It’s just a matter of keeping UV’s in bounds and not exceeding 0,1 (literally make sure your UV’s fit!) in Modo there is a red zone for overlapping mapping points. Beast in Unity requires a secondary lightmap channel for dual lightmapping as well, it will also ignore meshes with out of bounds UV’s dependant on setup. Plus it takes AGES!..
But I’ll agree with you , dynamic lighting automatically knows how the lighting should be calculated. They should have some sort of preview window, know how it’s going to look before you have to go through the hassle of baking…
And since quantum computers can be simulatied by classic computers, they have the same inherent (turing) limitations.
For example, they cannot solve the halting or decission problem.
I do know the difference. The point is that engine “knows” how the shading is supposed to look, and it should be as simple as press a button titled for example, accept proposed shading, and the engine should create appropriate structures which would “preserve” that suggested lighting.
Not only lightmapping has this bugs, but also dynamic shadows has the same technology. So shadows have strange offsets at the edges, why not just fix that offsets with hardcode by -10?
I don´t want to hijack your thread, but I´ve also got problems with built lightmaps from stationary lights and nobody seems to have the same problem :-/ . The shadow of my character is not rendered properly.
This would require the engine to combine existing /derive geometry in order to properly bake that information.
But even if we had a super algorythm that could combine surfaces across meshes, then we would end up with one blob of geometry to light.
As light baking is a multi thread operation, baking performance would suffer greatly.
If you look at some of my other posts you will see that Im struggling with the same issue, but was able to solve it with some dilligence and effort.
Here: https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?30372-Lightmap-issue-with-static-meshes
And this thread is also closely related to the topic: https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?8491-Baked-Lighting-Variation-Between-Static-Meshes
Hi, I also solved every one of my issues with baking shadows. This is not the point. The point is that the engine “knows” how the shading should look like and yet you have to do it manually which is wrong. The point is that it is possible, but yes sure, in order to make things better effort, sometimes substantial is required.
" baking performance would suffer greatly." - This is your opinion only, not substantiated by anything really. And if you think about it that one have to bake sometimes multiple times one object to actually achieve acceptable effects, this time spent added up with every static mesh on your map, added those times you’ve spent re-doing unwrapping, baking, unwrapping baking, baking, baking baking, I am pretty certain that if anything “the real baking time” that is the time you’ve spent on making every mesh looking good with regards to shading would decrease if anything.
“Im struggling with the same issue” - you shouldn’t - that’s job for computer (engine). That’s why I say that lightmaps being design the way they are and the workflow required in UE are very poor solution to problem.
“Yes that would work. It would require extra user setup to indicate which meshes to light together, and could hurt build times (if you merge everything together)”
The only thing it proves that it can be done.
Could hurt doesn’t equal would hurt. On top of that there is always a room for improvement in algorithm for example.
The point is that the engine “knows” proper lighting and yet you have to do it manually, very often struggling. This is simply wrong and there mustn’t be any discussion about it.
Cheers
P.S.
Another point, had to edit,
Don’t like to mention them because they are arrogant *****, but…
Cryengine solved this problem in really beautiful way, so obviously it can be done, performance doesn’t have to be hurt, and machine can do what is supposed to do, that is calculating where the freaking shade would cast, and I as a human shouldn’t really touch it.
@DanielW
What vitriol are you seeing? Just because people are complaining and pointing out to problems which shouldn’t be there? And seriously, personally I’m not really interested in workarounds to this problem unless the workaround is that the engine will do what it should do, that is, calculate where that shadow should be cast and I won’t have to even touch it and be free to spend time on creative tasks not on fixing shading.
P.S.
The link you provided, nobody denies that UE4 is capable of producing beautiful renders. The problem is in manually doing lightmaps which is work for machines not for humans. That’s all.
Am I correct in saying that to you it is preferable situation that a human being is concerned with shading and has to do this mundane work instead of machine and you do not see anything wrong with this state of affairs and would not like to change it?
Because you obviously do not understand the purpose of baking lightmaps, instead of doing it all dynamic like the editor. The rest of the thread is people whining that their ****** models with retarded UVs look stupid, as they would in EVERY other engine.
They are not problem related to unreal shadows, this is a classic noob problems that happen in all engines when don’t read manuals and look tutorials. Not magic button here, lighmaping is a art and a specialize work in many companys.
