#Thread
icy stag
yeah
solemn acorn
Then I guess I'd make a new light next to it to see if that works
solemn acorn
Reasonable to assume that the problem is either the light or the meshes, if it's not their placement relative to each other
Were the lights mixed the whole time?
icy stag
no, i tried to set them to mixed after baked didnt work properly
only some of them work on mixed, and none worked on baked
i have no idea what this means...
solemn acorn
That's a bit of a mistake at this point, like I cautioned
Mixed lights use both baked and realtime lighting, but in a more complex way than either baked or realtime
So you get problems of both and then some more if your settings aren't right or if there's bugs around
icy stag
ah i see sorry for the confusion
solemn acorn
Because mixed lights have the realtime part to them, you might assume they "work" once you see the realtime light
icy stag
Because mixed lights have the realtime part to them, you might assume they "work...
but the ones that dont work AND the ones that do work are both mixed, and the debug draw mode supports that
solemn acorn
But then you'll likely start running into realtime light issues, like pixel light limits
But that should be worried about only after you get purely Baked lights working
icy stag
but the ones that dont work AND the ones that do work are both mixed, and the de...
why would some work and some not
solemn acorn
First you should make the choice whether you're troubleshooting baked or realtime lights
Not get mixed up with Mixed
icy stag
baked, i was always troubleshooting baked
i only switched to mixed because baked wasnt working at all
and it works a little better than baked so i stuck with it
solemn acorn
Are you sticking with Baked for now, though?
icy stag
yeah thats the goal
solemn acorn
It better be the practical reality too
Anyway, it should be reasonable to assume the issue is either the lights, the meshes or their placement relative to each other
Since moving the problematic lights around had no impact, I'd try creating a new light next to the problematic light
With a different color to differentiate it
That would rule out if something's messed up about the light component itself somehow
And do restart the editor if you haven't already after the issues began
It could be a hiccup since there seems to be no obvious cause
Presuming you've triple checked the light types, meshes and Contribute GI flags of both
icy stag
And do restart the editor if you haven't already after the issues began
It could...
i had to restart when upgrading versions
icy stag
Since moving the problematic lights around had no impact, I'd try creating a new...
i'll try this
so i put a new green baked light next to the lantern and it half works?
i can see the green but its super blotchy
solemn acorn
The GI debug views have modes for UV overlap and Texel Validity
Looks like there could be issues with either or both
solemn acorn
Invalid texels and UV overlaps are both big issues
icy stag
how do i fix that 😔
solemn acorn
Since the lantern shows up in those debug views, it seems it is GI static and thus blocking any light from getting out from within it
Which could explain why that particular light is not working, but not if the same light also doesn't work outside of the lantern
icy stag
Since the lantern shows up in those debug views, it seems it is GI static and th...
but i tried toggling gi static on other ones that werent working and they still didnt work
solemn acorn
It might be the right thing to do even if it fails to produce results, as it's possible you have more than one issue at once there
As you do in form of texel invalidity and UV overlap
But there could be something else as well
What really helps me and probably would help you is to get baking working first in a smaller test environment
Some default cubes (since those always have good lightmap UVs), a small patch of the level containing a lantern and only a couple of other things, and some test lights separate from them
Usually once you get that kind of setup working and move to the full scene proper, you may find that it introduces new issues that stop the baking from working
Which now are much easier to solve as you aren't tackling the whole sandwich of problems at once
icy stag
Since the lantern shows up in those debug views, it seems it is GI static and th...
so i got rid of the green light and toggled static gi on the lantern post and it looks the same way the green light looked
i'll try setting up a smaller scene
solemn acorn
That's important progress
Proves that disabling GI contribution of the lantern did prevent the light form being absorbed
While it's helpful for your learning that you get lightmapping working as-is in the test scene for now, I'd caution that the kind of curved and detailed meshes you have are very inefficient to lightmap and to lightmap UV-unwrap
icy stag
Proves that disabling GI contribution of the lantern did prevent the light form ...
but im still stuck on why it didnt work when i tried toggling static gi on other lanterns?
solemn acorn
but im still stuck on why it didnt work when i tried toggling static gi on other...
