hi everyone, I'm back with another n00b question and once again I'll be really grateful to anyone who can help me with this. I have one block on my map that appears darker when I turn the light bake on. I seem to remember hearing that's to do with the lightmap, but is the only solution to bring the lightmap % down?
is your lightmap % really high? If you move that block to a place where other blocks are well lit, does it also look the same? Even if lightmap is low %, you can get some pieces that, due to the position of the block relative to the angle of the light, can not light the same as a piece next to it (same piece even). I suspect it has something to do with how big the piece is, and how far from its edge the origin of the piece is. So, a large block has an origin for its coordinates that is significantly far from its edge. Light cast onto it has a thougher time deciding how shaded the piece should be. The piece next to it simply has a different position, so it isn't affected in the same way. What I did to fix this on CWRF is to actually make the affected piece a different color to compensate. You can also try unbaking light on that piece to see which one is best. So if, in the shadows, your piece seems a little too dark compared to others next to it, use a shade lighter (or 2) for that piece.
if confused about what he means. use an invisible light in that area to address the issue. Another way to address it is turning light bake off on everything and use artificial lighting for your map. You can use spot lights to create sun rays if you want as well. If a typical white light makes it look funky you can use a darker color, typically grey to compensate.
I've found the best thing to do is turn light bake off for everything aside from what you want the global light to use an object to cast a shadow. If an object has a funny color swap the light bake and if need be, add a lighting source nearby.
Hi mate, thanks for your advice again! Yep my map isn't in an ideal region, somewhere between 110-120%. Yep the object looks normal in regular light, but it's only a small block so I'm confused. It's basically a part of a fairly intricate platform so it's kind of cimpromising the aesthetics, ya see. Hmmm I'll try the shades lighter and see if that helps! I did try that but maybe I could just keep going lighter and see if it solves it. Thanks again man. I think the best thing for me to try out of your suggestions if the colour change doesn't work is probably an invisible light. My map is quite detailed and I've maxed out the piece count, plus the natural lighting is quite good, so I can't really make large changes to the lighting. Plus I'm not that confident in my lighting skills so I'd like to keep the natural lighting which is decent atm. I think an invisible light could be the answer though! So thanks for that. I have tried switching light bake off on some of the blocks I've used for my walls but it made the texture look different and I wasn't too happy with that, but maybe I can selectively switch things off based on how they look after light bake and see if that helps! Thanks a lot for your advice everyone. It's only a small issue but I'd really like to get everything as close to perfect as I can. Really appreciate the help