Hello all, I usually lurk these forums but I thought I would post this issue I am having to see if anyone else has suffered it.
I have a cave and mineshaft level, built in a similar manner to Epics effects cave demo, the big difference being that my level has a landscape and a light source for the outside areas.
Everything looks fine in the preview mode, but when I build the lighting, some of the rocks and other actors inside the cave / mineshaft glow brightly as if they are being directly struck by light.
I have tried to contain the entire cave section of the level with planes on top, bottom and both sides, but as soon as I build the lighting it inevitably ends up with some of the actors glowing.
This seems like it could be a the “eye adaptation” from the post process. Do you have a post process in your level to disable eye adaptation (Listed as Auto-Exposure in the PPV settings). You can enable the min and max brightness and set them to 1 to have no eye adaption.
If that’s not solving the issue, can you post a screenshot of the trouble areas that are too bright?
It’s possible that some of the objects aren’t two-sided and can’t cast shadows. If there’s no back to those meshes you can select them and in the lighting properties there’s an option for that object to cast shadows as 2-sided.
They are two sided rock meshes, the light also passes through the box I created to enclose the cave system. It’s odd because the lighting looks fine until it is built.
Really a single lightmass importance volume around your level should be fine if it’s not too large. It doesn’t hurt to have others as well though.
Did you have any luck with setting the meshes to cast shadows as two-sided or setting the material to two-sided to block light? Just to clarify as well, you’re using Stationary lighting and not movable (Dynamic)?
I have not had a chance to do that just yet, as soon as I do I will post results! The light source for the level is stationary, but the lanterns are all dynamic. I found a sort of dodge work around, placing Lightmass importance volumes on the outside scene, and only in places where the light source is intended to enter the cave. Not the perfect way I guess, but it seems to work.
I will try to get those two sided settings all put in, though.
Alright, the character indirect lighting volume didn’t seem to work. Setting the rock actors to two sided shadows seems to have done something, though it’s not clear yet. I will be able to get a clearer result with the build I’m running right now. It’s confusing as I thought a two sided mesh that is completely textured would not need such a setting enabled. Either way, I’ll find out more soon.
If all else fails and there is no other ideas, I might have to rebuild the level with a different technique or try excluded the caves from the lighting build with volumes.
Alright, unfortunately setting the rocks to two sided shadows does not appear to do anything for the problem, the light from the level light source still punches straight through into the cave in certain areas.
