Unreal 3 Lighting help
Hey guys, I'm trying to set up my latest model in Unreal3 via the Gears1 editor. Problem is I never touched lighting in Unreal, being a modeler. At first i was having the problem that the fake subsurface effect i gave the shader was not remaining after building lights. Using a spot light seems to have fixed that for now...
The main frustration I'm having right now is that the model looks awesome in the model preview window. The self shadowing is nice and soft and delicious. But when i place it in my map with a light, I can't get that same accurate, soft self-shadowing. Just what looks like blotchy vertex lighting on the model self-shadows. And I also can't get the model to cast a shadow into the level besides the pre-build preview shadows.
Might be asking a lot but can someone tell me how to properly set up lighting in U3 so it casts nice soft shadows like a character would. What the U3 wiki seems to refer to as "Shadow Buffer Shadows". I'm assuming i have to tweak some obscure global settings that I can't figure out.
This is for lighting a character btw, perhaps with a few props too.
Thanks
The main frustration I'm having right now is that the model looks awesome in the model preview window. The self shadowing is nice and soft and delicious. But when i place it in my map with a light, I can't get that same accurate, soft self-shadowing. Just what looks like blotchy vertex lighting on the model self-shadows. And I also can't get the model to cast a shadow into the level besides the pre-build preview shadows.
Might be asking a lot but can someone tell me how to properly set up lighting in U3 so it casts nice soft shadows like a character would. What the U3 wiki seems to refer to as "Shadow Buffer Shadows". I'm assuming i have to tweak some obscure global settings that I can't figure out.
This is for lighting a character btw, perhaps with a few props too.
Thanks
Replies
You need to enable light maps for the models and change the resolution of the light maps on the models to make the self-shadows less crappy. Here's a link to a tutorial on most of what you are asking. There are also shadow properties in each light's uhm,.. property window. The window that you use to change a lights intensity and color, scroll down, and there are shadow properties like falloff and stuff.. can't remember the exact names.
http://waylon-art.com/LearningUnreal/UE3-10-LightMaps.htm
Having a quick look at the link, seems like it won't work for my model since it has mirrored UVs as most characters do. Seems what I need to look at is more on the dynamic shadows side of things. But I'll see if what's covered there can help.
It's so funny that the model looks so awesome and perfect shadows in a preview window, yet getting it that way in the map is like pulling teeth.
Use a second UV set, not your main mirrored one. You will never get the soft-shadowed look you want with dynamic lighting.
Basically i'm asking how to achieve shadows like the mesh preview window. Whatever the set up is in there, that's what i want it to look like. It has to be possible, it can't be a preview-only thing, that would be retarded.
Currently trying to duplicate light settings from his model to mine as much as i can.
EDIT:
GOT IT!
It has to be a skeletal mesh to have nice soft dynamic shadows like characters. Even the fake SSS is looking even better now. Now let's just hope i can add more lights! Hope this helps someone in the future.
I'm sure there's a way to do this without resorting to skeletal mesh, since I've seen static meshes cast that kind of dynamic shadow before. But this looks like it's gonna be an ok workaround for this piece.