I’m a bit confused about using lightmass GI. Is that GI type related with UV and lightmap? Is it needed to be precomputed on UV map? I have overlapped UV on my mesh. Is it possible to use lightmass GI without precomputed lightmap? Is it possible use double UV for single mesh. One for textures and second (not overlapped) for lightmap generation.
Any help?
If lightmass and lightmap is same thing I have another question. Is it possible to import bake GI lighting from other software? Is it good choice? I think about better quality GI baking inside of Modo. I think it will be more accurate. What about sample rendering scene. I think that shadows also was baked outside UE4. If it`s possible please tell me how to import and set in UE4 that lighmap exported from other soft (Modo in my case). Is it should be as black and white map (something like AO)?
Hello!
I’m only writing this to get the question back up to the top, as I would love to understand definitions&differences on these terms, could be use full :3
Hoping for answers, -DoctorPC
Lightmass is specifically the creation of lightmap textures that are applied to the surfaces through the shader system in Unreal.
To use Lightmass, you MUST have unique, normalized texture/UV coordinates for each of your meshes. This is typically done in your DCC app (Max/Maya/Blender)
You absolutely can have a second map channel to store the lightmap coordinates! This is the recommended workflow. You can have quite a few UV coordinate channels in each mesh (of course each additional channel takes up more memory).
Typically the diffuse/normal, etc. mapping is assigned to the first map channel (Channel 0 in UE4 and Channel 1 in MAX) and the lightmap coordinates are assigned to the second channel (Channel 1 in UE4 and Channel 2 in MAX).
You can override this behavior in the mesh settings in the editor by setting the Lightmap Coordinate Index to the intended channel.
As for building lighting in another application: it’s possible but I’d recommend against it for several reasons. The biggest being the incompatibility with the overall lighting and shading system in UE4 and the difficulties with dynamic objects you’d experience. It would also increase the complexity of your workflow significantly.
As for building lighting in another application: it’s possible but I`d recommend against it for several reasons. The biggest being the incompatibility with the overall lighting and shading system in UE4 and the difficulties with dynamic objects you’d experience.
Why? In my opinion baking inside Modo is quite easy and it’s possible to get superior quality of baking. I don`t know only how to connect it to UE4. Should it be set as AO or as lighmap. If as lightmap please tell me how it should be prepared (black & white or full color or shadows over ID_colors).