[OFFICIAL] Example Map For Basic Post Process And Lighting Setups

[Clawfist]

Hey all,
Nick and I took some time today to put together an example map for a basic post process and lighting setup. The idea is for this map to serve as a reference for people working on shells to copy paste from and/or gain some knowledge on what we generally find are good practices and starting points for the various bits that go into creating shell visuals. This is by no means meant to dictate the overall direction and vision you might have for a level, it's really just supposed to help get you off the ground.

Update 03/02/15:
This map has been integrated with our default Example_Map (which automatically loads when you first fire up the editor).

It is meant to be looked at in the editor and does not have any playerstarts (since none of it really makes sense without being able to see/click on the relevant actors and see their details).

If you have any issues or questions please feel free to let us know, thanks!

[NATO_chrisjm]

Thanks for posting this, It's been useful for setting up some lighting. I did run into an interesting case which doesn't really match my understanding of the static vs stationary relationship.



These two areas are lit by a single light each. The only difference is one is Static (left) and the other is stationary (right). As you can see the static light losses colour very quickly, where as the Stationary light gives a strong colour throughout. I thought the only difference was the dynamic lighting elements; and that like UE3 it was preferable to always use non dynamic lighting whenever possible, however that doesn't seem to be the case.

With the recessed yellow lighting in spacer you seem to alternate between stationary and static, is this to maintain the colour you wanted without overlapping stationary lights?

[Clawfist]

That's weird, it's my understanding that there shouldn't be much of a difference there and I don't recall ever seeing this happen but I could be wrong.

You can confirm this by hovering your cursor over the different mobility toggles to get a more in-depth tooltip but if I'm not mistaken the static light basically bakes everything whereas the stationary one only bakes shadows and bounce lighting while the direct contribution remains dynamic. In that sense stationary lights don't work like dynamic lights did in UE3 (that would be "Movable") but give you the best of both worlds by allowing the engine to assume that they never move and are sort of a hybrid.

The repeating yellow lights in Spacer are alternating between static and stationary purely to manage the overlap count, not for any other reason.

Are you positive that the lights share the exact same color values? It's really hard to tell from a compressed screenshot but minor differences in the picker can have huge results in the world. FWIW, if you aren't doing it already, setting up color swatches in the color picker for your main light colors can be really handy for this. You simply click and drag your current color in the color picker into the top bar and it stores it. You can name your swatches create new ones etc, I end up using that a lot.

Also are the areas immediately surrounding the two structures that you have in the screenshot symmetrical in terms of geometry and materials? Could also be you are simply getting something else contributing bounce or the left side is catching reflections from a different area etc. If you have a SphereReflectionCapture actor in the scene try and have it be dead center on that spot to see if that makes a difference.

If that still doesn't fix it you could upload your map and PM me a link and we can take a look here.

[Frostbite83]

Wow very cool

[NATO_chrisjm]

it seems like the biggest issue was missing a SphereReflectionCapture actor. I am a little surprised that they have that much of an impact, and that it only seems to effect static lights. Presumably stationary lights recalculate their reflections at runtime.

I'm still having a few odd effects, I'll drop you a PM with the details.

[Clawfist]

To clarify - SphereReflectionCapture actors don't (to my knowledge, I'm not highly technical) affect lighting itself but simply provide materials with sphere maps that are used to generate reflections among other things. So if you looked at your scene with the viewmode set to lightingonly it *shouldn't* have an effect. I'll take a peek at your map next week and get somebody's opinion who is a little more technical than me

[Vertigo101]

Thanks Clawfist, This will help some with my creation, I'm still a bit stumped though on a starting point, theme exc.

Currently just creating it as I go with out any prior ideas of what I want and what may or may not look cool you know? i'ts tough with out any artistic back ground in my life but I'm having fun none the less

[Fartuess]

To clarify - SphereReflectionCapture actors don't (to my knowledge, I'm not highly technical) affect lighting itself but simply provide materials with sphere maps that are used to generate reflections among other things. So if you looked at your scene with the viewmode set to lightingonly it *shouldn't* have an effect. I'll take a peek at your map next week and get somebody's opinion who is a little more technical than me

I would say it depends if UE4 uses reflection probes for image based lighting.

[MΛuL]

Thanks for doing this Clawfist!

[lo2dk]

Hi.
Wanted to have a look at your example map in the editor, but I can't find the file that you refer to.
Using UE 4.5.1.

[Jay22]

Can someone give me map scaling tips?

[jayoplus]

Can someone give me map scaling tips?

My own personal rule of thumb follows:
Wide walkway/corridor: 600-800
Medium walkway: 400-500
Normal ceiling: 400-500 hogh
These are not universal but typically the ranges and values will most likely depend on movement parameters. So thisay very well work or not work especially if movement calues eventually change.

[MoxNix]

My own personal rule of thumb follows:
Wide walkway/corridor: 600-800
Medium walkway: 400-500
Normal ceiling: 400-500 hogh
These are not universal but typically the ranges and values will most likely depend on movement parameters. So thisay very well work or not work especially if movement calues eventually change.

Is it easier to align textures/materials to odd sized surfaces now?

In older UT games the rule of thumb was to use powers of 2 whenever possible. One reason for that was it made scaling and aligning textures much easier.

[ShurikMur]

Hi everyone,
Building my first ut4 map and encountered some difficulties in building lightning/shadowmaps. The level made out of BSP, only static lights are used - one directional and a bunch of point lights. The problem is: the casted shawods seems to have low resolution and sunlight somewhere breaks trough a solid walls, leaving bright blobs in an enclosed areas, where is shouldn't be at all. Tried to alert lightmap resolution of all surfaces and set lightning quality to "production" - with no effect! Any suggestions?

BTW, the last time I rebuild lights it takes about 2 hours... Is it ok?

UPD:
Solved, that was preview render settings (was at "low"), not a level building issue.