min Lightmap Resolution used to pack generated UVs.
  • Fragmented charts or poor UV coverage leave too little texel area for stable lighting.

Check in this order

  1. 01Use Lighting Only to confirm that the seam belongs to the baked lighting result.
  2. 02Inspect the assigned Lightmap Coordinate Index and its UV overlay in the Static Mesh Editor.
  3. 03Compare the mesh or instance Lightmap Resolution with the Min Lightmap Resolution used to generate its UVs.
  4. 04Use Lightmap Density to correct inconsistent texel density, then rebuild lighting.

Views and commands

Lighting Only

View Mode > Lighting Only

Removes material texture detail so the baked-lighting result can be inspected.

Lightmap Density

Alt+0

Shows lightmap texel density relative to the configured ideal and maximum.

Static Mesh setting

General Settings > Lightmap Coordinate Index

Selects which UV channel Lightmass uses for the mesh.

Static Mesh setting

General Settings > Lightmap Resolution

Sets the default baked lightmap resolution for mesh instances.

Epic documentation

Related guides

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