Lighting in UDK #1

18 Jun 2010

In todays post I want to show some progress on the new version of the award winning level Lost Temple. For the retail version of  The Haunted we are relighting and updating all current levels. With the Unreal Development Kit Epic has introduced a new lighting solution called Lightmass and we of course want to take advantage of it. For this level there was already pre-existing lighting set-up. However, when turning on Lightmass and the new Color Lookup Table feature everything goes crazy.

I started with removing all pre-existing post-processing effects. The Color Lookup Table, or LUT for short, is a new feature that replaces (or combines with) the old post-process scene effect. It gives you better and more accurate control of your post-processing. After removing the pre-existing settings I went on to delete all old directional and skylight entities to get a fresh start using a new dominant directional light. I wanted to use the moon as the directional light source (the moon reflects sunlight in a white/grey maybe even slightly yellow tint even at night). I had to do a lot of experimenting before getting the results I wanted. In the end I used one dominant directional light coupled with an exponential height fog entity to get the effect I wanted. The moon was moved from a full 3D mesh to a single plane using a new material with an halo to get it to blend better with the skymap and lightshaft effect.

I used mostly cold colors outside highlighting portals and passageways with warmer torches. Interior of the level are warmer lit by living flames. All levels in The Haunted has its own unique type of environment danger. Temple is no exception and during play you might experience the sky going from cold blue to hot red with trees burning and fire stones raining from the sky. Click an image to see a comparison between the normal and danger state of the level.