Shadow on terrain is really lowres

Fisher007

Hi,

I have a strange problem. The shadows on the terrain is really low res.



This is a default map, I haven't touched any lighting settings. Bumping up the Static lighting res doesn't help. I was looking for some tipp on this problem for like 2 days and no luck. Tried to mess around with all the lighting settings, still nothing. And actually, how it appeared is reeeeaally strange. I was working on my level for uni project at home, took it into the uni it was still good. I started to play around with the lighting because of too dark shadows and managed to breake it and got this result. I wasn't too worried, because I haven't saved the changes, just quit from UDK. After a few hours I reopened it on an other machine and it was the same... no worries I have a backup on my pendrive. Opened it, it was the same. WTF???? Ok still not a problem I have it at home. So I came home, opened here and guess what... o.O''' I reinstalled UDK, put up the newest one. Rebaked the lights for like hundred times. Nothing.



A little help would be appreciated, I starting to go crazy and out of ideas.

gsokol

You have to change your lightmap resolution.

I don't have UDK installed on this PC to show you, but this should have everything you need: http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/udk/udk-lightmaps-04-resolution-static-meshes-bsp.php

Hourences

It only has 16 quads so it is tiny. At res 8 it means a 256x256 lightmap for the terrain of which about 160 pixels would be used for the quads.

That is not very sharp, although I would expect to get better results than what you have. You would be better off using a landscape, the old terrain system may no longer be fully compatible with certain features (distance field shadows for one - which you have in this level) and should be avoided altogether.

Also if you set Whole scene Dynamic Shadow Radius to like 1500 you'd get full dynamic shadows on the scene. In the distance you'd still have this problem then though.

Fisher007

Landscape is indeed better for the shadows. Although I miss the option to set the resolution of the terrain. It is really a pain to create a small street with tools optimised for mountains.



As you can see it's still far from good. Static Light res is 20 and I've seen people suggesting not to go over 8, ohh and my landscape is the smallest suggested on UDN, so again, confusion at its best. If I rescale the terrain manually it solves everything, but people say that can cause trouble. What do you think?

Thank you for the answers.

Xendance

How about that you use the lightmap density viewmode that displays the texels on your screen. That way you can see how sharp it is.

Hourences

Rescaling (drawscale boxes) is to my knowledge not a problem. I always do this, and never had problems.

If all you will do is make a small street, then by all means don't use landscape nor terrain, but just staticmeshes
You can get vertex blending on meshes also, plus they'd be way more memory efficient. A landscape is not very memory efficient.

Fisher007

I have used lighmap density viewmode earlier as well and it always showed that the density is really low. The problem was that I didn't know why because I haven't seen anybody suggesting static light res higher than 10. It's on 20 now and with the rescaled terrain works perfectly.

Hourences, I'm a bit affraid of using static mesh to a not-so-static task. I mean I have shaped the street a lot, inch by inch, then made changes... etc. Isn't it a pain to go back to Maya/Max, do the change, get it right the first time, export, import. Quite a long run for a small change, isn't it?

BTW, I have read many of your tutorials and they are really useful, so I have to say a thank you for those as well.

Hourences

Thanks you also

Yes it is nicer if you'd be able to do it in the editor of course but it should be doable in Max Maya also? You can export the position of all other staticmeshes to Max Maya, so you can see the placement of your scene, and then tweak the ground mesh bit by bit in Max Maya?

I use an export plugin for Max that allows for a 1 click export of my mesh, and I believe, though never tried, Unreal may allow for auto import these days. If not you can also just right-click the asset - reimport. It is not as nice as real time, but it still is fast enough for me usually.

Fisher007

You say something, I think I will change it. Was just thinking about vertex painting as well, so this way I get that too.

Thanks again.