UDK Dynamic Sun

[3Dbrushwork]

In my previous tutorial "Animated Sky domes", I was advised by neurosys that implementing a sun disc that follows the directional light would make the sky even better. So I wrote a separate tutorial to implement it. In this tutorial I demonstrate how to make a dynamic sun using UDK. The tutorial will cover material setup and material instance customization. Using this method, a Sun disc is automatically generated in the position of the main directional light, and its animatable via matinee.

*UPDATE: Tutorial PDF was updated.
If you where running into problems where the whole sky dome is turning white, here is the fix:
In the sky material, select the 'sphere mask' node and make sure the 'attenuation radius' to '0.02'.


Tutorial Results:




Currently available on Facebook Page, please support by liking the page.

Feedback appreciated. Thanks!

[neurosys]

Sweeet, that was fast!
Just downloaded it and gonna caffeine up and give it a go.
Video looks amazing that's way better than the one in the Procedural sky.
Thanks

[3Dbrushwork]

Sweeet, that was fast!
Just downloaded it and gonna caffeine up and give it a go.
Video looks amazing that's way better than the one in the Procedural sky.
Thanks

Thanks for the feedback . Please, tell me what you think afterwards. Would also love to see the result!

[cucolea]

thx for turorials your awesome, just made i folder with your name in the udk tutorial folder.
Please if you can make some video tutorials after those pdf would be incredible .
Robert

[neurosys]

Here's What I got
Would have been sooner but I had too much fun playing with it.

The tutorial honestly makes it seem so easy and its not overwhelming at all.


^about 10 minutes into tutorial^

^about an hour of playing later, I returned to finish the tutorial^


My scene is definitely lacking in exquisite buildings to really show it off well and its just rolling the unedited stock PostProcess, gonna look amazing down the road as I play with this environment. The only issue I had was I had to turn the SphereMask Attenuation Radius down from 256 to 0.2 but I dont really think that had anything to do with the tutorial, but rather my preexisting light settings, not really sure. At default 256, it whited out the whole sky, so I played with the numbers until it went normal. Its really easy to wash out the scene and I do it alot, other than that everything went perfect and I'm really pleased with the midday result (last 1). For now I'm gonna start animating this into a day/night cycle with matinee. I'll be looking forward to your storm tutorial. Thanks again this is all so very helpful.

[TimmerC]

lookin great neurosys.

3dBW, I loved your last tut and this one looks to be a great followup.. and I'm very interested. However, I am now without a facebook account and I'd really like to keep it that way.. any other way for me to follow your wonderful example?!

[3Dbrushwork]

thx for turorials your awesome, just made i folder with your name in the udk tutorial folder.
Please if you can make some video tutorials after those pdf would be incredible .
Robert

Thank you! I do plan to make video tutorials in the near future, and one day open up a web site dedicated to that.

If you downloaded the .pdf for the UDK Sun tutorial, I encourage you to download the new version. There was something important that I left out in the previous one, as a result it made the entire sky dome turn white.

[3Dbrushwork]

Neurosys, thanks for posting the screenshot. If I had to pick a favorite, I would pick the midday as well. I really like how the colors came out, and the contrast between the sky and the clouds. Looks great!

Also thanks or pointing out the detail regarding the sphere mask, I forgot to note the change to the attenuation radius in the tutorial. As a result people where running into the same problem of their sky turning white. The problem is now fixed and the tutorial is updated. I also added a note in the last page of the tutorial 'troubleshooting' just in case.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[3Dbrushwork]

lookin great neurosys.

3dBW, I loved your last tut and this one looks to be a great followup.. and I'm very interested. However, I am now without a facebook account and I'd really like to keep it that way.. any other way for me to follow your wonderful example?!

I'm very glad you benefited from my last tutorial. I just sent you a private message. Any more questions or comments on the tutorial, please feel free to contact me.

[merc-ai]

Thank you for these tutorials, I have learned a great deal about material editor from them, and they were essential in helping me understand the more complex stuff like Procedural_Sky material.
And very special thank you for making them in readable and detailed PDF format, which is much more useful than video tutorials, but probably harder and more time consuming to make.

