Wierd Static mesh lighting issue

Kratilim

Hey,

I know I've seen ppl mention this problem before, but as you can see I have a wierd lighting issue of shadows showing up even though there shouldn't be any.

Anyone know what's causing it and how to fix it?

Thanks!

Oniram

i assume its in regards to the bricks? thats a lightmap issue.

Kratilim

Actually I was talking about the wooden boards. They have a dark gradient. Its fairly visible now, but when I build the lighting as higher quality, the shadows become almost black. I've uploaded a medium lightmass build so you can see it more clearly.



If it helps, here is a wireframe of one of the boards:



Any thoughts?

sprunghunt

It's probably bleeding on the lightmap. Just like oniram says. Try upping the lightmap resolution on that object and rebuilding lighting.

Kratilim

I've done some experimenting. If I harden all the edges the effect is gone. Upping the res has little to no effect so it isn't bleeding. It could still be inverted UV's (I'm guessing) so I'm going to try that. But other than that I'm at a loss. The hardened edges work, but doesn't look as good as the softened.

sprunghunt

One suggestion would be to not make the surface out of individual boards. Make it out of a bigger piece which has all the geometry welded together.

You could also try subdividing the boards along the middle once or twice.

What does the normalmap for these boards look like?

rasmus

You have the boards smoothed, so this is a clear case of that same smoothing just carrying over a little too heavily in the lighting, not lightmapping or normalmaps - manually adjust the vertex normals of each planar face (ie all faces but the bevels) to align to their faces and you'll get correct lighting. Since you're using Maya, check under Normals > Edit Vertex Normals and make them point perpendicular to their corresponding faces.

EDIT: Like this:



On UDK import you will have make sure to have "Explicit Normals" checked, and probably reimporting the model manually again instead of just right clicking on the existing mesh and reimporting from there, because UDK can be a tricky mistress

Kratilim

Thanks rasmus, I'll try that once I get home from work! (I'll update this post with results)

Edit: That did the trick alright. It looks the way it should now. Thanks a lot!