Noob Question On UE4 Dynamic Lighting

940nmt

I'm sure i'm not the only one who finds lighting complex, and I'm currently trying to get my head around the basics. This very crude scene uses dynamic lighting which all seems to make sense so far, but I really have no idea on what the right approach to brighten up the tree would be ?

I have a single directional light ( movable of course ), a sky sphere, and a sky light. I can see that the sky light is adding the bounce lighting which in turn is brightening up the interior of the "building", but trying to get this to brighten up the tree trunk clearly isn't right.

There seems to be so many different components and settings as regards lighting a scene that I'm finding it difficult to understand the correct approach.

Any guidance would be very welcome...

Thanks,

Nick

Obscura

If the skylight is movable, assign a cubemap to. Otherwise, it will only use a single color which will evenly lit ambient lighting. Using a cubemap can yield more realistic result because the cubemap texture will have different stuff on its sides. For example, it can have some directionality from the sun being on one side of the cubemap, and the another can be more shady or sky colored. 

 Also disable "lower hemisphere is solid color". The default setting of this is enabled, and black color assigned. Meaning that the faces of the meshes pointing fully down will not receive any ambient lighting. You can try keeping the option enabled and assigning a color other than black, that works too, but when its disabled, it samples the bottom of the cubemap which again, can give more realistic result.

This should make the shadows much brighter.

940nmt

Hi Obscura,

I can see the effect on the scene that changing those parameters has. Thanks for the response.

Its actually the dark side of the tree trunk that I'm really trying to lighten up. Any suggestions on the right direction to take as regards making this brighter ?

Thanks.... 

Obscura

Can you post a picture of how it looks after changing those settings? It should be bright already.

940nmt

I've changed the skylight cubemap to "HDRI_Epic_Courtyard_Daylight", and switched off the lower hemisphere is solid colour option. It might not show in the picture bu this has lightened the interior of the "building" a fair bit. The tree hasn't changed at all....

Obscura

In the world settings, do you have "force no precomputed lighting" enabled? Did you re-build the lighting after enabling that option. That removes existing baked lighting. Also, what happens when you crank up the skylight intensity?

940nmt

Hi Obscura. I have rebuilt the lighting but this had no effect ( but I have learnt that if I switch the mobility of a light or object to dynamic, the lightmaps will need to be re-baked to remove any outdated lighting ). I have also bumped-up the skylight intensity to 1.5. I suspect my issue was with the tree asset. I swapped it out, and this one looks great, just what I was looking for 

Many thanks for your help....

PixelMasher

It could have been an issue with your albedo being way too dark, if you post an unlit view screenshot that can help diagnose it as well. 

940nmt

Hi, Tim. Thanks for reaching out - I've just been watching a bunch of your stuff on YouTube, and did indeed get your preset lighting pack recently from GumRoad. The YouTube stuff is very helpful, and you got a like and subscribe from me  The tree could well be the issue ( or rather the issue is probably with the user! ) as its from the procedural nature pack available on the marketplace. I plonked it in the scene without looking at how it should be implemented, so it could well be my poor setup that's caused the problem.