Building Lighting when streaming levels.

[Chance]

Hi there!

I have had a search of the forums but I cannot seem to find anything that explicitly explains what I need so apologies if this turns out to have already been answered - a pointer to where the info is would be appreciated if this is the case.

I am currently trying to build a mini game in UDK. The game requires 2 levels to be streamed as they originally were designed as separate pieces.

I have a persistent level - just has a teleport to get player to start of first level - a first level and a second level. The player also comes back to the first level after completing the second level.

All of this is done with kismet streaming and is working well, my problem is the lighting.

I was under the impression that I would need to build the lighting for the levels individually, and would not need to build the whole thing in one go (aka build the master level so to speak). However whenever I do this, the game still states that I need to rebuild lighting, even though the individual levels do not.

When I try to build all the levels together I get an out of memory error on the build at 0.19%.

I thought the whole point of streaming levels was so that this did not happen.

Could someone please kindly tell me the correct workflow for building lighting when streaming levels.

Thanks in advance for any help people can give.

[redbox]

you need to separate your levels or buy more RAM...

[Tearl]

There's several ways to approach this. You say that your levels (Level 1 and Level 2) are baked individually? Do they share ANY lights? Maybe something on the persistent level? That could confuse things.
If your streamed levels have good bakes, then try to bake just the persistent level and see if it clears the message.
I have a project that switches between 3 configurations of a hotel room with just a click. Each level has different lighting, so I had to assign lighting channels to each level...and I mean EVERYTHING (lights and meshes) on each level. It was a pain, but it worked perfectly.

[redbox]

partial build must work. if you have "lightning needs to be rebuild" use console command "ListUncachedStaticLightingInteractions" to find objects that corrupt lightning. maybe it helps you...

[Chance]

Hi Guys thanks for replying.

@ Tearl: Yh the two separate levels bake fine even at production quality, I'll try baking just the persistent level and see if that helps. I really hope I do not need to assign the lighting channels, as you said it would be a pain.

@ redbox: I have a 32 bit system with 4 gig of ram, so that's not really an option, but I will give the console command a go, thanks.

I'll post back with the results later this week.

[Chance]

OK...

so I tried using the console command, it crashes UDK every time, so a no go there.

I have built the persistent level, This removed the Red warning but still shows the Grey warning. Also after the persistent level builds it turns all of my grass black.

I tried to rebuild the 1st level only from within the persistent level, but the lightmass threw an error saying there is no drive in drive E ?????

Any Ideas would be appreciated as I am quickly losing my hair over this.

[mkandersson]

This guy has a great tutorial on level streaming and he also talks about baking lights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xLkAjj46UY
Hope it helps.

[redbox]

if udk crashes with that console command, it means there are many objects has corrupted lightning.

[ZeJudge]

Can you move all actors that you have from your persistent level to your individual levels? Effectively leaving the persistent level empty, with only kismet. You should then be able to build lighting on the individual streamed levels, and persistent level successfully and receive no warnings. Build preview lighting for testing. It's much faster.

[Chance]

The persistent level is completely empty part from a small BSP brush, the only kismet it holds is a teleport to the first level upon level loaded.

I am using the shipped with grass mesh in UDK, if that helps. It seems it is only the grass that goes wrong when I try to bring the levels together.

All three levels build fine on their own, but when played the build lighting warning comes up, so annoying as if I understand it correctly, once all three separate levels are built, i should not need to rebuild lighting, correct?

Thanks for all the help so far guys, please keep it coming this must be solvable!

[ZeJudge]

Once all three level's lighting has been built individually, hide them in the Levels tab in the content browser and just build the lighting in the persistent level. Unhide them and save all levels. Should fix your issue.


If that doesn't work, then make a console event at level start stating 'toggleallscreenmessages'

[Chance]

Hey guys sorry I have not replied to this thread for a while, I have had a dissertation to submit.

OK so back to the problem.

Once all three level's lighting has been built individually

by this do you mean in the streamed level file, or in the original independent level files?

The toggling of the messages is a brilliant idea, but one I would prefer to avoid as it seems a bit of a cop out.

Thanks for all the help guys.

[strangelet]

HAVE YOU TRIED

simply hiding the extra levels and building lighting in your main level? then saving only the main level and reloading it with the pre-built sublevels already built?
we use levels extensively and this way has been working for us for a while.

if the lighting is actually *breaking* when you add your new levels, then perhaps some lights from them are affecting something in the persistent level (maybe that bsp brush)

edit - lol zjudge already suggested this. but i can confirm that works at least.