Luoshuang's GPULightmass

[Farshid]

4.22
i see dark areas in corners again
lightmap generated with 3ds max
its quality is better than old versions
but we cant control baselightmass.ini

[Farshid]

i dont know why we cant bake in unreal without lightmaps !!!
this lightmap creation is only wasting our life
creating lightmap and setting density for each one ! why ???


its unigine baking system no lightmap no artifacts !!

[Luoshuang]

4.22
i see dark areas in corners again
lightmap generated with 3ds max
its quality is better than old versions
but we cant control baselightmass.ini

I'm using exactly the same scene and seeing zero dark corners:

[Luoshuang]

Let me reveal the real problem: UE4 has an internal '2 texel padding' rule, however not many people know about that, even the UE4 auto UV gen algorithm and the official documentation, which makes them either bugged or misleading. Basically it is about:
When you creating lightmap UV manually (or using 3rd-party auto UV gen, like Maya's UVLayout, which is what I use usually), say targeting a resolution of 64x64, you should instead treat it like a 62x62 map and snap the UVs to 1/62 grid;
When you use UE4's auto lightmap UV gen, the algorithm is supposed to subtract 2 texels automatically, however it is currently bugged and not doing that.

I fixed it but the fix will in 4.23 in the future. However for 4.22 you can manually set the min lightmap resolution to 62 to workaround the problem (note that this workaround doesnt work on previous versions, because they are bugged even worse ). On the other hand I had the UE4 documentation corrected.

So for the mesh shown here ('Box_Test_0'), what I did is just using 'Generate Lightmap UVs' and a Min Lightmap Resolution of 62 - and the problem is gone.

i dont know why we cant bake in unreal without lightmaps !!!
this lightmap creation is only wasting our life
creating lightmap and setting density for each one ! why ???


its unigine baking system no lightmap no artifacts !!

Talking about other techniques in a separate thread is ok, but probably not a good idea in a thread about a lightmap baker . That being said, while the lightmap based workflow is frustrating, lightmapping in UE4 should have been much better than its current state, if it were not serioursly bugged I'll try to fix the bugs and see how far it can improve, and let other people work on alternatives meanwhile.

[Bimbachi]

No, it's not. The script requires manual updating of all the hashes and URLs for any new version.

... so maybe is better to lock it or add note to which version it is pointing?

[Situx]

... so maybe is better to lock it or add note to which version it is pointing?

Not sure what you mean by locking it, but sure, feel free to do a pull request and I'll merge any such changes, even in the read.me file.

Right now I'm not even using UE4, so any modifications to it would not even serve meo I have no incentive on the effort it requires to do them, but sure will serve others.

On the other hand, if I had access to the source, I could probably integrate the "installer" into it. Again, effort vs benefit.

Also, if any of you want to take my work and improve, it is open-sourced. May well require another thread, not to Hijack current efforts with Luoshuang's Prometheus baker.

[jinngonqui]

No, it's not. The script requires manual updating of all the hashes and URLs for any new version.

OK, thanks Luoshuang ! ... I know Situx mentioned they are crazy busy and hasn't had the chance to update it yet. I don't mean to sound entitled, because I totally love what you two are doing with this! Major time savings in both regards!

Any thoughts on where/how to track down crash source? ... see details below:

From your reply above, it sounds like I can't just download the latest "GPULightmassIntegration-4.21.0-UnifiedSettings.zip" from the Binary Installation link for 4.21.0, and replace it in the LightmassConfiguration unzipped folder. Correct? ... or, should it work with your recent updates if I just do that overwrite of the Unified Settings .zip? ... in any event, that is what I did, and it still crashes 200+ meshes into the early prep. I have moved everything one unit left, then right back (not undo) -- to try to force a trigger for each mesh to need a lightmap re-bake. Still crashes same 200+ meshes in. I even did an Engine Verify from the Launcher and "re-installed" GPULightmass with Situx .bat script. In the logs from Swarm and UE4 I am not finding any references to which mesh is being processed at the time of the crash. Just 202, or 200, or 204 ... like its more like those are simply representative of what was last sent to be displayed in the progress dialog, not actually which mesh was related to the crash. Nearly all meshes are planar, and all are "single" face ... no sharp corners, but some are round'ish walls -- some are not beautifully quaded, but shouldn't matter ... I don't think.

Any thoughts on where/how to track down crash source?

[Thom Coffee]

Luoshuang could you provide correct link to 4.22.0 Preview 7, 0.2.0? In the zip, there is files only for 0.0.5 and 0.1.0 Thanks.

[Saturndj]

It's amazing. Where can I download for the version 4.21.2 and instructions?

[Luoshuang]

Luoshuang could you provide correct link to 4.22.0 Preview 7, 0.2.0? In the zip, there is files only for 0.0.5 and 0.1.0 Thanks.

Oops, the link has been updated. Thanks!

[Cyberglobe]

I am with 4.21.2, GTX 1060 and latest Creator drivers.
Since last week it worked fine, but (probably since I updated the drivers...I don't remember when I did it) it doesn't matter which values I set for GPU lightmass, the result ends up always at Preview/Medium quality level. Tried also to override the project setting in the defaultlightmass.ini In that way it takes longer to calculate but the result is the same.
Should I switch back to older graphic card drivers?
I am kind of stuck and I don't know what to try next.

Thanks

[ldo]

@ Luoshuang

Did some experiments with Prometheus, very nocticable overall quality improvement in comparison with previous GPU Lightmass even on Unified settings. 99% dark corners free.
I have couple questions:

1. Old GPU Lightmass plugin had only Num Indirect Bounces setting possible to change, will new Prometheus respect other Lightmass Settings, like Static Lighting Level Scale or Num Sky Lighting Bounces?

2. Will it be possible to change the baking quality (Preview, Medium, High etc.) on the fly with no need to restart the editor?

3. Any info about ETA ?

[Luoshuang]

Any thoughts on where/how to track down crash source?

I don't have idea either But from my experience it is likely related to one of your meshes has some problem

I am kind of stuck and I don't know what to try next.Thanks

Weird, I tested 4.21 locally and the quality did scale with number of samples settings

[Luoshuang]

@ Luoshuang

Did some experiments with Prometheus, very nocticable overall quality improvement in comparison with previous GPU Lightmass even on Unified settings. 99% dark corners free.
I have couple questions:

1. Old GPU Lightmass plugin had only Num Indirect Bounces setting possible to change, will new Prometheus respect other Lightmass Settings, like Static Lighting Level Scale or Num Sky Lighting Bounces?

2. Will it be possible to change the baking quality (Preview, Medium, High etc.) on the fly with no need to restart the editor?

3. Any info about ETA ?

1. Static Lighting Level Scale is a parameter for the old school irradiance caching, which is the source of large splotches and seams between modular pieces, thus has been abandoned; Num Sky Lighting Bounces is respected by CPU Lightmass because it runs separate passes for sky lights and other lights, however GPULightmass has only one unified secondary GI pass thus it is not practial.

2. With 4.21 Unified settings you can already do that by modifying BaseLightmass.ini

3. No idea, even me don't know when I can finish it

Regarding the 'seemingly' dark corners in the images, can you check whether the wall's UVs are detatched? If a texel expands over the corner it will be inevitably dark due to the limitations in UE4's 'spherical harmonics'.

[vGNS]

Some things about new prometheus baker that are very cool - you get defined shadows from sun using hdri and its working correctly with proper physical light intensities unlike regular gpu lightmass.