Ok i think I just figured it out. It's extremely confusing though: all of a sudden an extra color grading system together with a tonemapper started working on top of the current color adjustment (high mid shadows), and this system is controlled in a package somewhere, or can be overriden in world properties, etc...
This has got to be the most confusing thing I've encountered so far in Unreal Maybe something to take into account at Epic, Jordan. Or maybe try to make it clearer on the UDN docs; I read that but it didn't help much, it still took me 2-3 hours to figure this thing out.
we have a HDR tonemapper that can be enabled or disabled from the chain in the package
The LUT is applied to the scene after the HDR tonemapper
anything set in the highs mids and lows is baked into the LUT at realtime, this has to be done to support old content. We could have disregarded the highs mids and lows but previous level's settings would be lost as well as FX that manipulate post process through highs mids and lows.
yeah i understand backwards compatibility is always an issue for you guys.
You know, now that I think about it, the part that makes the least sense for me, is how you need to go into existing content (UDKgame packages) and change that. I prefer to keep my own stuff completely separate from existing content, and the way post chains are used and implemented makes this impossible. Having to go into .INI files to start using my own chains, isn't very artist-friendly, which is what makes Unreal so great.
How do I control the amount of wind sway my Speedtrees have? Setting "Wind Strength" to 0.0 does nothing. Do I need to do this in Speedtree modeler ?
it could be due to the fact I need to scale al my trees up by at least factor 5, but that's how they come out of the modeler by default...
Jordan, I think I've found a pretty serious bug.
I'm trying to create a material that lerps between normals based on vertex colors. Problem is, Vertex colors seem to break as soon as I use a Vector Transform Node on my reflection vector.
You can recreate it like this:
-Use some static mesh and paint vertex colors on it.
-Create a material with basic spec and diffuse color.
-create a lerp between 2 different normalmaps, based on any vertex color channel and plug it in.
-Create a cubemap node, use a reflection vector as UV, plug this in to diffuse (optionally mask it by fresnel).
-Now use a Transform node in betweem the cubemap and the reflection vector.
In my case this last step results in vertex channels always returning 1, UNLESS I use a Vertex color channel directly in the diffuse slot. Which renders the material useless.
Unless it's some quirky shader model restriction, they don't really seem related. Having a single nodedestroy vertex color functionality doesn't sound right.
vertex colors dont work with a transform node unless you have per-pixel camera vector enabled. This is in the material options.
there's a really long technical explanation for this but I'll just say there aren't enough interpolators to have vertex color and transform node so calculating the camera vector in the pixel shader frees up an interpolator.
Ah, great! That's just one of those options you never seem to need, good to hear it's such an easy fix.
And yes I understand that sort of restrictions, once you try to enable a lot of functionality in shaders, it's not hard to encounter some of the shader model limits.
Just out of curiosity, how would one go around making the Xray effect that Batman has or when games have thermal vision. Would you handle it on the rendering side through UnrealScript?
SO the research I have done hasn't made it apparent. But can I do a circular array based off a static meshes rotation? then save as a prefab?
I have a hemispheric object... Oh hell pictures are worth a thousand words.
The idea being.
-Having a less poly intensive static mesh since some can be replicated.
-Having a UV layout for AO burning in game with a much larger size per object versus an incredibly small layout for the AO uv lightmapping.
If can do array then save as a prefab, then level designers job much easier.
I figured best ask this question here rather than start a whole new thread.
What's the best way to improve lighting on static mesh?
The static mesh has a second UV layout for the light map, with no over lapping and iv set "lightmap Cood Index" to 1.
This was my first attempt:
Looked ugly, so I increased the space between UV shells and the lightmap resolution from the 32 to 64:
Ok so a little better, so I increased it to 128. Result was better still but there are still areas like the door handles and the strip in-between that two doors that don't seem to be lit correctly:
So its better, but far from perfect, is the only way to increase the quality of lighting on static meshes to up the light map resolution? Are there more efficient changes that can made, perhaps to the model or uv layout that can better improve the lightmap quality?
Im wondering if once I get some colour on the diffuse map (at the moment its just xNormal's AO bake) the issues won't be so noticeable?
[EDIT]
The UV layout of the light map was created from the original UVs, then laid out using the "pack uvs" tool in 3Ds Max's UVW Editor.
Here is the uv layout of the light map:
Well it doesn't look too bad to me, but you may as well squeeze all the efficiency that you can out of your lightmap UVs. Scale up the small bits and the problem areas to fill out that empty space, and perhaps edit the packing manually if it helps efficiency. Then maybe try the lightmap at a higher res to be sure that it's working correctly and down res until you can find a happy medium. Oh, and be sure that you check this on a production quality lighting build. There may be something else going on here that I'm not thinking of, but you don't look too far off to me.
MaD: Press TAB and try taking the tiledshot through there. I've had a similar problem to yours where I found using tiledshot in the full console to be the cause.
Hey guys, is there any way to exclude a mesh from the effects of a postprocess volume? I don't want my skydome to be affected by the DOF I have in my postprocess volume. I'm sure its an easy fix.
