Just found out about lightmaps. Currently going back and remapping 55 static mesh assets because I didn’t lightmap them correctly.
I figured out I can just select all the faces, mark them as seams, then unwrap that way.
Are there any downsides to using this method for lightmapping?
Regardless, I’d also like to know just in general what makes a good lightmap.
Thanks all,
ShakeATower4
well… if you split it into quads or triangles you will have to use alot of margin (space inbetween) the islands to avoid pixel overlap or lightmap bleeding that can occur if you mismatch the margin and the lightmap resolution. that makes it rather inefficient. the more efficient way is to proper unwrap continuous surfaces, so you waste less space for the margin. you still gotta manage the margin and resolution, but you will get a tighter packed texture.
Forgot to mention this, but the meshes are low-poly and stylized because I’m not great at modeling PBR quite yet.
Here’s a screenshot of a mesh I followed the above method with.
See, this just looks wrong to me. Why are the shadows so intense there?
Here’s the lightmap in UE:
Thoughts?
And after unwrapping normally with some edge seams, I’m getting this inside of blender, and surely this can’t be great for the lightmap:
buildings? well… for boxes… blender has a light map unwrap (left). or you do whatever regular unwrap with seams where they “should be” (right). in some cases you have to tweak things tho, so the island shapes are not deformed (roof top). that would give you a smeared lightmap. another issue are unproportional resolution for minor details (overhang). that’s wasted space. find a good inbetween.
unreal has it’s own lightmap generator too, iirc. figure out what gives you the best coverage and result. hmm
UE’s In-engine generator is generating wrong because my UVs are projected from one side so I can get an easy gradient effect without having to map every single material to every single object.
The issue then arises when UE thinks that the way I’ve mapped it covers everything individually without any overlap, when in reality, a ton of stuff is overlapping.
I wonder if blender will have the same result. I’m checking out that feature now . . .
That blender button was exactly what I needed Thank you SO MUCH 
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