I’ve begun to find it very frustrating when trying to make quality lighting in experiences, especially when trying to use Lights, particularly Surface and Spot Lights, in close range to create specific, focused lighting on a particular object or scene. I’ve noticed that below a certain threshold of Range and Angle, and even Brightness, that the light just simply doesn’t work.
Specifically, once you begin going below ~70 degrees and/or a Range of 9, no light is produced no matter how Bright you make it. The Angle is especially important, as in my case where I am trying to have a display case against a wall with a small, focused surface or spot light, and I do not want light going far beyond the object it is directed at, nor to seep through the wall (which is an exterior wall), as that would break the environmental immersion to see random bands of light occurring on the flip side of a wall. As I stated, below a certain Brightness the light effect also appears to break/disappear, which is around 2.
Ever since Lights were introduced this has been a bit of an issue, but there are other things to consider:
What Lighting Technology are you using? Future is the highest setting and should give the best results.
What are your Studio and Game Graphics settings at? Lower settings less than 21 or 10 may cause lights to display differently.
How thick is your exterior wall? Lights can seep through thin Parts.
With a SurfaceLight you could make it wider and angle it away from the flat surface of the wall 1/2 of the light Angle so it doesn’t reach out past the wall. If there are no other objects close to the ‘spotlight’ created then it shouldn’t be an issue.
My studio graphics are at the maximum and the exterior wall is 1 stud thick. I wouldn’t want to necessarily make it any thicker due to windows. I am ashamed to admit I didn’t realize I was on ShadowMap and not Future. I was wondering why some of my Materials and Shaders and Reflections weren’t functioning as I recalled. I will try making the workaround you mentioned, so thank you.
But I still feel it is pertinent to fix this. Switching to Future did make the Spot Light and Point Light in my attached screenshot light up, but to no avail, my surface light did not. Frustrating.
