1ºst, when in the editor, the exposure is set to automatic ( I think is the same ingame). The thing is that is too bright, and I want to make it darker (in the editor I just have to set the exposure to fixed at 0) but I don’t know for the builds and the export.
2nd, I added some static point lights to simulate candle lights of the lamp and my fps rate drops to 5fps… I cant work with it (now i’m using a mbp late 2011 with an i7, 8gb the ram, ssd and ati radeon 6750m (512mb) ) I know is not the best but is what I have right now in this home and I think I don’t have that many things to go so slow xD. That frame drop is because of the lights. Can I do something?
Two screenshots here, one with exposure set at 0 and the second one with automatic exposure. The final result I would like to have something between them, more like the first screenshot
Turning down the lightmap resolution size should do the trick. The red is letting you know that the size of the light map you are using is to big for the size of the object.
1 - I think you want the Auto Exposure Bias setting. This will darken or lighten your room to get the results you want. Don’t change it too much, though. If the whole scene is dark, I recommend brightening up the direct and ambient lighting. If everything is lit too brightly, then try dimming down the ambient light, and get the direct light intensity to a point where it’s not overbearing. Don’t let post process over-correct a lighting error. Your scene should be balanced
2 - Use a smaller attenuation radius on the lights. Check the light complexity of your scene to see where the lit surfaces are overlapping with more than one dynamic light, and lower the radius to get it appropriate. If you have two lights overlapping, those pixels have to perform double work to evaluate the shader with each light, and then blend to the final result. Small attenuation radius, or static lights that don’t bounce dynamically. You’re choice.
Great info, I’ll apply it as soon as I finish texturing (couple hours). I have a deadline in 14 hours so it will be tight haha (although I will continue working with the feedback)
I’ll write in couple hours with the changes applied (each build is like half an hour so I want first to finish the textures)
1- Yeah I did found it. I just set the autoexposure to 1, because if it was automatic it was always too bright when playing and the intensity of the lights were really low…
2- The lights are actually static, and their attenuation radius is about 900. I set them to static because for example in lamps I have 6 lights each, close to eachother so having 6 dynamic lights is not an option (another way is probably just make 1 dynamic light but due to my lamps I don’t know if its going to look unreallistic).
I’m doing a build right now with the lights changed.
I’ll post couple of screenshots when the build is finished
You won’t be able to light every part of the chandelier with 6 dynamic lights, but you can lower the attenuation radius so you get SOME specular, and then use a static light to fill larger areas. Or you can make them all static and use a dynamic light to fill the area. Your GPU is a low-mid grade, definitely not the best to run UE4 with. Is 5 fps an exaggeration? Try hitting the ~ button and enter “stat fps.” I’m not sure why the scene would slow down so much, unless you just have tons of individual models.
Actually is not 5fps right now, its like 15-20 fps but for example if I try to open the GPU visualizer , UE4 gets frozen and crash…
I did some android exports and it runs smoothly in my phone (well, of course with limitations but the lights and everything is okey). Now I’m exporting a windows package to run it without the editor open and do some screenshots.
I will do then that, change the point lights to dynamic, lower the attenuation and make a static light. The thing is that for example the wooden pews are really dark (and the texture now is quite bright). This is really hard hehe
You just need to place more static lights indoors. Don’t adjust post process until AFTER your lighting is done. This is a church, not a graveyard. Flood the area with soft light. It needs to be brighter than this. Lightmass has some limitations that won’t allow you to get perfect sunlit results, so fake it with soft static lights.
This is not real life, it’s a video game. In real life, the texture resolution is infinite. There is no normal mapping, everything is just tessellated by an insane degree. Lights don’t just bounce 2 or 3 times, they bounce an infinite number of times. UE4 is just a model of real life, not reality in and of itself. It’s not real, it’s fake. It’s all a lie. You have to fake everything in order to get realtime graphics to look good at all. The best artists are not the ones who can replicate real life, but the ones who can fake it the best. Replicating real life is what Goldeneye 007 tried to do. Faking real life is what Paper Mario did. That’s obviously an extreme example, but I hope you can get the idea.
Try to change the environment color in lightmass to something other than black. Bump it up a bit to a desaturated gray and see what you get. Use softer static lights to fill the area with light. Try adjusting the skylight and see if that helps (I know skylights now bake into lightmass, so they might not work as well indoors). If all else fails, swap out the skylight with an ambient cubemap of your space and raise the brightness with it. You need to try to get a good range of values somehow.
First of all I dont know if I should open a new thread or ask an admin to move the thread to the “Work In Progress” section, as now is not about a problem with the lighting, its about the progress of the project.
I got some awesome feedback from my teacher that I want to apply to this project.
Decals
Vertex paint
Grunge
Blend Maps
Particles
Floor texture (mosaics)
My plan is to use Substance Designer + Substance Painter to make the new textures
Hi,
I have not had time to read every reply in this thread but I did notice what looked like some off settings in the static mesh lightmap settings page previously. Not sure if you figured that out yet so I will point it out.
I saw you had set “Min lightmap resolution” to high numbers like 512 or 1024. That means the editor will use extremely narrow spacing of the UV charts. Generally you want this number to be the lowest number your scene will ever use. Usually increasing this number will not fix seams or anything like that it, it will simply make more efficient use of the space. What resolutions are you actually using for your objects in the world?
If you are still having an problems I would suggest looking at the scene with “Lightmap density” viewmode and posting it here. Ideally you will have very even UV sizing to get consistent looking lighting.
Hi,
I have not had time to read every reply in this thread but I did notice what looked like some off settings in the static mesh lightmap settings page previously. Not sure if you figured that out yet so I will point it out.
I saw you had set “Min lightmap resolution” to high numbers like 512 or 1024. That means the editor will use extremely narrow spacing of the UV charts. Generally you want this number to be the lowest number your scene will ever use. Usually increasing this number will not fix seams or anything like that it, it will simply make more efficient use of the space. What resolutions are you actually using for your objects in the world?
If you are still having an problems I would suggest looking at the scene with “Lightmap density” viewmode and posting it here. Ideally you will have very even UV sizing to get consistent looking lighting.
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, thank you very much for your answer. It is awesome to see how Unreal developers are involved with the community and offer their support
Yes, I did that in the first version of the project (it seems I set those numbers wrong because I didn’t see the “Min” word hehe , but I made again the objects and I have double checked them now and all of them have the “Min Lightmap Resolution” to 64.
Although thank you to explain that out, its awesome to learn new things
Right now, I’m trying to “replicate” the lighting of the first pictures I posted, the ones of the project “God Left Me”.
I think the lightmap is good in the project (although I forgot to decrease the candelabrum resolution and thats why it’s red right now)
I think with this old post is kind of messy to ask about the lighting stuff, but I didn’t want to open a new thread as it is the same project and there are a lot of messages with epic information that maybe can help someone in the future
New update. I’ve cleaned the scene a lot with the help of my teacher.
Now I have less lights, they are better used. I have incorrect things like the environment colour, which was light blue. Also, when I was picking the light colour I wasn’t ticking the “sRGB” box, so the colour was not the one I wanted…
I have also added some godrays that I made with Rhayader’s tutorial, although I need to modified them more in order to improve them for my scene
I’m going to open a thread at the Work in Progress forum, as I think now I just need to tweak the lights, textures, etc and is not really a lighting problem anymore.
