Problems with light, shadows and fog.

[ELF11]

English:

Recently I started to use Unreal Engine 4.9 and have 3 problems just at the beginning:

1. Fog looks strange. After deleting everything looks normal. But is this usual?
   

   

2. The shady side of object is totally black, you can’t see the textures and the grid proceeds within the object.
   

3. The biggest problem: Light doesn’t work at all! I set a light source, but the scene doesn’t get bright!!!
   

You might look at the pictures to understand what I want to say.
Thank you in advance!

---

German/Deutsch:

Ich verwende seit neustem die Unreal Engine 4.9 und habe 3 Probleme gleich am Anfang:

1. Der Nebel ist irgendwie komisch.(Bild) Wenn ich ihn lösche schaut es zwar normal aus, aber bei anderen ist das nicht so, oder?
   

   

2. Die Schattenseite eines Objekts ist vollkommen schwarz, man sieht die texturen nicht und das Gitter läuft nach innen weiter, so als wäre da gar kein Objekt. (Bild)
   

3. Das wahrscheinlich schlimmste Problem: Licht funktioniert nicht! Ich setze eine Licht, aber es erhellt den Raum nicht!!! (Bild)
   

Seht euch bitte die Bilder an, um zu verstehen, was ich sagen will.
Danke im Voraus!

[anonymous_user_923c79df]

Willkommen in der UE4 Community!

1. switch your quality settings to “epic” -> settings - scalability settings - epic
2. what happens when you add a skylight? (+ set it to moveable -> just for testing)
3. it depends on your map -> are there any objects that can be lit? Have you already rebuild the light? What happens when you set the light mode to moveable? Which lights do you use?

[ELF11]

Thank you 1. problem is solved.

3. The room is made of BSP Boxes.
   
   
   
   I rebuilt it many times but it never works. Moveable light also doesn’t do anything. Only directional light works. Point light, spot light nad sky light havn’t any effect.(-> your suggestion for 2. doesn’t work -> maybe 2. and 3. caused by the same mistake)

[anonymous_user_923c79df]

Hmm, what happens when you increase the intensity of the light + add a colour to it + set it to moveable? -> can you see the light on one of the meshes?
Could it be that you probably use a black material on your mesh?
Which engine version do you use?
Could you share your map + your light setup -> easier for us to find the mistake

[ELF11]

Map: https://drive.google/folderview?id=0BwwTAoDwdZR6RlRQck5WUllBM3c&usp=sharing

In the last days I tried everything you suggested: change intensity, colour, radius, length…

I use Unreal Engine 4.9.1.

[anonymous_user_923c79df]

In my case it works perfectly -> I added a skylight and it fixed the problem with the black shadows + I can also see the light that you have added…I have no idea what you are doing wrong
But when you like I can help you over skype -> just add me there and I will call you so that you can share your screen

[ELF11]

Thank you, but I havn’t Skype, sry. I will reinstall UE4 and if it doesn’t work after that, I will sign up at Skype and contact you.

I’m not at home tomorrow, so I will not write back until Tuesday.

[anonymous_user_923c79df]

Otherwise you could also post a video where you show your steps -> so that I know how you do it

[ELF11]

Ok, I reinstalled it and I think it works now. Maybe it was some kind of bug. Thank you very much for your help.

[anonymous_user_04dbeef7]

The 2nd point does occur normally, but the fix suggested should work. With Lightmass (baked lighting) GI is enabled, so the lighting system will calculate bounces around the scene, however moveable / dynamic lights do not support high-quality GI without a huge impact to performance, so with a single light alone shadows will appear solid black. You can circumvent this by using a skylight, but skylights don’t support isolated use cases (people say you can use the shadows generated by a skylight to isolate it to outdoors environments, never works for me) so you’re forced to either not use a skylight, use it with a low intensity and deal with the visibility indoors without light, or leave it at high intensity and have indoors be ultra bright. I use a directional light pointed down to soften ground shadows, but wall shadows and any shadow not along the ground / objects on the ground are still solid black.