UDK Lightmass/Global Illumination Problem

danscott

I'm Having a problem with the shadowing in udk.
I'm trying to get some shadows from the wood in the windows.
It looks fine in the preview when i select the point light or even when i bake the scene without light mass enabled, but as soon as i build with light mass, the shadows are all wrecked like in this image.
I have unwrapped the objects so there is no overlapping UVs and i have light-map res set to 512.
Anyone know what could be the problemI have attatched 3 images,
1. Bake with lightmass ) where the error is)
2.Baked without lightmass
3.Just an image of the general scene
Thanks for any help!

Obscura

Maybe the lightmass settings are too low. Did you tried to bake with production quality?

danscott

thanks for the response.
with production lighting its a bit better but still not like i'd like the shadows to be,
if need be i'll just abandon lightmass and use skylight for secondary lighting:(
thanks

Obscura

Check out the environment intensity in the world properties/lightmass

danscott

just trying this now- build takes a while. And by the way should i lower or higher this option

Obscura

Higher I guess.Or if this is not enough, try to use dominant directional light, and if this is also not enough, try to play more with the lightmass settings in the world properties.

danscott

not making any difference really.
also, even on production i'm getting some distorted lighting issues in the darker areas.

danscott

Heres that distorted shadow on production quality bake.

Obscura

When you are testing the lighting, use preview or low quality, because its faster.Try the dominant directional light, it will be probably better, because its don't have attenuation.

Obscura

Hm you mean the insane bloom?Its probably because you used really high number for the light intensity. 1 is good for the most cases, because in unreal 1 is totally bright.

danscott

I used dominant directional , but now i don't get shadows from the wood pieces.
Still i'm not getting any of the artifacts.

Obscura

Btw--->
http://www.chrisalbeluhn.com/UDK_Lightmass_Tutorial.html
This might help.

danscott

Thanks for your help

danscott

Just closing the thread.
The way to fix issues like this is make 'light source radius' in the options of the light lower. This makes shadows have harder edges, giving them more definition