UDK Documentation: Quick Scene Setup
Quick Scene Setup
Here's a few quick tips for setting up a new scene. This answers a lot of the common questions people ask as they are just getting into UDK. It shows a few basic UDK features you can activate to greatly improve presentation of a scene.
This scene includes five brushes with one of the included UDK materials. They are setup to represent a floor with a few objects placed in the scene. Other than adding these brushes, I've done nothing else to this level.
Playerstart
Right click on the floor > Add Actor > Add Playerstart.
You can position or rotate this however you like. Now if you play in editor or in game (save first) you'll have a place to start.
DominantDirectionalLight
Right click on the floor > Add Actor > Add DominantDirectionalLight
This type of light has no raduis, and works like the sun. It's position in the world is irrelevant, but it's rotation controls where the sun is in the sky. At this point, you can Build Lighting or Build All to see everything with lighting.
Kill Z
When the map build is done, the Map Check window will likely say "Map should have KillZ set." You can get rid of this message quickly by going to View > World Properties > ZoneInfo > Kill Z > and set this number to -1024. Test this to be sure nothing in your level is below this point or the player will die when they touch it. The level should have a Kill Z set anyway just in case for any reason the player falls through the world.
Removing Weapon and Hud from the screen
In WorldInfo, check "No Default Inventory For Player". With this checked, when you spawn the weapon will not appear on the screen. You can also type "ToggleHUD" in the console (hit the ~ key or press Tab) to hide the hud. You can also set this automatically in Kismet if you see fit.
Environment Color
In the Lightmass tab of World Properties, you can set the environment color. Shadows will be this color, and it usually does a good job not letting shadows be too dark. In outdoor scenes, it may be worth sampling a darker, saturated color from the sky. You will likely have to tweak with this number a while before you find something you like
Sky Dome
If you search "sky" and set the object type to only show Static Meshes, you'll see three skies that come with UDK. Click one of these you like and drag it into the scene. Before we go any further, you MUST open the properties of this sky (with sky mesh selected press F4).
Properties > StaticMeshActor > Static Mesh Component > Lighting
In here, you'll want to deactivate anything to do with casting shadows. If you don't uncheck Cast Shadow, the sky mesh itself will cast a shadow over everything cast from the Dominant Directional Light.
HeightFog
In the Actor Classes tab of Content Browser > Info > Heightfog.
With that selected, Right click in the editor > Add HeightFog Here
You can move this up to what height looks good. It's great to fill the sky horizon. In the properties, the Density, Light Brightness, and Light Color are the main options I adjust.
LightShafts
Look around the sky you added to find where the sun would be coming from.
Open the dom light's properties Light > LightShafts > check the Render Light Shafts check box. This should automatically begin casting light shafts from where ever your light direction is coming from.
Now, rotate the DominantDirectionalLight until you are happy with their position in the sky to act as the sun. You could also rotate and move the sky itself around if this angle is so important.
SSAO Reduction
By default, UDK has strong Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO). This is the black halo around everything, and depending on what kind of scene you're doing this can look really good or really bad.
If you search "console" in the content browser, UTPostProcess_Console Post Process Chain will show up. You may wish to setup your own custom post process chain, but for now, we're going to quickly adjust the default.
Open UTPostProcess_Console (double click it in content browser), select the AmbientOcclusionEffect and lower the number for the Occlusion Power. The other settings are useful as well, but this is the immediate "tone down that black stuff" answer.
Renderng a Huge Screenshot
Press Tab and enter the Console Command: tiledshot 4 (if you enter this command in the drop down ~ console, you may get black stripes across the image. So use Tab).
It might freeze up for a minute, but give it time as it's rendering a large image. This takes a high res screenshot in your UDKGame/ScreenShots folder. Probably 4096 wide. You would want to crop and scale this image down for a nice looking screenshot.
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