Working with these shadow settings in UE5, I made some key adjustments to move away from those default pure black values. The RGB offset settings (0.03 blue, 0.005 red) help simulate more realistic light behaviour—you never really get true black shadows in real spaces because of ambient light bounce. The ShadowsMax at 0.14 keeps everything lifted just enough to maintain detail without compromising the dark atmosphere.
Looking at the before and after shots, you can clearly see how the blue-tinted shadows change the temperature of the scene. The slightly coloured shadows create this natural feeling of a colder space, which makes sense for a night scene. It’s technically more accurate too – nighttime shadows tend to carry blue tones from moonlight and ambient sky illumination.
The contrast and gamma values at 1.05 help maintain detail visibility while letting those subtle shadow colours come through. You can especially see the difference around the desk area – the objects have better definition now that the shadows aren’t crushing to pure black. Keeping that shadow detail helps with spatial readability while still maintaining the nighttime atmosphere I’m aiming for.
I also added a polaroid picture of an old lady, that I generated with AI and layered grunge effects on top of, this will be placed in one of the photo frames alongside a family photo I made too:
I actually used artbreeder a lot in my FMP back when I was studying Graphic and Media Design, it’s funny how far it’s come yet there are still so many issues with its image generation (especially in faces) but it actually strangely adds to the eerie feel I’m creating.
This is more of a proof of concept, I want to recreate the animated painting/ photo thing from Harry Potter in a way that unnerves the player, potentially as the game goes on and more and more unsettling things happen. This won’t make its way into the build of the game I’ll have ready for submission, but I will definitely continue exploring applications and experimenting further in my own time.