With the Source engine there’s a tool called the Cordon Zone that lets you bound an area of the map in a volume and then only build what’s inside that volume. When you’re tweaking lighting values this is a really handy way to speed up your build times. Would love a similar feature in UE4.
Hello TorQueMoD,
Unless I misunderstand your request, I believe we already have this feature. It is called a 'Lightmass Importance Volume
Lightmass Importance Volume
Many maps have meshes out to the edge of the grid in the editor, but the actual playable area that needs high quality lighting is much smaller. Lightmass emits photons based on the size of the level, so those background meshes will greatly increase the number of photons that need to be emitted, and lighting build times will increase. The Lightmass Importance Volume controls the area that Lightmass emits photons in, allowing you to concentrate it only on the area that needs detailed indirect lighting. Areas outside the importance volume get only one bounce of indirect lighting at a lower quality.
If this is not what you are talking about let me know and I will enter a feature request for your specific
Thank you,
Hi Andrew. I am definitely aware of the Lightmass Importance volume. No, what I’m talking about is a feature that allows you to only build lighting inside a specific area where anything outside that area is simply unlit.In fact it doesn’t only build the lighting there, it seals off everything else and only builds everything (brushes, lighting, textures etc.) in that specific space. Its a tool used only for testing purposes - Most likely because the Source Engine doesn’t include a lighting preview in the editor.
Lightmass importance Volume is great in cases where you’re building a small confined space like a typical deathmatch environment but not so useful when building a large open world and only wish to see the lighting adjustments inside one small building for example.
I suppose with UE4 you could break the world into smaller portions and put them into their own level and only build the individual level. Will landscape break up properly when placed in multiple levels? Or would I simply put the Landscape into Level 0 for example and then any buildings into their own.
Thanks Andrew. I’ll look into this.
Hey TorQueMoD,
To answer your question simply. Yes, you can use ‘Level Streaming’ and ‘World Composition’ to break up your level into sections in which you can build your lighting to have shorter iteration times when developing your game.
Another member of the team explains how to build lighting for larger open world games on the Forums well. It can give you a good idea on how you can go about splitting up your own project and building the Lightmass based on what is and is not visible.
Building Lighting for Large Worlds
I hope this helps!
Cheers,