PSA on LightMap Density & Build Times
4DChessGenius
Posts: 2,130Player
Lately I've been working on my RedAlert map and it would kill me to have to build the map since it would take almost two hours. After doing some research online, I read about LightMap Density overrides to help shorten Lightmass. If you've never used this part of the editor, here's what it looks like:
Now as you can see, just about everything on the picture is green or blue. Well, before I spent time to fix it, almost everything here was red. If your map is red that means that the system is going to have a hard time building the lighting for that mesh, meaning longer build times. It actually got to the point where my lightmass was even hanging after an hour at 1% earlier today.
So, how do you fix it if your map is all red?
You can select all of your static meshes and override the light map res. If you look at the images below, you can see that the little cells get much larger when changing the resolution. In theory this will make your lighting not look as good, but I honestly don't notice any difference. For most walls and such, 32 seems to work well. For small items, it may need to go lower. I try to get everything to be green, apparently blue is the best. Just try to make everything not red! By doing this I got a huge improvement. My build time dropped to about 35 minutes.
Now as you can see, just about everything on the picture is green or blue. Well, before I spent time to fix it, almost everything here was red. If your map is red that means that the system is going to have a hard time building the lighting for that mesh, meaning longer build times. It actually got to the point where my lightmass was even hanging after an hour at 1% earlier today.
So, how do you fix it if your map is all red?
You can select all of your static meshes and override the light map res. If you look at the images below, you can see that the little cells get much larger when changing the resolution. In theory this will make your lighting not look as good, but I honestly don't notice any difference. For most walls and such, 32 seems to work well. For small items, it may need to go lower. I try to get everything to be green, apparently blue is the best. Just try to make everything not red! By doing this I got a huge improvement. My build time dropped to about 35 minutes.
You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!
Comments
There's a lot more to this topic than whether that shows red, including whether that tool takes into account your actual rendering power, or some ten year old standard.
I optimize unnecessary shadows-on-shadows, for example. Each object with 'Cast Shadows' checked casts them even if the area is already in shade.
Etc, etc.
This has been a test of the emergency flame-fest system. Please do not adjust your set.
I always use preview until my last publish.
Production lighting gets rid of unsightly lines on walls and landscapes.