This is a remake of a scene I made for UE3 more than one year ago. I decided to rebuild this scene in UE4 to learn a little bit about the new engine. Here we go:
**edit: the first 4 images bellow are from an update on this project to improve the graphics with new techniques I’ve learned during the last year (24/04/2015)
Despite the lack of real time GI, I’m amazed with the new shaders and how outstanding the editor’s interface is! It’s everything so easy to find and so organized. The Epic’s guys are the best, congratulations for such a great work!
Any chance to still get the SVOGI in a future update? This would turn it into the most perfect engine ever!
Yes, I did change BaseLightmass.ini the same way I did in UE3:
[DevOptions.StaticLightingProductionQuality]
NumShadowRaysScale=8
NumPenumbraShadowRaysScale=32
ApproximateHighResTexelsPerMaxTransitionDistanceScale=6
MinDistanceFieldUpsampleFactor=5
;NumHemisphereSamplesScale=8
NumHemisphereSamplesScale=64
;NumImportanceSearchPhotonsScale=3
NumImportanceSearchPhotonsScale=24
;NumDirectPhotonsScale=4
NumDirectPhotonsScale=128
; Decrease direct photon search distance so that we will have more accurate shadow transitions. This requires a higher density of direct photons.
;DirectPhotonSearchDistanceScale=.5
DirectPhotonSearchDistanceScale=.1
;NumIndirectPhotonPathsScale=2
NumIndirectPhotonPathsScale=4
; Need a lot of indirect photons since we have increased the number of first bounce photons to use for final gathering with NumImportanceSearchPhotonsScale
;NumIndirectPhotonsScale=8
NumIndirectPhotonsScale=16
NumIndirectIrradiancePhotonsScale=2
; Decreasing the record radius results in more records, which increases quality
RecordRadiusScaleScale=.25
InterpolationMaxAngleScale=.75
IrradianceCacheSmoothFactor=.75
NumAdaptiveRefinementLevels=3
AdaptiveBrightnessThresholdScale=.25
AdaptiveFirstBouncePhotonConeAngleScale=2.5
BTW does anybody know if there is a way to choose between realtime and spherical reflection? I see UE4 alternate automatically between both techniques, but I’d really like to set only realtime reflections for some surfaces (like important glass doors, etc).
AMAZING DUDE!
i have 1 question, i am new to UE4 engine " never done anywork on any engine" i am wondering how do u get these props “chairs glass and book shelf and doors and stairs road outside and trees” i just can’t find out how can i get these or where do i go to learn how to get them, please could u explain to me the way or youtube link to a guide for UE4 basics or downloading these textures/ props ?
again this is so awesome i can’t wait to learn how to do things
Nice!
That’s a big improvement. Looks much more “real”
Just wanted to note that UE4 has an entirely new Lightmass sytem that should produce much better results without hitting the INI (Not perfect, but way better). There’s also some settings in the editor that you can tweak that should allow better results without ini tweaking. Did you give those a go before diving into the ini or were they still insufficient for Arch-viz?
Again… NICE!
(I’d Like more shiny on the floor tho :P)
Yes, actually I decided to take a look at the files to see if I could find something similar to the UE3’s ini file after rendering the light with the production settings. It is better than UE3 indeed, but I think it still not enough to reproduce details like precise indirect shadows. With the tweaks I can see some indirect shadows under the stair steps and get rid of some defective spots on plain white walls. Actually, with exactly the same settings I’ve used in UE3 ini, I still can’t get as many details. It looks like UE4’s lightmass is way smoother and artifacts free, but it is lacking details (maybe it’s just an initial impression).
I didn’t have time to mess with the new parameters inside the editor tough, I’ll make more tests soon.
Here are the results of some tests I’ve made with Lightmass:
This is the default Production quality level results:
Production quality level with the following settings:
And this is the Production quality level with static light level sacale = 0.7 and the following BaseLightmass tweaks (it’s what I’ve made for the first screens in the topic):
[DevOptions.StaticLightingProductionQuality]
NumShadowRaysScale=8
NumPenumbraShadowRaysScale=32
ApproximateHighResTexelsPerMaxTransitionDistanceScale=6
MinDistanceFieldUpsampleFactor=5
;NumHemisphereSamplesScale=8
NumHemisphereSamplesScale=64
;NumImportanceSearchPhotonsScale=3
NumImportanceSearchPhotonsScale=24
;NumDirectPhotonsScale=4
NumDirectPhotonsScale=128
; Decrease direct photon search distance so that we will have more accurate shadow transitions. This requires a higher density of direct photons.
;DirectPhotonSearchDistanceScale=.5
DirectPhotonSearchDistanceScale=.1
;NumIndirectPhotonPathsScale=2
NumIndirectPhotonPathsScale=4
; Need a lot of indirect photons since we have increased the number of first bounce photons to use for final gathering with NumImportanceSearchPhotonsScale
;NumIndirectPhotonsScale=8
NumIndirectPhotonsScale=16
NumIndirectIrradiancePhotonsScale=2
; Decreasing the record radius results in more records, which increases quality
RecordRadiusScaleScale=.25
InterpolationMaxAngleScale=.75
IrradianceCacheSmoothFactor=.75
NumAdaptiveRefinementLevels=3
AdaptiveBrightnessThresholdScale=.25
AdaptiveFirstBouncePhotonConeAngleScale=2.5
The differences are in the shadows and corner lighting. It’s easier to see if you open the three images in different tabs and switch between them.
I think the default Production quality is good enough for games with lots of textures. Plus being still in the rooms while staring at little shadows and corners are not an ordinary task in most cases =D. But for archviz, admiring the details is everything.
Thanks for the research! The difference is subtle, and for the most part, the production quality suffices, but your tweaks help some of the artifacts. Certainly MUCH more suitable out of the box than UDk was/is!
How much geometry there is in the scene? did you optimize the geometry or did you import high poly models without any problems ( like archmodels and so on )?
Did you send the scene in an .exe format to the client? if so how many mb it is? I’m looking for Archiviz development in UE4 too and I would like to know how much “effort” the client need to do in order to see the project in realtime on his pc
