Noob lighting problem

AtlusZMH

Hey PC, I'm having some issues with my modular scene having some really bad seam issues. I'm honestly not sure what is causing it and I'm not a pro at UDK, so I'm hoping you guys can help.



The modular pieces seem to be tiling just fine in max, but when I get them in UDK, the lighting or something is chewing up the seams and making weird shadows along the edges.

Any pointers? Thanks!

sprunghunt

Those are lightmap seams. You need to check how you have the second UV channel laid out.

Jessica Dinh

How to make a light map (in case you don't know how)

AtlusZMH

Thanks for the link! I guess I thought I knew how.. I'll go back and follow that tutorial tomorrow and see how it turns out!

Leodido

Keep us posted, I'll probably run into the same issue very soon
Thanks for those tuts Jessica, they are very nice and there's lots of them

AtlusZMH

So I just went through and remade all my layouts for the lightmaps. It seems to have diminished the problem, but hasn't eliminated it entirely.

Here's a shot of what it looks like currently, with the edited UVs



I've found a few threads about similar issues that I'm going through now, I'll keep this updated!

Any other advice would be appreciated! thanks!

Adam L. Gray

Hmm, this is a problem with the lightmap mipmapping I believe. Thing is, if you decrease the size of the shell, in order to get some room for padding, then it's still going to bleed in on the edges, as the shadows will be baked to that smaller area. There might be a way to control the padding for lightmaps, though I never looked at it myself.

So, there is a way to get rid of it, though I wouldn't recommend it;

by adding this line '-MAXQUALITYMODE -NOTEXTURESTREAMING' to your editor shortcut, you'll disable the mipmapping. That being said though, for all I know the filtering might still mess it up, but it should solve it anyway.

As for the method I would recommend; Build it in bsp! Or if you prefer, in max/maya/thingie

Froyok

My last tests on the subject :

sprunghunt

Something to note here. I would not ever make a wall out of lots of tiny pieces like that. It's not very good for performance and in this case you can definitely make the walls out of much larger sections.

Each of those pieces is only a couple of hundred polys so joining them together would only be a tiny hit on memory. And if they're joined together there won't be any seams.

Froyok

sprunghunt wrote: »

Something to note here. I would not ever make a wall out of lots of tiny pieces like that. It's not very good for performance and in this case you can definitely make the walls out of much larger sections.

Each of those pieces is only a couple of hundred polys so joining them together would only be a tiny hit on memory. And if they're joined together there won't be any seams.

I totally agree, it will reduce the drawcalls to merge the wall into one piece.

AtlusZMH

Yep! I agree.. I've been sifting through a lot of info on this problem and a good amount of advice is to just make larger modular pieces or use BSPs with tiling textures to get the same result for much less resources. I think I will go back and do some research on using BSPs and getting textures right and revamp my scene a bit. I'll still have some modular pieces like this, so if i find a solution, I'll keep this thread updated

Leodido

I'm surprised to hear about BSP, I always thought that it was the worst as far as performances are concerned?

Froyok

The difference between BSP and Static Mesh is that BSP surface are a bit slower to calculate than other mesh. Also, BSP can be very bad if you merge a lot of brush between them, it will made a lot of funky triangles.

sprunghunt

Leodido wrote: »

I'm surprised to hear about BSP, I always thought that it was the worst as far as performances are concerned?

lots of static mesh is worse. Bsp is bad if you over-use it. But in many situations the costs aren't as bad as the alternatives.

AtlusZMH

Here is a late update!

I switched to using BSPs for the walls, floors, and ceiling. I figure I can use decals and such to break up the repetitiveness. Thanks a lot for your help!

SirCalalot

I suppose that's what BSPs are for - glad you found a way around it though