Dominant Lights?

[Xero]

Hey guys I was just experimenting with different light setups and I was just wondering what Dominant Lights were used for?

Thanks
Xero

[CyborgGuineaPig]

It is essentially the new directional lighting system in the engine. It is pure awesome. mesh's placed in the world will require a lightmap and you will need to create a dominantimportancevolume around the specific area of the map you want the dominant light to focus on, then use swarm. Sorry I'm being really general here but soon enough it should be explained in detail.

[Xero]

Thanks for the bit of insight CyborgGuineaPig. Don't worry about being vague, I know how do most of what you said already. Still, if you would like to explain a bit it would be good for the benefit of others.

[CyborgGuineaPig]

Okay so here are some basic steps for using the Dominant Directional in your level.

1. In Actor Classes menu inside the Light drop-down there is a DominantDirectionalLight actor.

2.Right click somewhere in your level or on a mesh in the list and select "Add DominantDirectionalLight Here"

3.Go up to the menu bar and scroll down and open "World Properties"

4. Open the lightmass/Lightmass settings tabs within and check "Use ambient occlusion"

5. Create a bsp builder brush a bit larger than your level (or the area you want lightmass to focus most of its calculating energy) and with the builder brush still selected right click the add volume icon in the left toolbar and select "LightmassImportanceVolume"

6. At this point reselect the red builder brush and either move it out of the way or scale it down or hide it so you can now see your newly created LightmassImportanceVolume(yellow).

7. Now simply hit the build lighting icon, making sure "use lightmass" and "Build static meshes" is checked and hit ok. Sawrm will now do its magic and depending on the scale and complexity of your level times will vary but you will have the nice results your after.

Things of note: You can change the build quality in the lighting build options from preview to something higher but I don't recommend it till your ready to pack up your level to distribute. Preview mode is pretty darn nice as is and unless you really need to go higher, preview mode should be well sufficient for general level building.

Under lightmass settings in World Properties there is a "Num Indirect Lighting Bounces" that is default to 3. If you have a complex scene and swarm takes incredibly long you can lower this number to 1 to get faster bakes. Even at 1, the results are quite good and I usually work with it at 1 unless I want to get more bounces.

Be sure that your skybox mesh has shadow casting unchecked.

skylights are no longer needed with UDK and lightmass calculations. Anyone feel free to correct me or add to this thread.

Here are my results with a quick test scene
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/8465/lightmassex.jpg

[Gammaray489]

How can I get softer shadows? I get really dark ones.

[Phill]

How can I get softer shadows? I get really dark ones.

In the World Properties, go to the Lightmass settings. There, change the Environment Color to suit your needs in terms of color and lightness. For literally softer shadows, crank down your lightmap settings.

A great example is VCTF-Sandstorm, that's how they achieved the more natural blue shadows.

Hope this helps. :)

[Saishy]

In the World Properties, go to the Lightmass settings. There, change the Environment Color to suit your needs in terms of color and lightness. For literally softer shadows, crank down your lightmap settings.

A great example is VCTF-Sandstorm, that's how they achieved the more natural blue shadows.

Hope this helps. :)
After setting my light to modulate I got more soft shadows.
Is that right?

[Phill]

After setting my light to modulate I got more soft shadows.
Is that right?

Well now I'm not sure what you meant by softer shadows, haha. If it works for you, sure. :)

[Saishy]

Well now I'm not sure what you meant by softer shadows, haha. If it works for you, sure. :)
Well, its not that completely black shadow, its more clear, but becomes darker as the light is farther.

But I red in the documentation modulate shadows must be used only once in a room, and I can't really understand it... Lights are difficult >.<

I just want to make a real shadow, and not that black thing.

[Phill]

Well, its not that completely black shadow, its more clear, but becomes darker as the light is farther.

But I red in the documentation modulate shadows must be used only once in a room, and I can't really understand it... Lights are difficult >.<

I just want to make a real shadow, and not that black thing.

For that, use the Environment Color in the Lightmass settings. That's how you can adjust the color and lightness of the shadows.

[CyborgGuineaPig]

How can I get softer shadows? I get really dark ones.

I'm not sure why your shadows are so dark, just curious is this an indoor environment? P.s. I know there is a slider somewhere either in the light properties or world info that controls how sharp the edge of a shadow is but I haven't been able to find it. Anyone know?

[Xendance]

I'm not sure why your shadows are so dark, just curious is this an indoor environment? P.s. I know there is a slider somewhere either in the light properties or world info that controls how sharp the edge of a shadow is but I haven't been able to find it. Anyone know?

Light source angle, or something like that. You can find it in the directional dominant light's properties. For point lights it's the light source radius or something.

[CyborgGuineaPig]

Light source angle, or something like that. You can find it in the directional dominant light's properties. For point lights it's the light source radius or something.

Sweet, that works thanks!

[iniside]

Little unding (or necromancy ;p).
Is using multiple dominant lights really such bad design thing ? I noticed that with DL a get much better, realistic and intresting shadows (both, static from meshes and dynamic from character). This look really cool, much better than overlaping, disapearing shadows from mixed (DominantDirectionalLight + Point/Emissive).

So my question is there any real problem or it just wont work on consoles (who cares udk doesn't work on consoles anyway..).

[Teto]

EDIT:[SOLVED]Added a skylight to the scene,and toned down the brightness of the skylight,so i can make shadows appear darker or lighter.
You can change also the color of the shadow (a property in the Lightmass property in WorldProperties) -> Black to gray (or whatever) and the shadows become softer, and give another tone of the level.