We can still assume it's something to do with the meshes, the lights or their relative placement
If the light works when moved out of the lantern, it's possible you have multiple stacked lanterns some of which are static
icy stag
ok heres a smaller scene
solemn acorn
As you recall if a mesh shows up in texel validity or UV overlap views, they are GI static
icy stag
the lanterns are the only source of light (no directional light)
the tree looks super wierd
the lantern post seems to work somewhat but the small lantern isnt working at all
and the plane isnt recieving any light?
why do the cube and plane not show up?
solemn acorn
Well, are they GI static and receiving GI from lightmaps in the mesh renderer?
solemn acorn
Most problems in this field are oversights of something that may seem obvious, and the solutions often are just triple checking such obvious things
icy stag
ok heres the new bake
solemn acorn
Even for me!
icy stag
ok heres the new bake
cube and plane and props look good, tree looks trash
solemn acorn
Much improved
UV overlap debug view should reveal problems still, but I'd also check texel validity again
solemn acorn
I would check the Baked Lightmaps from lighting window here as well
Since the lighting artifacts are repeated identically, that strongly suggests the UV areas should be overlapping which as with all UV mapping causes geometry to share texture space
Possibly it could be due to overlapping geometry
Maybe objects or in the mesh itself
icy stag
i cant really make out anything because of the size 😅
ill try a rebake with smaller size
solemn acorn
You can hit "View" to look closer
solemn acorn
I'd zoom in on the tree leaves
And compare it to the tree's geometry
Every individual side and layer of the tree should have its own UV space
icy stag
so this is all that correlates to the tree
wait this too
is it supposed to look like this?
solemn acorn
Probably
icy stag
the props look a lot clearer
solemn acorn
so this is all that correlates to the tree
However this looks suspicious to me
The tree's inside and outside are obviously overlapping
I don't know the geometry well enough to gauge it by eye, but it looks like the "front" and "back" of the tree are likewise overlapping there
icy stag
this pic if from the inside of the leaves and i think youre right
solemn acorn
If a conical, let alone a layered conical shape was properly unwrapped it'd have to form multiple separate triangular shapes, or one or more circular shapes
So, make sure that mesh also has lightmap UV generation enabled
icy stag
So, make sure that mesh also has lightmap UV generation enabled
where do i find that setting?
solemn acorn
where do i find that setting?
That's what chapter 9 of the guide is for
solemn acorn
No, sure you baked again?
icy stag
oh, no i havent baked again
solemn acorn
All the friction you're experiencing now goes away with just practicing this process by repeating it and upping the complexity gradually
solemn acorn
Yes
Your models have a lot of curves and tapers, whereas lightmapping really only works with boxy meshes due to UV difficulty
So it's possible that's the best result you can expect with your meshes
(As long as you iron out other issues like artifacts stemming from texel invalidity)
You will also need Light Probe Groups for lighting anything that's not lightmapped
icy stag
i have 0 modeling experience so i wasnt aware of any of this before now 😅
solemn acorn
There is another way but I'm hesitant to recommend it
icy stag
PLEASE I'LL DO ANYTHING
solemn acorn
Ordinarily baked lighting means lightmaps and light probe groups working together
That's the first half of what we've been battling with so far
icy stag
so do i just have to do this for all of my models?
rebaked scene looks almost perfect!
solemn acorn
The lanterns can be lit up by the light probe groups once you have them
They store light at arbitrary points during baking, then interpolate the light to objects close to those points
icy stag
mhm makes sense so far
solemn acorn
But as long as you use lightmaps you'll be stuck with those seams
You can set GI static objects to use probes instead of lightmaps
Which is definitely worth doing for any small and detailed objects like the fruit baskets
Or any baskets really
Because with lightmaps every square inch requires space on the lightmap, and every corner and curve splits the lightmap UV region and every region needs its own margin/padding
So you end up with a lot of seams and a lot of wasted texture memory
icy stag
so what are you implying exactly?
