Lets make Lightmass EPIC (and understandable)

[heartlessphil]

Well... I might skip the 4.10 entirely... uh, can I? Or do I have to install 4.10 first before I can install 4.11?

Of course, you can upgrade directly to 4.11 when it's out! No need to actually update to every new versions.

[Mr.Snrub]

Thanks Daniel.

Is there a workaround for point C) at the moment?

[tupikp]

Thanks Daniel.

Is there a workaround for point C) at the moment?

You may try their useful trick in here https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...l=1#post379386

[Raghu]

@DanielW - Much Obliged

That's great news @DanielW. I cannot thank you much enough, desperately waiting for the 4.11. I could not have asked for more, was only thinking of the solution through BaseLightmass.ini but you have permanently incorporated the changes in Engine. That make things so much easier for new comers in UE4 for Arch-Vis.

[tupikp]

Of course, you can upgrade directly to 4.11 when it's out! No need to actually update to every new versions.

Sweet! 4 months eh? Can we just have it like tomorrow? *kidding

[MSL]

Some comparisons

Raghu's original. Settings were StaticLightingLevelScale .1, IndirectLightingQuality 10, IndirectLightingSmoothness .75, no compression.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]64441[/ATTACH]

Improved solver quality + portals setup. Settings are StaticLightingLevelScale .2, IndirectLightingQuality 10, no compression, all others defaults. I probably should have turned down the smoothing a bit, notice how where the walls meet doesn't look quite right. Also, the exposure is different than Raghu's.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]64445[/ATTACH]

Raghu's original. Settings were StaticLightingLevelScale .1, IndirectLightingQuality 10, IndirectLightingSmoothness .75, no compression.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]64446[/ATTACH]

Improved solver quality + portals setup. Settings are StaticLightingLevelScale .2, IndirectLightingQuality 10, no compression, all others defaults.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]64447[/ATTACH]

@DanielW :
Is there any way that, you can push this into upcoming releases may be in experimental section?
If so we will be able to do more experimentation and tests which may help to improve it further.

[Raghu]

Few more questions - @DanielW

It might feel unfair, but I have few more questions to ask (already experimented with some values/ earlier solutions provided) and as 4.11 is yet to be released, If possible kindly provide us the solution to the - "Light leaks due to spot/point/direct lights in static mode" as I can safely assume that you have already figured it out.

Here are some more experiments (these are obsolete now, as Daniel has already implemented the changes in Engine itself but I have already done these yesterday, so posting the findings only)

DanielW's suggested solution for light leaks Post #95

Lightmass settings in engine -



Renders (Results) -



Rafaries123's solution to light leaks

Lightmass settings in engine



Renders (Results) -




Conclusion - I am not able to solve Light leaks. May be I am missing something. Need foolproof solution now.


@ Rafaries123 post #86 - I am not able to find - "PhotonSearchRadius" value anywhere. I wonder where this value is?


@ DanielW - As now I am trying to learn Lightmass and Photon mapping deeply, It's kind of a mystery to me, what these settings change (in BaseLightmass.ini or may be in some other config files) when we manipulate them in editor -

Static Lighting Level scale from 1 to .1

Indirect Lighting quality from 1 to 10

Indirect Lighting Smoothness from 1 to .25

Link to download Light Test sample file - https://www.dropbox.com/s/ntl2o3mps5...tmass.rar?dl=0

File Snapshots -





As usual, looking forward for the reply .

[Enter Reality]

I strongly suggest you to apply those changes in Rafaeris workflow:

Static Lighting Level scale: between 0.15 and 0.4 ( 0.4 works 80% of the time as well as 0.15 )

Light bounces: 100

Indirect Lighting Smoothness: 0.75 / 1 ( I usually use 1 )

Set lighting to Production

As soon as possible I will test your scene, but on a couple of test I did ( with both skylight or bounce cards ) the leaks are gone

[rafareis123]

Unfortunately I'm not having time to finish the article in the next few days, but I will.
So this is my final settings.


Preset Quality = MEDIUM

EDITOR
Static Lighting Level=0.15
Num Indirect Lighting=20
Indirect Lighting Quality=10
Indirect Lighting Smoothness=1.2

BaseLightmass.ini
NumHemisphereSamples=256
NumIrradianceCalculationPhotons=4096
DirectIrradiancePhotonDensity=1024
IndirectPhotonDensity=20000
IndirectIrradiancePhotonDensity=16000
IndirectPhotonSearchDistance=180

[MSL]

Unfortunately I'm not having time to finish the article in the next few days, but I will.
So this is my final settings.

Preset Quality = MEDIUM

EDITOR
Static Lighting Level=0.15
Num Indirect Lighting=20
Indirect Lighting Quality=10
Indirect Lighting Smoothness=1.2

BaseLightmass.ini
NumHemisphereSamples=256
NumIrradianceCalculationPhotons=4096
DirectIrradiancePhotonDensity=1024
IndirectPhotonDensity=20000
IndirectIrradiancePhotonDensity=16000
IndirectPhotonSearchDistance=180

@Rafareis123 :
Amazing!!
Looks like we can solve majority of lighting issues by tweaking the values of currently available settings in the engine. Probably, we need to follow the workflow you guys use to achieve this quality.
Looking forward to your article. Please provide the complete workflow and checklist you follow to solve the lighting issues that may crop up.

[RI3DVIZ]

When I turn static lighting down to that value my computer freezes. So, do I need more ram or a better cpu? I have a quad i5 16mb RAM.

[ikifenix]

When I turn static lighting down to that value my computer freezes. So, do I need more ram or a better cpu? I have a quad i5 16mb RAM.

You need more RAM, and computer doesn't really freeze, if you give a lot time it will come back to life, looks like that because is writing a lot stuff in the hard disk as virtual memory and is very slow.

[RI3DVIZ]

You need more RAM, and computer doesn't really freeze, if you give a lot time it will come back to life, looks like that because is writing a lot stuff in the hard disk as virtual memory and is very slow.

Okay thanks.

[heartlessphil]

It's weird I have 16gb of ram and never got any problem with any lightmass settings or scene!

[serriffe]

When I turn static lighting down to that value my computer freezes. So, do I need more ram or a better cpu? I have a quad i5 16mb RAM.

yes, you need more ram, I just had this problem. I was observing the MS Task Manager while it was building the lightmass and it took up the same amount of memory as my project. So if your project size in Memory is 2 gigs- I think lightmass will take up the same amount of memory as well. btw I'm using Swarm Network rendering.