Landscape Rotation Causes Issues with Lightmass

##Branch:
Binary/Launcher


##Build version:
4.6.1


##Detailed description of the issue:

When building lightmaps for landscapes - if it is at 0,0,0 rotation, it all works fine, yet when rotated in any way it causes huge black splotches everywhere.

I posted the issue a while back, and have recently found the issue again with any landscape with any rotation values.

Link HERE

Although the more the rotation, the worse the artifacts. 90 degrees, for example, will produce a few in various areas whilst 180 degrees will ruin the entire landscape.


##Repro Steps

Action 1: Create landscape by importing a heightmap.

Action 2: Rotate landscape - via the creation tab or after creation.

Action 3: build lighting.


##Additional Information

  • Lightmass settings don’t impact the issue.
  • Static lightmap resolution and LOD of the landscape don’t impact the issue.
  • This issue effects both landscapes created in editor and imported height-maps from World Machine.
  • Scaling does not cause this issue, only rotation.
  • Happens in my project and clean projects.

##System Specs:

  • Windows 8.1
  • AMD FX 8350
  • AMD 2x 7970 Crossfire
  • 16GB DDR3 RAM
  • 2x 7200RPM HDDs in Raid-0

Hi Kenomica,

Thank you for your report. I was able to reproduce this on my end and have entered a bug report, UE-8308 to be assessed by the development staff.

Much appreciated. Glad I could help bring your attention to it.

Is there any way for users to track bugs and progress?

Unfortunately at the moment we do not have a public bug tracker. This is being assessed to see what we could do in the future about implementing a public feature, however I don’t have a timeframe of when that could/would be made available.

If it helps your investigation, I’ve found that the black splotches are caused by the landscape shadows - rather than any other object casting shadows on the landscape.

Turning off “cast static shadow” gets rid of the splotches - but of course this no longer looks as good as it should, since the landscape no longer casts shadows, but it does show that the cause isn’t shadows cast by foliage or any other object in the scene.

I’m happy to say this was in the patch notes for 4.7 as fixed!