Hey guys, is there any way to exclude a mesh from the effects of a postprocess volume? I don't want my skydome to be affected by the DOF I have in my postprocess volume. I'm sure its an easy fix.
Have you tried changing the DOF_Max Far Blur Amount? A really low amount or even 0 will make everything after your DOF_Focal Distance come more into focus. It won't exclude your skydome like you want but its the only work around I can think of.
hey, does anybody know what the Rim shader is in the world info? I can only assume that it's a post process to put rim lighting on your characters.. but I can't get it to work . anybody know how to get this working? if that is infact what it is?
Rob, even if you find out how to use it, I fail top see the point. You can definitely build a nicer shader yourself with the material editor...
I have a question:
I have a decolayer with static meshes. After baking the lighting, those static meshes stay dynamic. Looks pretty bad when using lightmass, since the shadows are pure black due to no skylight. How do i fix this? I can't even access the static mesh settings for a decolayer (unlike speedtrees in decolayers).
Here is a tip to bring out the best in what you've made by giving you access to all the resolution without changing to the wrong LODBias group. You will need to edit two ini files:
UTGame\Config\DefaultEngine.iniand UTGame\Config\DefaultEngineUDK.ini. A lot of assets fall into the WORLD so look for this line:
From there you can change the max res of your textures for whatever LODBias group you want. I would suggest to do this only for demos. Back up your INI files.
Hey,
I'm pretty new to unreal, so this is a rather simple question.
I just imported a boxed out scene I made in max. None of the meshes are unwrapped or lighmap UVed. I am assuming it is normal that nothing is showing up right, right?
Prophecies: If you want to quickly preview you blockout in UDK, use automatic uwnrap tools. Go to your content browser, click on your static mesh, click on Mesh on the toolbar and then on Generate Unique UV's. It works pretty well for simple assets and sometimes I even use it on finished assets.
*Edit* For some reason the Generate Automatic UVs just isn't working. I hit apply, and when I check the "Show UV overlay" button, the newly unwrapped UV map shows up. But nothing changes on the model.
*Edit 2* I got it fixed. I simply didn't use the UV Channel 0. I had it set to 1. Setting it to channel 0 fixed it.
having an issue with lighting. ive got some skeletal meshes, and they are casting shadows, without a light even hitting them. Also if there is a light on them, they will cast a shadow until the entire shadow ends, even if the light radius stops. here is a brief example of what im talking about. if anyone knows anything about this, id appreciate the help.
truthfully just for the sake of experience. ive never done anything with skeletal meshes before, and i wanted to give it a try. i had a hard time doing the animation and bringing it in and actually getting it to work, but in the end i made it work. i figured i should have had some background with anims in udk, and because my instructor doesnt know his ass from his elbow about udk (he still tries to teach ut2004), ive got to figure out everything on my own. but regardless of the fact that i am using a skeletalmesh, i dont know why those shadows are there.
Hey Jordan, I have a question;
is it possible to have baked lighting on staticmesh Decolayers ? Seems like they always stay dynamically lit. Is this different with foliagelayers ?
ok on a new note.. with the may build of UDK, shadows seem to be a bit picky. normally i can create nice looking shadows with static lights and static meshes, but now with May, i cant create hard shadows with static lighting anymore. regardless, my main issue.. i build my lighting over and over again, yet still when i go into game, it says lighting needs to be rebuilt. has this happened to anyone before?
Maybe this is normal, but it's the first time I've seen it. In the May UDK, when I create a material I get a texture that is a duplicate of my material name. For example, Wood_Mat material is duplicated to Wood_Mat_Flattened. It's also half the resolution of my source texture for that material. Is this normal or is my UDK going berserk?
its normal. i havent read the notes for may entirely but im pretty sure that is something that is built in. It may have to do something with their expanding lighting system.. i read somewhere that swarm is able to calculate a low res texture as a very high res one using whatever coding process or something like that.. valve uses it in TF2. but then again its just what i think i read.
Replies
This has got to be the most confusing thing I've encountered so far in Unreal
The LUT is applied to the scene after the HDR tonemapper
anything set in the highs mids and lows is baked into the LUT at realtime, this has to be done to support old content. We could have disregarded the highs mids and lows but previous level's settings would be lost as well as FX that manipulate post process through highs mids and lows.
You know, now that I think about it, the part that makes the least sense for me, is how you need to go into existing content (UDKgame packages) and change that. I prefer to keep my own stuff completely separate from existing content, and the way post chains are used and implemented makes this impossible. Having to go into .INI files to start using my own chains, isn't very artist-friendly, which is what makes Unreal so great.
How do I control the amount of wind sway my Speedtrees have? Setting "Wind Strength" to 0.0 does nothing. Do I need to do this in Speedtree modeler ?
it could be due to the fact I need to scale al my trees up by at least factor 5, but that's how they come out of the modeler by default...
Can you get into properties of a static mesh if it is a decolayer, since there's no 2 sided lighting checkbox in the deco properties.
