Shadows not rendering correctly

Did you uv map everything correctly?

I’m trying to import an FBX from 3ds Max into UE4 but keep getting shadow issues on most of my objects. I’m a total newbie but it looks like there may be conflicting faces that are affecting this?

This is just part of a much larger scene so anything that requires me to recreate each individual model in 3ds Max is not an option.

The 3ds Max and FBX files can be found [here.][1]

Expected shadows (pre-build):

Mesh editor: Too many faces? Zoomed in image showing multiple faces in Max [here.][6]

After the build: Notice how the wall shadow is dotted and textures change.

Errors with build

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR ANY HELP.

In UE4 I generated the lightmap UVs on import

Do a YouTube search on how to prepare UV’s from 3DS to UE4. There should be a few tutorials, I’m pretty sure that’s your problem.

Is there any way to prepare the UV’s when there are hundreds of different models in the scene?

I think there are some guys here that use 3DS to UE4, they can help you with that. Not sure there’s a painless way though from the little I know.

Hi ajgramling,

This is covered on our Wiki Lighting Troubleshooting guide here.

When the Lightmap is generated for the mesh on import or if you generate one in the Static Mesh Editor it will not assign Lightmap Coordinate Index 1 automatically. You will need to manually set this in the Static Mesh Settings panel.

This should resolve you issue once you rebuild lighting.

I hope this helps.

Tim

Hey Tim,

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately this did not work. I manually created lightmaps in 3ds Max (they render correctly) and changed the Light Map Coordinate Index to reference the 3ds lightmap and UE4 lightmap with no luck. I also played around with the Lightmap Resolutions. Am I just overlooking something simple?

UE4 Render

54068-ue4+render.png

UE4 Generated Lightmap

3ds Max Generated Lightmap

I also find it strange that the shadows look perfectly fine until I build the lighting.

Found this script - helps big time. Flattens UVs of all objects in a scene individually.

You’ll not only want to increase the lightmap resolution of the beams, but also the floor since the shadow that is being cast there is where the shadow will need to look better. You have to think about what the shadow is casting on. When you build lighting, a texture will be generated for the mesh that is receiving the shadow. If the resolution of that mesh is low the shadow resolution will be the same.

It’s not really strange that the lighting looks good before hand. That is just dynamic lighting being used until you build the lighting to generate the texture. If you don’t want to deal with Lightmaps and all the resolutions you can always just switch your lighting to movable (dynamic), however this comes with its own caveats as well like, max distance, quality, and no global illumination, along with other things as well.