solemn acorn
An alternative to lightmaps and light probe groups are adaptive probe volumes
They're automatically placed probes which can be sampled per-pixel rather than per-object
Which means none of the work or limitations involved with lightmapping come into play
Or with ordinary light probe groups
The downside is that the system is just as complex to set up as the two others combined, as far as steps and boxes to tick and odd rendering errors are considered
But maybe you want to take the time to study it and to test it
icy stag
In all honesty, this is for a game jam so I'm super happy with my current result. All I wanted was for it to look nice without tanking my fps
solemn acorn
Oh and also it only works on compute-capable devices
So most mobile and web platforms are out
icy stag
https://youtu.be/iU7X5xICkc8
I will definitely take a look!
icy stag
Oh and also it only works on compute-capable devices
So most mobile and web plat...
I'm building for web 😔
solemn acorn
(although some mobile devices are compute-capable, and while webGL isn't, the experimental webGPU is)
icy stag
Isn't everything webgl related experimental? 😆
solemn acorn
Not in the sense that it's new, at any rate!
WebGL is ancient and pretty much unchanged for years
WebGPU however is the new replacement
Still in testing phase but apparently not too tricky to get working
Going with APVs and WebGPU certainly would mean a lot of study, practice and testing in your current situation though
And the current lighting looks just fine ^^
icy stag
Truly. Thank you for all of the help! And if you don't mind me asking, how have you come to be so knowledgeable in this genre of gamdev?
Is it study or experience or backend dev experience or...?
icy stag
"All it takes" is taking too much 😁
solemn acorn
Oh one more thing you might want to know
Mixed lights forgo any performance benefit you will get from baking lighting
solemn acorn
Since they combine realtime for direct lighting and baked for indirect, via various modes
Baked is cheap because it's stored in textures / probes
Realtime can look sharper and consumes only runtime vram
Mixed has the visual quality of both, but the expense of both
And the limitations of both
Since they can't be moved but are subject to realtime light limits, among others
So if you were using Baked, you weren't imagining the performance
But if Mixed, then yes!
icy stag
So how would I go about simulating lighting on moving objects without tanking performance?
I thought that's what mixed was for
solemn acorn
Light probes apply baked light to moving / non-static objects
But there's no realtime shadows, which is one thing Mixed lights are used to help with
(But shadows are expensive)
icy stag
So how do AAA games do it while also allowing you to get 200+ fps?
solemn acorn
Mostly they limit the number of lights and shadows per scene / screen
There's optimization techniques for almost everything of course
The cost of lights and shadows is dependent on many things, such as the polycount of objects in their range
Though that varies by rendering path
Optimization is a complex topic
A few lights aren't that tough for modern machines, anyhow
Triple A devs tend to have source code access, a whole team of graphics engineers specifically for the task and they know precisely what needs to be shown on screen whereas with us indies it's a bit more up in the air what shows up
And I know few triple-A games that target any FPS above 60 or 100
icy stag
Triple A devs tend to have source code access, a whole team of graphics engineer...
ah this makes sense. i was always marveled by elden ring's graphics and performance but i recall that it was made in a custom engine
solemn acorn
Building high fidelity games for maximum performance kinda clamps down a lot on what assets and effects you can use at any given time
Couldn't be me!
Lofi styles give you headroom to worry less about that
icy stag
Lofi styles give you headroom to worry less about that
not being a game dev at all also gives you less headroom to worry less about that 😁
solemn acorn
Quite so !
Before I disappear I note that I forgot to mention light probes
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/UsingReflectionProbes.html
They're kinda the third but a less significant part of baking
To get specular reflections you'll likely want one in your scene
Generally anything that's not moving should be set as reflection probe static, even the lanterns since they should show up in reflections
icy stag
oh one last thing
i dont think this is a huge problem, but whenever i press "generate lighting", i get this error in my console
any idea what it means?
solemn acorn
No clue, probably not related to what you're doing and probably not problematic
Usually those disappear on a restart
icy stag
hmm this was happening before and after a restart but i cant identify any issues that this might be causing