Hi there! Thanks for reaching out.
The “weird” look you’re seeing may come from a few UE5 rendering features being enabled or disabled differently. Pinpointing the exact source can be tricky, but I compared the settings of a fresh UE5 project with my own project to identify the main differences.
1. Core Rendering & Lighting
These settings have the biggest impact on how the shader behaves.
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Global Illumination & Reflections: Both are set to None.
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Substrate: Set to False. If your shader was built for the legacy material system, it may appear broken if Substrate is enabled.
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Allow Static Lighting: Set to False.
2. Post-Processing & Exposure
To keep the visuals consistent and prevent the engine from constantly adjusting brightness:
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Auto Exposure: Disabled (Method set to Manual).
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Motion Blur: Disabled.
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Ambient Occlusion: Disabled.
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It is currently enabled in my project, but it is not necessary for the character itself.
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3. Anti-Aliasing & Visual Clarity
The “comfortable” screen look you mentioned is likely related to these settings:
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Anti-Aliasing Method: TSR (4)
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MSAA Count: 8×
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Custom Depth-Stencil Pass: Enabled with Stencil
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This is critical if your cel shader relies on stencil masks for outlines or other technical effects.
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4. Technical & Hardware Settings
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Default Graphics RHI: DX12
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Targeted Shader Formats: SM6 enabled (SM5 disabled)
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Texture Streaming Pool Size: Increased to 4000 MB to prevent blurry textures during previews.
If you set Substrate to False and disable Global Illumination, that should already resolve some of the visual issues.
Also, if you haven’t tried it yet, it can help to upgrade a copy of your entire project to the newer engine version first before migrating assets. Unreal’s internal conversion process often handles compatibility much better.
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Other small adjustments;
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Exposure Bias: r.DefaultFeature.AutoExposure.Bias is set to 0.000000.
Light Units: r.DefaultFeature.LightUnits is set to 2.
Lumen Ray Tracing: r.Lumen.HardwareRayTracing is explicitly set to True.
Lumen SDF Tracing: r.Lumen.TraceMeshSDFs is enabled with a value of 1.
Translucency Reflections: r.Lumen.TranslucencyReflections.FrontLayer.EnableForProject is set to False.
Refraction Ray Tracing: r.Lumen.Reflections.HardwareRayTracing.Translucent.Refraction.EnableForProject is set to False.
Translucent Shadows: r.Shadow.TranslucentPerObject.ProjectEnabled is set to False.
Translucent Sorting: r.TranslucentSortPolicy is set to 0.
Separate Translucency: r.SeparateTranslucency is set to True.
Mobile AA: r.Mobile.AntiAliasing is set to 4.
Mobile Shading Path: r.Mobile.ShadingPath is set to 1.
Mobile HDR: r.MobileHDR is set to True.
Mobile Float Precision: r.Mobile.FloatPrecisionMode is set to 2.
Nanite Status: r.Nanite.ProjectEnabled is set to True.
Order Independent Transparency: r.OIT.SortedPixels is set to False.
Normal Maps: Compat.UseDXT5NormalMaps is set to False.