built lighting in UDK looks like total garbage.
polycounter lvl 12
Hey, so I'm still new to UDK and trying to figure out how to get my scenes in it to look good. First, here is a shot of a segment of my scene pre-lighting built (both examples are lit by two point lights with fairly default settings + Lightmass)
Nothing Earth shattering, but aside the lack of shadowing/AO between different meshes, it looks pretty close to how I want it. The spec is nice and subtle, there's no ugly seams between symmetrical objects and just generally everything reacts to the lighting well. That was easy!! Now, I guess it's just time to built lighting to add some shadows/bounces/AO and be done with it:
AAAAAAAAAAANNNNDD It looks like total shit! Ugly Seams everywhere despite ensuring that they were all one chunk on the lightmap, my spec power settings seem to be getting totally ignored with everything getting flooded by light, the highlight on the topmost construction beam is horizontally prolonged and hideous as if the normals have been flipped despite it looking totally fine pre-built.
So I guess my first question is, why the drastic difference between the real-time viewport and post-build version? I'm not a very technical person but wouldnt it make sense for UDK do resolve the texture information/lightmaps similarly pre-and-post lighting build? Instead of this huge night-and-day difference?
Second question, is obviously, why does it look so awful. I followed all the guidelines for making proper lightmaps, btw. Is this just accepted in UDK as a thing that happens? If so, can someone recommend a game engine/editor that doesn't make all my hard modelling/baking/texturing work look so shitty??
Nothing Earth shattering, but aside the lack of shadowing/AO between different meshes, it looks pretty close to how I want it. The spec is nice and subtle, there's no ugly seams between symmetrical objects and just generally everything reacts to the lighting well. That was easy!! Now, I guess it's just time to built lighting to add some shadows/bounces/AO and be done with it:
AAAAAAAAAAANNNNDD It looks like total shit! Ugly Seams everywhere despite ensuring that they were all one chunk on the lightmap, my spec power settings seem to be getting totally ignored with everything getting flooded by light, the highlight on the topmost construction beam is horizontally prolonged and hideous as if the normals have been flipped despite it looking totally fine pre-built.
So I guess my first question is, why the drastic difference between the real-time viewport and post-build version? I'm not a very technical person but wouldnt it make sense for UDK do resolve the texture information/lightmaps similarly pre-and-post lighting build? Instead of this huge night-and-day difference?
Second question, is obviously, why does it look so awful. I followed all the guidelines for making proper lightmaps, btw. Is this just accepted in UDK as a thing that happens? If so, can someone recommend a game engine/editor that doesn't make all my hard modelling/baking/texturing work look so shitty??
Replies
What you can see on the second pic is called lightmap specular. In your material properties uncheck the option "Allow Lightmap Specular" to get rid of it. That's the first thing you need to do. Secondly convert your PointLights to a different type of light which allows for dynamic lighting, e.g. PointLightToggleables.
Sweet, thanks - I did what you said and it's back to pretty much looking like the first image!
This probably isn't the 'correct' way to approach building a level in udk but as it's for portfolio purposes i'd rather it would just look nicer.
Out of curiosity, when using dynamic lighting, does that mean it totally forgoes lightmaps, or does it still use them to bake down AO?
however, since it would appear NOT using dynamic lights in my scene makes it look awful, I guess that's what I'm going with for now haha
No, you can have both. There is a difference between full dynamic lighting (this also includes dynamic shadows and is not advisable for static environments) and lights which work fine with prebaked lighting/lightmaps/lightmass but also affect the dynamic lighting channel.
Awesome! You've been very helpful, thanks so much
Are there any steps I need to take in order to ensure proper lightmass functionality when using dynamic lighting w/ Lightmass (ie light bounces/proper GI)? Do light classes work indepently from Lightmass? Like i'm imagining point lights and stuff would be analogous to using Omni/Spotlights and Lightmass would be like a skylight type thing? Is that vaguely correct?
IMO you should go the proper way. I understand you want your portfolio stuff to look as good as possible but on the other hand you can argue that if you are going to demonstrate what you can do, it shouldn't rely on hacks but should work within the limitations of the hardware and engine and makes the best out of those. Because you will face those same type of problems when working in the industry also.
Well the first image is pre lighting build just to demonstrate how the specular looks better before building the lighting, which is why there are no shadows. This is what it currently looks like using dynamic lights post-built:
But otherwise yeah, I think you make a good point in that it's probably better to be honest about it and show what it "really" looks like in the engine, it just sucks that after all my hard texturing work it has to look that shitty lol, especially the spec.
but also according to mAlkAv!An it's possible to have lights which affect the dynamic spec channel but also work with light mass?