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Rendering artifactLumen

Lumen Surface Cache Gap

Find missing Lumen Card coverage that blocks bounced light and produces black reflection regions.

LumenSurface Cachereflectionsstatic meshesmaterials

What you're seeing

A mesh region appears pink in Surface Cache view, contributes no bounced light, and appears black in reflections.

Likely causes

  • The mesh is too complex for its generated Lumen Cards.
  • Walls, floors, ceilings, or an entire room were combined into one interior mesh.
  • The material uses view-dependent logic that cannot be captured from the Card view.

Check in this order

  1. 01Open Lumen Surface Cache view and locate every pink region that matters to lighting or reflections.
  2. 02Visualize Card placement for the affected mesh.
  3. 03Increase Max Lumen Mesh Cards only as far as the mesh needs.
  4. 04If coverage remains poor, split the mesh into simpler parts. Provide a Ray Tracing Quality Switch path for view-dependent material logic.

Views and commands

Surface Cache view

View Mode > Lumen > Surface Cache

Colors uncovered Surface Cache regions pink.

Card placement

r.Lumen.Visualize.CardPlacement 1

Draws the capture positions generated for mesh material properties.

Static Mesh setting

Build Settings > Max Lumen Mesh Cards

Raises the number of capture Cards generated for a complex mesh.

Epic documentation

Related guides

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