[Outstandish]

Great tutorials man! I also see you are working on a Storm one. After that one, a great addition would be TOD implementation. I would like to make a level myself where the time of day we dynamic, and if the player stayed outside long enough it could actually turn from day to night (or vice versa).

[TimmerC]

my first results with your two tutorials, thanks so much man! this has really improved my sky- even gotten me to test a dynamic cycle!

[Blizzard_Edge]

Thanks very much for posting these tutorials and making the nice PDF documents! I would rather not have to use Facebook to download them, but that is just my preference. For one thing, it makes you switch to an HTTP instead of HTTPS connection for Facebook in order to view/like the tutorial page, apparently.

[TheAgent]

my first results with your two tutorials, thanks so much man! this has really improved my sky- even gotten me to test a dynamic cycle!

I gotta say, it looks real nice on that level.

[3Dbrushwork]

Thank you for these tutorials, I have learned a great deal about material editor from them, and they were essential in helping me understand the more complex stuff like Procedural_Sky material.
And very special thank you for making them in readable and detailed PDF format, which is much more useful than video tutorials, but probably harder and more time consuming to make.

Pleasure helping merc-ai . I've gotten allot out of reading tutorials and watching videos posted on this community, and this is my way to give something back.

It is more time consuming making the pdf, the first tutorial took me a little longer because I was experimenting on what was the best format and writing style. Because of the positive feedback, I decided to write the second one in the same format, therefore it took less time to make.

Great tutorials man! I also see you are working on a Storm one. After that one, a great addition would be TOD implementation. I would like to make a level myself where the time of day we dynamic, and if the player stayed outside long enough it could actually turn from day to night (or vice versa).

That's a good idea, making the time of day wound not be difficult using the sun, and sky from this tutorials. All the material instance attributes are animatable. So the stars can fade in and out, the horizon color can change when the sun is rising, and sky/clouds can change over time.

For testing purposes, a very short looping animation can be created on matinee, like a 5 second animation turning from day to night. Then the play rate can be decreased afterwards ..

[3Dbrushwork]

my first results with your two tutorials, thanks so much man! this has really improved my sky- even gotten me to test a dynamic cycle!

Looks awesome! ... I almost jumped off my seat when I saw the images. Thanks you and neurosys for posting! Very motivational for me to see the results.

Best Regards,
Julio Juarez

[hunharibo]

Could we perhaps have an alternative host please?
I do not have a facebook account and refuse to create one.

[3Dbrushwork]

I'll make it available on my web page very soon. I just sent you a pm, any one else runs into the same problem, just pm me and I'll be glad to send you an alternative.

Best Regards,
Julio Juarez

[3Dbrushwork]

Merc-ai brought up a good question on how to make the clouds occlude the sun. So I decided to give it a shot and obtained these results:





I made a mask in Photoshop that indicates where the sun will be occluded. In the mask, the thick clouds are black and thinner clouds are a shade of gray. The red rectangle on the upper right is highlighting the last node of the sun network. Also important to note that I made that mask received the same animation that the sky color map does.

What do you guys think? Should I add it to the tutorial?

Best Regards,
Julio Juarez

[Outstandish]

I have a concern about the animated skydome tutorial which I just did. I did it and these are the results I got...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q8PoB03Z9I

Weird right? This is the material itself....

[jx53]

3Dbrushwork: yess please add it to the tutorial, the result is simply amazing

[3Dbrushwork]

3Dbrushwork: yess please add it to the tutorial, the result is simply amazing

Thanks for the input! I will add it very soon. Lately I've been working on finishing an art test and haven't been able to do any writing.



Outstandish, glad to know neurosys was able to help you

[Outstandish]

Also how is it possible to make the sun move in game? I thought it would be via Matinee so in Kismet I put a Level Loaded event, than a new Matinee (Had one already for a campfire and torch light animation mind you), than I went in the Matinee editor, Made a new Lighting group with the Dominant Directional Light, selected, and for test purposes made it so that in a 5 second duration the light would rotate 360 degrees (well 359.something or other XD). Now I played the new animation I made in the matinee editor and it was perfect, but when I got out of Kismet and Matinee, and played in the editor nothing happened. It told me to rebuild lighting so I did, but still the sun didn't move .

Thanks you all .

