Weird lighting results (bsp edges, shadow casting, mesh lighting)

[jgg]

Hi all!

I have deployed some PointLights around my level to get some lighting. However, the results show some undesirable effects. Maybe they are somehow related, but I don't know how to fix them... Hope anyone can help me to solve them!

1. BSP edges: Materials used in walls, ceilings and floors use diffuse and specular textures. However, specularity doesn't behave as expected and the edges in BSP brushes structure (which is the level built in) are somehow highlighted. How to avoid them? Surfaces are meant to be lit in a seamless way, aren't they?




2. Shadow casting: I have some static meshes in one floor of my level, but their shadows are casted in two floor: the one where they are located in and the one below this). How can this be possible? How can I avoid shadow casting to go through the floor where the mesh is?




3. Mesh lighting: I've tried with 2 different props and I get the same results. As I move around them some sides appear to be 'dynamically' striped (shadows appear and vanish depending on where I put the camera). Props' lightmap resolution is 32. Any idea about why is this happening and how may I fix it?




I've been searching for any clue with no results. Any help regarding any of these issues is really appreciated.

Thank you!

[Marvin.Star]

1. Edges of objects catch light, that's just a fact. Even with static meshes the edges will catch and reflect more light; the difference here could simply be that static meshes provide a great deal more control with light maps and modelling. You may also try recreating a corner via a custom brush shape and give the corner a few edges(round it out) because nearly no object actually has such a sharp edge as a basic brush shape provides.

2. Is the floor solid? Is the floor made of BSP? Is the floor translucent anywhere?

3. 32 is about the smallest you would ever want to go with a light map. If the object is of any substantial size bring it up to 64 or 128. If the prop is huge you may go higher, 256 or 512, but try to avoid high numbers. Do your meshes have a light map UV channel? If not when your in maya or 3ds max you will need to add another UV channel and export / re-import the meshes to get best quality light-mapping. If none of the above works, try rendering at medium or high quality(assuming you've been rendering at preview) and see if the problem still exists.

[Marvin.Star]

Another thing you may try is opening up the BSP material settings. There are a number of lighting options in there referring to dynamic shadows and what kind of lighting to render. Also... you should be able to convert BSP to static meshes; although I haven't used that in some time I don't recall exactly how to do that.

[Mikael]

I had similar problems with dynamic lights. The fix was:
- To change light from 'Point Light' to 'PointLightMovable'
- On object properties change Light shadow mode from the default 'LightShadow_Modulate' to 'LightShadow_Normal'.

[jgg]

Mikael, I have tried your suggestions but they didn't work U_U.

Marvin.Star, floor, wall and ceiling is made of BSP/CSG's. I got floor, ceiling and some wall textures aligned by selecting coplanar surfaces and aligning them through the right menu options for Alignment. However, I'm not able to align some wall textures/materials. BTW, no translucent floor anywhere.

I also tried increasing the lightmap resolution of props to 128, but it neither solved any issue.

I noticed something that may be important to track the issue (although I can't really know why): the meshes that have shadow artifacts are animated through Matinee, and the 'clean' ones (with no artifacts) are not (although both being InterpActor's). ¿?

In the next screenshot, the left door (showing shadow artifacts) is animated through Kismet/Matinee, while the right one ('clean') is not.

[Marvin.Star]

I know I've seen this before... but it has been a long time. There isn't much I can suggest, but try taking one of your props and testing creating light map channels in your modeling software, if you haven't. Also did you try rendering on high quality settings? If not that could help resolve the issue.

I'll be doing a fair bit of work with brushes and such very soon and I'll get back to you if I ever notice something that could help.

[thanoz]

There's a few potential solutions, some will work 100% but won't be ideal.

First solution: Knock down the radius on your light and there won't be a shadow going through 2 floors, this means no using directional lights for indoor lighting....which you shouldn't be doing for the most part anyway. Logically you don't want shadows from the top floor going into the bottom floor, you shouldn't want the lights to do the same either. It sounds like a hack solution, but in all honesty, it's how things should be setup regardless. (should be 100% fix)

Second solution: Make lower floor not accept shadows. Just select the surface, F4, make it not accept Dynamic Shadows if that's what you're using, or not accept lightmaps. (should be 100% fix)

Third solution: Change which lighting channels are being used on the top floor and bottom floor and set lights accordingly. (should be 100% fix)

Fourth solution: Don't use dynamic shadows. (might help)

Fifth solution: cut down on the use of BSP, or start covering the BSP with large quantities of static meshes...OR convert BSP brushes to static meshes (you can do that actually) then set their lighting properties individually to adjust and fix problems.