UE 5.8: Can Lower Settings Keep the Glow?

What: Neon on wet streets. Shady cyber-clinics. Glowing magical effects. Lighting carries a lot of the look I'm building. I moved the game from Unreal 5.7 to 5.8.2 at the end of August. The rendering feature that interests me most is Lumen Lite, which brings dynamic global illumination to a lower graphics setting. It could help keep more of that atmosphere on lower-end machines. Since May, I've been working on what happens at the edge of a wall: how the character holds the pistol, aims and peeks from cover. The pistol grip is now baked into the cover animation clips. Cover and peeking still need work. When the character leans out, their pose and weapon aim need to make the exposure and the target clear. That work also explains one decision about the upgrade. I kept the existing movement system. Unreal's new Mover system is experimental, with gaps around crouching and ability integration. Those are exactly the things this game's cover depends on. There are useful pieces for the enemy work ahead too. StateTree is scheduled for the Enemy AI phase already on the roadmap: patrols, aggro, telegraphed attacks and enemies that fight back. Per-mesh navigation areas could help me author how enemies move around cover props. The walls a player chooses to fight from also need to make sense to the enemies moving around them.

Why: When a new engine feature and the working cover system disagreed, cover won.