I had some lights , a few spot lights and a dominant directional, as well as a few meshes that had emmisive enabled. I was getting some issues so I decided to delete all my lights and turn of the emmisive meshes and start over. When Irebuild my scene with no lights in it, its all dark or almost black when in lit mode. If I am not mistaken with no lights in your scene lit mode is supposed to look like unlit mode right? It's important because I cannot see anything in texel density mode either and I want to change some of my light map sizes to mach surrounding geo but cant see anything.

It's been a little while since I last used UDK but from what I remember lit mode without any lights in the scene should be black.

If you're planning on having a directional light, why not just put one in?

It'll probably be the most important light in the scene anyway so you might as well start with it.

Yeah I guess thats a good point. Another question for you guys, does it matter if two spotlights overlap a bit. I have some lamps hanging from the ceiling and they are spaced so that the outer cone angle slightly overlaps the next. Will this cause issues? Oh and Should every light cast a shadow as natural lights would? Sorry I'm really new to lighting.

Lighting is probably the most underestimated tasks of game art while being one of the hardest to master.

If you're starting out don't worry about mistakes or "doing it right". Experiment and have fun at worst you'll learn a lot in the process.

As far as overlaps, I don't think it matters only that you might end up with some lit areas getting "blown out" (too bright). In which case can adjust your light settings.

The only technical advice I'd offer is to make sure to use a lightmass importance volume in order to keep your "build lighting" times to a minimum so you can go through more iterations in less time.

Oh one other thing, be sure to make proper lightmap UV unwraps for your static meshes. It will make a big difference in the quality of your baked lighting.