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UDK, Static Meshes, InterpActors and Dynamic Shadows.

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iansmithartist polycounter lvl 14
I'm having a few problems getting my head around something, here is what im trying to do:
viewport1405201112050am.jpg

Have a mesh with alpha map (1) cast a nice clean shadow on the floor(2).

My problems so far:

1) Light map shadows arnt very crisp, increasing the light map resolution helps, but even when its 1024 its still very muddy. Increasing the resolution any more seemed bit too much.
viewport1405201115310am.jpg

2) So i tried dynamic shadows. Im not too familar with these settings but I disabled "Cast static shadows" and "use precomputed shadows." This seemed to give me the shadows I wanted, but produces an error for the static meshes:

"006 Redesign 02 StaticMeshActor_257 Static Mesh component [BRL_Buildings.3D.BRL_Buildings_SunShield] not lightmapped and not using a light environment, will be inefficient and have incorrect lighting! Set bUsePrecomputedShadows=True to use lightmaps or enable the light environment."

As the error suggests the static meshes arnt lit correctly. The error message suggests: "Set bUsePrecomputedShadows=True to use lightmaps or enable the light environment." Turning "Precomputed Shadows" back on results in the use of light maps. So I looked into "enable the light environment." From looking around this seemed to relate to InterpActors

3) So I replace the static meshes with InterpActors. These seemed to cast dynamic shadows right off the bat, but the meshes themselves arn't lit correctly.
viewport1405201115422am.jpg

So I guess what i'm asking is there away for a mesh to cast dynamic shadows (so that they are crisp and well defined) but the mesh itself lit using a light map so that they appear themselves lit correctly?

Of course I may be way of base :/, so any push in the right direction is welcome.

Replies

  • tristamus
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    tristamus polycounter lvl 9
    Did you try lowering the res on the bsp surface properties?

    *Edit: Or is that not BSP, but a model? Do you have separate UV's for the lightmap where the shadows are occurring?
  • cholden
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    cholden polycounter lvl 18
    If you can't get a good result baking the lighting, and it's not too expensive to have the dynamic shadow there, you can go into the InterpActor's Propertiers and set the Lighting Channels to: Uncheck Dynamic, and checkStatic & Use Precomputed Shadows. This should give the result of baked lighting as though it's a static mesh.
  • iansmithartist
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    iansmithartist polycounter lvl 14
    @tristamus Thanks for the reply. Both/all the static meshes in the scene have a second UV Channel for light map baking.

    @cholden If I change the InterpActors settings as you suggested it causes them to cast shadows that are baked rather than dynamic.

    I wish them to cast dynamic shadows, but when I set this up the interpActors cast the nice dynamic shadows, but the object themselves don't look lit correctly. Sorry if i wasn't clear before.
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