Need some help tweaking shadows of a dynamic light source.

Graylord · July 30, 2020, 9:35am

Hello! I am trying to implement a light source for my character (a lantern), but I am struggling to get it to look good both on the character and the surrounding environment.

I got it to light up everything decently well, but I am really struggling with getting good looking shadows.

I really like how it casts shadows on the environment, but it’s way too sharp and messy noise with the character moving all around it.

But I do want shadows, as otherwise it’s making the character glow from the inside, which looks odd.
It also seems to be only casting static shadows (I get a static shadow preview watermark), despite being movable?

ClockworkOcean · July 31, 2020, 8:21am

Well, obviously, sort out that static / dynamic thing there ( don’t know why you’re getting that ).

But, have you tried more than one light. You could have for the environment, and one to put a basic illumination on the character. In the game, it will look like one lamp, but it’s implemented with two ( or more ) lights.

It’s a bit hard to be more specific without knowing your setup.

Graylord · July 31, 2020, 8:55pm

Currently I’m just in the prototyping phase and have attached a point light to my character’s hip in it’s blueprint, and tweaked the lighting accordingly.
It’s set as movable, but is for some reason casting static shadows. If I disable static shadows, it casts no shadows at all. I cannot figure out why the one in the BP is treated differently than the ones in the world.
Edit: Turns out I had to set the lights as movable in “child” properties as well.

Two light sources might work, one that lights up the character and one that lights up the world. So I guess I’d have to have a light for channel 2 and a light for channel 3, and have *all *world object get affected by the one I want to affect the world, and have the character only affect by 1 and the opposite channel? Or is there a simpler way to do this where I don’t have to manage every single object’s light channels? Something that would make me able to make the lights only affect the parent and other way around? Or is it possible to set all object to have say light channel 1 and 2 automatically, so that I only have to set light channel 1 and 3 on the character.

ClockworkOcean · August 1, 2020, 10:25am

Graylord:

Currently I’m just in the prototyping phase and have attached a point light to my character’s hip in it’s blueprint, and tweaked the lighting accordingly.
It’s set as movable, but is for some reason casting static shadows. If I disable static shadows, it casts no shadows at all. I cannot figure out why the one in the BP is treated differently than the ones in the world.
Edit: Turns out I had to set the lights as movable in “child” properties as well.

Two light sources might work, one that lights up the character and one that lights up the world. So I guess I’d have to have a light for channel 2 and a light for channel 3, and have *all *world object get affected by the one I want to affect the world, and have the character only affect by 1 and the opposite channel? Or is there a simpler way to do this where I don’t have to manage every single object’s light channels? Something that would make me able to make the lights only affect the parent and other way around? Or is it possible to set all object to have say light channel 1 and 2 automatically, so that I only have to set light channel 1 and 3 on the character.

I don’t think you need to use channels.

You can just have a rect light facing outwards, and a small point light illuminating the character.

They don’t need to be children, just components in the BP.