UDK Lighting Effect

BenStrasser

Hey,

Im trying to get this effect:



Not really sure how to achieve this, appreciate any help

Here is a WIP,



Thanks

Ben

sprunghunt

You've got a very similar lighting scheme in the warehouse in your portfolio. What exactly is the difference between the effect you've got there and what you're trying to achieve here?

Donavonyoung

Also your boards are running the wrong way, if you are trying to match this exactly. I would also ask what are you trying to do.?

System

god rays and bloom
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ContentBlogArchive.html#Light Shafts

BenStrasser

Thanks guys,

you are correct sprunghunt. I was wondering if there was a different way to do it. I pretty much just blew the hell out of the lights... Thought there may be a "cleaner" way to make it work.
Also with you saying that Im wondering if I should even go that route as it is pretty much the same as my other piece..

Hey Donavon, this is where my WIP is for the scene.

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84470&page=11&highlight=Ben+Strasser+Portfolio

I want to figure out my lighting before I get to far into the project.

Thanks Chris

sprunghunt

BenStrasser wrote: »

Thanks guys,

you are correct sprunghunt. I was wondering if there was a different way to do it. I pretty much just blew the hell out of the lights... Thought there may be a "cleaner" way to make it work.

Instead of turning the lights up too far you can just turn down the bloom threshold. Making stuff bloom more.

unstoppablex

if you plan to use static lighting you'd also need to turn up lightmaps drastically high for the objects the sunlight will hit to get sharp lighting as in your reference. If you plan ahead and unwrap the lightmap UV according which faces will the sharp light hit. you can save yourself tons of space by upsizing those faces on UVs. you also may want to add a skylight so that you don't get pure black shadows.

Good luck on the scene!

sprunghunt

unstoppablex wrote: »

. you also may want to add a skylight so that you don't get pure black shadows.

Skylights are no longer required in udk. With lightmass ambient values are set in the world properties.

System

theyre necessary for decent character lighting still unfortunately.

unstoppablex

If it's an indoor + outdoor scene and there is no lights in a room lightmass wouldn't work as well as a skylight. it's mostly trial and error and seeing what works best really.

Xendance

ChrisPerr wrote: »

theyre necessary for decent character lighting still unfortunately.

What? No they aren't. World properties has settings for character light environment. You can change direct and indirect brightness and contrast and other things there.

unstoppablex wrote: »

If it's an indoor + outdoor scene and there is no lights in a room lightmass wouldn't work as well as a skylight. it's mostly trial and error and seeing what works best really.

So? There are holes between the wall planks, light comes in, hits the ground and bounces around. BAM, there's your indirect lighting for the indoors. You can always tweak materials for lightmass using lightmass replace node, tweak static lighting scale, tweak ambient occlusion, tweak number of bounces, tweak hemisphere lighting and so on.
Skylight is deprecated as stated on UDN.

unstoppablex

Xendance wrote: »

So? There are holes between the wall planks, light comes in, hits the ground and bounces around. BAM, there's your indirect lighting for the indoors. You can always tweak materials for lightmass using lightmass replace node, tweak static lighting scale, tweak ambient occlusion, tweak number of bounces, tweak hemisphere lighting and so on.
Skylight is deprecated as stated on UDN.

many videos i seen on lighting still use a skylight. I'm not talking about skylight to actually light a scene, but to use it to remove pure black shadows, so using a low brightness like 0.1. lightmass is limited on how many times it can bounce, so there isn't any guarantee that all pure black shadows will be cured.

Xendance

unstoppablex wrote: »

many videos i seen on lighting still use a skylight. I'm not talking about skylight to actually light a scene, but to use it to remove pure black shadows, so using a low brightness like 0.1. lightmass is limited on how many times it can bounce, so there isn't any guarantee that all pure black shadows will be cured.

They're only making the scene look more washed out, not better.

sprunghunt

unstoppablex wrote: »

many videos i seen on lighting still use a skylight. I'm not talking about skylight to actually light a scene, but to use it to remove pure black shadows, so using a low brightness like 0.1. lightmass is limited on how many times it can bounce, so there isn't any guarantee that all pure black shadows will be cured.

Xendance is right. All you're doing with the skylight is raising the lowest values. You're not revealing more detail. Which should be the goal.

passerby

surprised you can't turn up the number of bounces in lightmass, in source if your willing to speed the time compiling the scene you can crank the fuck out of vrad.

Xendance

Yeah. Either way, to simulate the overexposed outdoors behind the wall you basically need a really bright sky. Because, as far as I know, UDK doesn't offer any kind of tonemapping functionality that would simulate a video camera.

Here's what I quickly whipped up from the UDK daylight template. Tweaked diffuse boost and some bloom settings. Also changed the colour of the directional light towards white.

System

passerby wrote: »

surprised you can't turn up the number of bounces in lightmass, in source if your willing to speed the time compiling the scene you can crank the fuck out of vrad.

it does, in world properties.

Yeah. Either way, to simulate the overexposed outdoors behind the wall you basically need a really bright sky. Because, as far as I know, UDK doesn't offer any kind of tonemapping functionality that would simulate a video camera.

it does. its called post, there are multiple options for simulating color grading and tonemapping. also lol @ your skylight comment

Xendance

ChrisPerr wrote: »

it does, in world properties.



it does. its called post, there are multiple options for simulating color grading and tonemapping. also lol @ your skylight comment

I meant dynamic tonemapping, you know, like what happens with video cameras. Does UDK have that now?

"also lol @ your skylight comment" What kind of a comment is that?
You're welcome to demonstrate why you need to use skylights in order to light characters well.

sprunghunt

Xendance wrote: »

I meant dynamic tonemapping, you know, like what happens with video cameras. Does UDK have that now?

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ColorGrading.html

Nielsen

You could try and put a very bright white plane behind the wooden planks that fades out when you get close to it using a pixeldepth material node.

Put the colours to 1,1,30 for example to get that cool blue/purple over-exposure.

This will not require an overbright sky and is in fact a method used in a lot of games where they have to fake HDR or an exit. (TES: Oblivion for example uses it)

Made you a crude example of how this works;



Check out this page if you want more fancy effects like soft rounded corners and what not if you're using it somewhere the player can see the edges of the "bloom-screen"

You can experiment with this and paint in masks for extra overbright areas such as in the photograph. Multiply the constant node with a custom texture for example.

(caveat with this material is that it doesn't go completely invisible until you're through it, it's because you divide with .0005 for min. opacity. You can try out different values to tweak it, it'll work for what you want though.)

Goodluck!

Xendance

sprunghunt wrote: »

http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ColorGrading.html

..That isn't what I meant :P
UDK doesn't have the functionality to dynamically adjust the output range based on how bright the screen currently is. It doesn't adapt like in, for example, Half Life 2 Episode 2. That is what I meant.

sprunghunt

Xendance wrote: »

..That isn't what I meant :P
UDK doesn't have the functionality to dynamically adjust the output range based on how bright the screen currently is. It doesn't adapt like in, for example, Half Life 2 Episode 2. That is what I meant.

You can switch between colour grading tables on the fly.

One technique I often use to get the effect of a overbright outdoors is, to light the interior space naturally, then put a post process volume around the interior that raises the midtone values and brings the DOF in and the bloom threshold down. This is basically the effect you're talking about.

But it's better than using a skylight as it can be done individually for each interior space and because you're only adjusting the midtones you're not reducing the range of values. Just fixing the darkness issue.