[jx53]

Thanks for the input! I will add it very soon. Lately I've been working on finishing an art test and haven't been able to do any writing.



Outstandish, glad to know neurosys was able to help you

Thanks alot

[juneat4]

If you where running into problems where the whole sky dome is turning white, here is the fix:
In the sky material, select the 'sphere mask' node and make sure the 'attenuation radius' to '0.02'.


Thanks for fab tut ... even me as a total newbie got it, BUT ... I do have an issue with the skydome completely white in the level ... but I do not have a Sphere Mask node in my material ... where should it go? what should this node link to??

Thanks loads for your willingness to share ... have bookmarked you for future tuts ....

[juneat4]

Aha!! Just realized the Sphere Mask node is in tut for Dynamic Sun which I am about to follow (with great excitement!) ... bit worried though that I should be seeing a moving sky in the level having followed the 1st tut .. looks great in the Content Browser ... Mmmn

[3Dbrushwork]

Also how is it possible to make the sun move in game? I thought it would be via Matinee so in Kismet I put a Level Loaded event, than a new Matinee (Had one already for a campfire and torch light animation mind you), than I went in the Matinee editor, Made a new Lighting group with the Dominant Directional Light, selected, and for test purposes made it so that in a 5 second duration the light would rotate 360 degrees (well 359.something or other XD). Now I played the new animation I made in the matinee editor and it was perfect, but when I got out of Kismet and Matinee, and played in the editor nothing happened. It told me to rebuild lighting so I did, but still the sun didn't move .

Thanks you all .

..

Is the event playing when you start the game? via trigger, level loaded, etc.. When I did my setup, I created a dominant directional light 'movable'.. It could be doe to that as well..

[3Dbrushwork]

Aha!! Just realized the Sphere Mask node is in tut for Dynamic Sun which I am about to follow (with great excitement!) ... bit worried though that I should be seeing a moving sky in the level having followed the 1st tut .. looks great in the Content Browser ... Mmmn

Is it not animated on the editor? All the parameters are designed to be tweaked using a material instance, just make sure the instance is applied to the sky dome model.. It should update real time with every change.. Feel free to email me if you have any problems : julio@3dbrushwork.com

[juneat4]

Is it not animated on the editor? All the parameters are designed to be tweaked using a material instance, just make sure the instance is applied to the sky dome model.. It should update real time with every change.. Feel free to email me if you have any problems : julio@3dbrushwork.com

Thanks Julio, don't know why it didn't originally work in the editor but got it working now and since following your sun tut now have a moving sun. Now I'd like to get a night and day cycle working ... this is sooo much fun!

[3Dbrushwork]

Thanks Julio, don't know why it didn't originally work in the editor but got it working now and since following your sun tut now have a moving sun. Now I'd like to get a night and day cycle working ... this is sooo much fun!

I'll post a free download soon on 3dbrushwork. A complete cycle animated in matinee, feel free to use it, and replace the textures, also to look at how it's made in order to make your own.

Also:

Tutorial was updated to fix issues reported to me that sometimes a double sun was being generated.

Currently available on my website:

3DBrushwork

[Outstandish]

Sorry to bump a old thread, but when I use light shafts with my "Night" scene I get this weird... something xD.



*Bloom scale is 2.0, decreasing it to 1.0 doesn't do much of anything....

[Chosker]

seems your moon is way too bright which produces bloom, which then empowers the light shafts
I used to get a similar thing. all you need to do is tune your moon's brightness
your stars seem to be doing the same, on a much smaller scale

[Outstandish]

seems your moon is way too bright which produces bloom, which then empowers the light shafts
I used to get a similar thing. all you need to do is tune your moon's brightness
your stars seem to be doing the same, on a much smaller scale

How would I do this again? Turn down the brightness of the light itself or.....

[Chosker]

not the light, the part of your material that gives shape to the moon. if you're using a texture, multiply it by some fractional number (0.5, 0.2, whatever, just try)

[dreambled]

I know this topic is a little old, but I recently found the tutorial and decided to give it a shot. It works fine except for a few hiccups. The main hiccup is that while the sun, or in my case, moon, appears to be related to my directional light, it does not move with it. It actually moves with me, (the player). I made sure accept lights are on as the tutorial suggests, but that does not fix the problem. Any solutions?