Hello everyone.
I am new to Unreal.
As you can see in the linked video below. I have 3 problems on my project related to dynamic lighting.
1.The white buildings don’t cast shadows on the floor. They are all 1 object, I suppose UE has hard times generating Mesh distance field for such a large object
2.The round roofed buildind is dark as if it is in shadow)
3.When I get far or very close, the shadow disappear as if it is clipped.I suppose it is linked to cascade shadow settings. But i play with it and noting happen
For info, i am using the nes Sun and sky in UE4 4.24.
I am finalising my project, i am stuck because of this. If someone could help me it would be awesome.
What is meant by the white buildings all being 1 object? Were they merged, combined, or grouped? There’s probably a difference in how shadowing is calculated for each of those actions, and if it is calculated for a specific shadow type (such as mesh distance field). Cascaded Shadow Maps are tricky. What are the settings for the stationary light’s CSM (Cascaded Shadow Maps)?
The scene runs smooth so you can tweak the dynamic shadow distance in the directional light. The slider has a max of 20000 but you can manually put in some higher values like 50000 or more. You can also try the other values of the cascaded shadow maps. Remember you can reset defaults by clicking on the yellow arrow if you mess something up.
Cascading shadow map means there are multiple shadow resolutions that blend into each other to make the transition from close to further away smoother. Similar to LODs for meshes.
Changing Shadow Bias in the directional light in combination with CSM (Cascaded Shadow Maps) Transition and Exponent could solve that shadow disappearing. There’s also Shadow Slope Bias, which is the same as Shadow Bias (the shadow accuracy in how / where it renders) except it’s shadows on sloped and vertical surfaces.
The round-roofed building having a shadow inside it could be corrected by Distance Field Self-Shadow Bias (changed either in the mesh editor, or in the mesh’s details panel by enabling the override for it…labeled the same I think…and changing the value / slider.
Although changing the Shadow Bias will help you with your problem the best solution will be for you to separate the mesh in order to save Vram and to get a better shadow. After that you can play with the cascaded shadow distance inside the light parameters to get the result that you are looking for.