UDK viewport textures at LOW res. Why?

[Drimakus]

I have some serious thing going on with my UDK. Wherever I'm browsing through Asset Browser or Levels, the level of texture detail showing up like its at lowest resolution making it really hard to tweak and debug materials and other things. I looked upon every single menu and button, everything is set to HIGHEST. I suspect that may be some values hidden in the depths of configuration files?

 

http://dl3.joxi.net/drive/0001/0390/65926/160320/9be5d11344.jpg

 

http://dl3.joxi.net/drive/0001/0390/65926/160320/a8360c9e77.jpg

 

Seems like it shows sized down textures in the Engine:

http://dl3.joxi.net/drive/0001/0390/65926/160320/a260dde0cc.jpg

 

My custom imported tex's also show up that way..

 

How to change that "displayed" parameter to maximum?

[Amineri]

As described at the end of this page : https://udn.epicgames.com/Three/TextureSupportAndSettings.html

 

You can adjust the LODBias of each imported textures. I found that if you change LODBias from the default of 0 to -3, then the in-UDK max resolution changes from 256 up 3 MIP levels to 2048. Basically it seems that UnrealEd is defaulting to the minimum texture size in the LOD group settings in Engine.ini:

TEXTUREGROUP_Weapon=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)

In the game the maximum texture size is controlled via the options menu / texture quality setting, but there's no such controls in UnrealEditor that I can find. Instead, the easiest alternative I've found is to edit the DefaultEngine.ini file in : \Steam\SteamApps\common\XCOM 2 SDK\XComGame\Config\DefaultEngine.ini

 

You'll want to change only the section SystemsSettingsEditor, not SystemSettings:

[SystemSettingsEditor]
ResX=1280
ResY=720
Trilinear=True
TEXTUREGROUP_Character=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=-4,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_CharacterNormalMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=-4,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_CharacterSpecular=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=-4,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_Cinematic=(MinLODSize=4096,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=-4,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_Effects=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_EffectsNotFiltered=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_LightAndShadowMap=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_RenderTarget=(MinLODSize=1,MaxLODSize=4096,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_Skybox=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_UI=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_UI3D=(MinLODSize=128,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_Vehicle=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-2,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleNormalMap=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-2,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleSpecular=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-2,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
;TEXTUREGROUP_Vehicle=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
;TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleNormalMap=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
;TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleSpecular=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
;TEXTUREGROUP_Vehicle=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
;TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleNormalMap=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
;TEXTUREGROUP_VehicleSpecular=(MinLODSize=512,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=0,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_Weapon=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_WeaponNormalMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_WeaponSpecular=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_World=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=-2,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_World1x2=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_World1x4=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=2048,LODBias=-3,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_WORLDHIGH=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=8192,LODBias=-4,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_WorldNormalMap=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=-2,MinMagFilter=aniso,MipFilter=point)
TEXTUREGROUP_WorldSpecular=(MinLODSize=256,MaxLODSize=1024,LODBias=-2,MinMagFilter=linear,MipFilter=point)

In the above I've set the LODBias for each texture to use the MaxLODSize instead of the minimum (in the editor), which is similar to setting Textures : Max in the game Graphics Settings.

[Drimakus]

Thank you sir! This is just invaluable! :woot:

[davidlallen]

(that should be "thank you ma'am")

[Synthorange]

Great stuff. Is there anything that can be done about my other major visual gripe: The lighting is terrible and doesnt look anywhere near as good as in-game, is there any way to get in-game lighting conditions? Even opening up an existing map and dropping the asset in-scene to examine looks pretty poor.

[Amineri]

Great stuff. Is there anything that can be done about my other major visual gripe: The lighting is terrible and doesnt look anywhere near as good as in-game, is there any way to get in-game lighting conditions? Even opening up an existing map and dropping the asset in-scene to examine looks pretty poor.

 

The lighting in the ContentBrowser preview browsers is pretty terrible.

 

As for maps, sometimes they open up in "Unlit" view mode instead of "Lit". "Lit" looks much better when there's actual lighting (like on parcels), but when there's not any lighting (like in Cinematic maps), you have to use "Unlit" to see anything.

[FxsRMcFall]

One other thing: to get the most correct image of what the scene would look like in-game you will want to use game view (https://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ViewportToolbar.html#Game View). This will use the post process sequence the game uses, which contributes a lot towards the final look.