I'm trying to create a material that lerps between normals based on vertex colors. Problem is, Vertex colors seem to break as soon as I use a Vector Transform Node on my reflection vector.
You can recreate it like this:
-Use some static mesh and paint vertex colors on it.
-Create a material with basic spec and diffuse color.
-create a lerp between 2 different normalmaps, based on any vertex color channel and plug it in.
-Create a cubemap node, use a reflection vector as UV, plug this in to diffuse (optionally mask it by fresnel).
-Now use a Transform node in betweem the cubemap and the reflection vector.
In my case this last step results in vertex channels always returning 1, UNLESS I use a Vertex color channel directly in the diffuse slot. Which renders the material useless.
there's a really long technical explanation for this but I'll just say there aren't enough interpolators to have vertex color and transform node so calculating the camera vector in the pixel shader frees up an interpolator.
And yes I understand that sort of restrictions, once you try to enable a lot of functionality in shaders, it's not hard to encounter some of the shader model limits.
I have a hemispheric object... Oh hell pictures are worth a thousand words.
The idea being.
-Having a less poly intensive static mesh since some can be replicated.
-Having a UV layout for AO burning in game with a much larger size per object versus an incredibly small layout for the AO uv lightmapping.
If can do array then save as a prefab, then level designers job much easier.
Have no idea of what term to search for, so thus far haven't found anything specific to what I am after in the editor.
Stumbled yet on another problem. When taking a tiledshot, post process effects seem to be put on each separate tile.
Edit: nvm, just doesn't work (as said in another tread).
So ohnein was wrong? Or is there another method other than eyeing?
You're just trying to layout of those meshes so they make a complete mesh, right? You could put the pivot in the center and rotate it.
What's the best way to improve lighting on static mesh?
The static mesh has a second UV layout for the light map, with no over lapping and iv set "lightmap Cood Index" to 1.
This was my first attempt:
Looked ugly, so I increased the space between UV shells and the lightmap resolution from the 32 to 64:
Ok so a little better, so I increased it to 128. Result was better still but there are still areas like the door handles and the strip in-between that two doors that don't seem to be lit correctly:
So its better, but far from perfect, is the only way to increase the quality of lighting on static meshes to up the light map resolution? Are there more efficient changes that can made, perhaps to the model or uv layout that can better improve the lightmap quality?
Im wondering if once I get some colour on the diffuse map (at the moment its just xNormal's AO bake) the issues won't be so noticeable?
[EDIT]
The UV layout of the light map was created from the original UVs, then laid out using the "pack uvs" tool in 3Ds Max's UVW Editor.
Here is the uv layout of the light map:
I edited the UV layout some more and scaled up some of the smaller uv shells and it improves somewhat:
But on production quality:
Yikes! Now there are bunch of funky looking hard edges and the lighting looks even more blotchy.
[Edit]
Ok so i reimported the model and the hard edges have gone, not sure what happened. Production Quality:
Thanks.
Hi Sasuki. Check out our free video on how to make a second UV set for lightmaps on 3dmotive.com!
http://www.3dmotive.com/product.php?pid=1002
Hope that helps!
-Mike
Thanks a lot Mike for the Link.
I also found this Tutorial it contains MAX and MAYA lightmap UV channel.
here:
http://waylon-art.com/LearningUnreal/UE3-10-LightMaps.htm
Have you tried changing the DOF_Max Far Blur Amount? A really low amount or even 0 will make everything after your DOF_Focal Distance come more into focus. It won't exclude your skydome like you want but its the only work around I can think of.
cheers
I have a question:
I have a decolayer with static meshes. After baking the lighting, those static meshes stay dynamic. Looks pretty bad when using lightmass, since the shadows are pure black due to no skylight. How do i fix this? I can't even access the static mesh settings for a decolayer (unlike speedtrees in decolayers).
UTGame\Config\DefaultEngine.ini and UTGame\Config\DefaultEngineUDK.ini. A lot of assets fall into the WORLD so look for this line:
TEXTUREGROUP_World=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=1,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
You want to change the MaxLODSize...
TEXTUREGROUP_World=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=1,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
From there you can change the max res of your textures for whatever LODBias group you want. I would suggest to do this only for demos. Back up your INI files.
You want to change only this file:
UDKGame\Config\DefaultEngineUDK.ini
I'm pretty new to unreal, so this is a rather simple question.
I just imported a boxed out scene I made in max. None of the meshes are unwrapped or lighmap UVed. I am assuming it is normal that nothing is showing up right, right?
UDKGame -> Config -> UDKEngine.ini -> bUseMaxQualityMode=True
*Edit* For some reason the Generate Automatic UVs just isn't working. I hit apply, and when I check the "Show UV overlay" button, the newly unwrapped UV map shows up. But nothing changes on the model.
*Edit 2* I got it fixed. I simply didn't use the UV Channel 0. I had it set to 1. Setting it to channel 0 fixed it.
is it possible to have baked lighting on staticmesh Decolayers ? Seems like they always stay dynamically lit. Is this different with foliagelayers ?