Crisp UDK Shadows

JackBauer

I have been using UDK for a while now, but I have never been able to get crisp shadows when building a scene. I have followed all sorts of tutorials on how to do this and they all say the same thing. Hourences basically says to, "Use lightmaps, and increase the lightmap resolution." I have done this for all of my static meshes, they all have unique lightmaps and have are at a resolution of 512-1024.

And of course I am using Lightmass and production quality.

I have read that if you don't use a lightmap that UDK defaults to vertex lighting, which is the non-crisp shadow type of lighting. I don't know if UDK is reverting to vertex lighting in my scene, because it shouldn't be if I am using a lightmap.

I have even tried setting my lights to cast dynamic shadows and that changes nothing. I don't know a whole lot about UDK lighting, but am I missing something here?

Visceral

Post some pictures of the issues you are having. That might help. 512-1024 seems really high for lightmaps.

Ace-Angel

BPS requires lower numbers, and Static Mesh require higher numbers.

Also, it's helps if you setup a Physical Material, no need for special settings, just needs to have one.

Mr Smo

A good way to get around the shadow res is to use cascade shadows if you are using a dominant direct light they are in the actors options. Might only be for dominant directional though.

info on the cascade maps can be found here:
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ShadowingReference.html#Cascaded%20shadow%20maps

AlexLeighton

You really shouldn't need such a high resolution lightmap unless each mesh is HUGE. If that isn't the case, then something else must be going on. Please do post a few pics.

JackBauer

I don't know if I can show you the entire scene since it is part of an art test, but this is what the light is doing.



And this is what I want it to do



Like the tutorials say I have the mesh properties set to override light map res and set the res to 1024 (even though I know that is pretty high). I even set the light to cast dynamic shadows to see if that changed anything and the Shadow Filter Quality to High.

WarrenM

You could try setting the light source radius (in the LightMass section for the light) to 1 and see if it makes a difference. Right now you're casting light from that entire yellow sphere which can blur and dull shadows.

Ace-Angel

You mean the shadows don't appear unless you select the light, right? Especially for dynamic lights and their shadows?

JackBauer

WarrenMarshall wrote: »

You could try setting the light source radius (in the LightMass section for the light) to 1 and see if it makes a difference. Right now you're casting light from that entire yellow sphere which can blur and dull shadows.

I just did that, set the radius to 1 and I have not as crisp, but still a big improvement on my shadows. if i set it to < 1 I assume they would be crisper? I like they way they are now though, can't believe I didn't know this. Thanks!