UDK Shadow issue

Reverenddevil

OK, I am just going to throw the question out there first to see if anyone has run into anything like this first. Then if I need to get more specific I can post examples etc.
First off I cannot get proper shadow casting for some reason. What I mean is my static meshes will cast shadows and I can see them but they are so translucent that they almost look like they are not there.
I have 1 Dominant directional light a spot light and a few point lights around.
I try in the viewport and my shadows are not dark at all, I bake and still the same issue. I have deleted my lights and placed new ones and tried each light by itself and still not dark shadow casting.
I have also gone into world properties and changed the color to the environment to a blueish color and darker and still nothing. I am getting shadows on things just not good shadow casting and dark ones at that. Anyone know of why? I will post examples if people don't understand or just want to punch me. Thank you.

Jacky

It would be better if you showed some screenshots of your problem. :P

Reverenddevil

Ok here is an image breakdown. I am really trying to understand why I cant get any shadow casting.

This is what I would like to see with my meshes etc.

This is with built lighting


This is what happens when I build lighting using lightmass light importance volume etc. 1 Dominant Direc Light one spot light and a few point lights.

This happens when I select the light with built lighting


How can I achieve that cast shadow with my meshes? I have changed light map res from 32 to 128, switched lighting channels, changed environment color for shadows in world properties, I have proper light map layouts, etc.

Thanks for looking.

Santewi

What's the lightmap res for the ground mesh? Changing the resolution for the objects doesn't change the shadow they cast on other objects, only how detailed shadows the object itself receives.

Reverenddevil

the lightmap res is 64

Santewi

For the ground mesh? It's pretty low for a larger object, see if increasing it helps at all.

Jacky

Seems to me it is not just a low lightmap res. issue. Your dominant d. light is just being dominant and casting the shadows and the point lights are adding to it, and when you select the point light the editor is showing you a preview of how the shadows would look like if you were using it instead of the d.d. light. Remove the point lights wherever you are having this result, rebuilt lighting and see how it looks.

Reverenddevil

Santewi, I upped the res to 128 and still no shadows.

Jacky I will try that and see what I get thanks.

Mellon3D

You should update resolution up to 1024 at least

Santewi

How many point lights are there in total?

Reverenddevil

Santewi there were only maybe 6 or so.

Reverenddevil

I turned the res for the lightmaps on the ground meshes to 1024 and i am still getting no cast shadows. GAHHHHH!!!

Jacky

With that light near the bricks you are just lighting the shadows your dom. dir. light is casting. That's why you are getting faint shadows. Lose it, lower its power or move it farther away.

Reverenddevil

Jacky with my last lighting build i have a dominant light and directional light only. I got rid of all my point lights and still no cast shadows

Reverenddevil

Also, this is happening to my entire scene not just near the blocks

Parkar

Is the ground BSP or a static mesh? If it is BSP you need to use a lower lightmap resolution isntead of higher (The value is the size of the texels).

If it is a static mesh you probably need a very high resolution to get any shadows. What you could do just as a test is replace the ground mesh with BSP and put the resolution to 1 on that BSP.

Another tip is to change the view mode to lightmap resolution. This will give you a grid over all surfaces showing you exactly how big the lightmap texels are.

And finaly if you can't get a static shadow to be sharp enough you can use a dynamic light with a dynamic shadow.

Reverenddevil

Parkar it is all static mesh. The resolution is set at 1024 for all floor pieces.
I will try those suggestions and see what i can come up with. Thank you

TDub

Open up any of your static meshes, through the content browser, and make sure this option is checked under all of your elements.

Santewi

Reverenddevil wrote: »

Jacky with my last lighting build i have a dominant light and directional light only. I got rid of all my point lights and still no cast shadows

So, you have one dominant directional light and one normal directional light? What happens if you only have the DDL?

Reverenddevil

TDub wrote: »

Open up any of your static meshes, through the content browser, and make sure this option is checked under all of your elements.

TDUB made sure of this already.

r4ptur3

I know you have already checked, but this is the exact same error I was seeing when a second dominant directional light was present. I'd triple check your Scene tab in the content browser. Also, for S&G's ... remove your second directional light to see if the shadows come back. Why do you need two? They simulate super far away lights like the sun.

TDub

Okay. My next step would follow along the lines of what r4ptur3 said. Delete ALL of the lights in the scene. Add a single point light to test baking does occur, and build up from there.