Auto marking static lighting broken on Perforce

In our ps4 and xbox one builds we are having issues with materials not being marked as ‘used with static lighting’. These materials show up as black in the xbox version of the game. This is a reoccurring bug that has occurred throughout development due to perforce integration.

To reproduce:

Create a entrance level that opens when the editor opens. Create secondary level that you can chose to load from the File menu. Create a test material. Just a colour into albedo will do. DO NOT APPLY THIS MATERIAL TO A STATIC OBJECT. Then submit this material into perforce. Once it has been submitted apply the material to a static mesh in the secondary loaded level. It will automatically tick ‘used with static lighting’ in the test material and ask you to check out the material. DO NOT CHECK OUT THE MATERIAL. Save only the secondary level with the material applied to the static mesh. Close UE4.

Open UE4 again into the entrance level (the one without the test mat applied to a static mesh). Open the test material. Used with static lighting is not ticked. Expected behaviour. Now open the test level (the level with the static mesh with the applied material). Note that in the material ‘used with static lighting’ gets ticked. However the material does not become marked as changed with a star (*) ! It should be.

When this is deployed to Xbox One (perhaps other platforms too) all materials that aren’t marked for static lighting in statically baked levels are either black or checker-box. This bug creates scenarios where artists are confused as to where there materials are disappearing to! If they investigate materials they are wrongly marked as ‘used with static lighting’ even if they are not marked on drive!

Hello -

I was able to reproduce this issue and have submitted a bug report, for reference UE-17616. I will keep you informed as we continue to investigate a solution.

Thank You -

Eric Ketchum