Static lights casting incorrect shadows

I really think its just a problem with the receiving wall mesh not having good lightmap UVs.

Last thing you can try is to go to your mesh and then under the LODO tab there is another tab that says build settings. It might be scrolled up so double click on it to roll out all of it’s functionalities. There is a tab near the bottom labeled Min Lightmap Resolution. Bump that up to about 1024. See if that does it. If not you may have to play with your light settings, intensity, shadow quality, etc.

With my limited knowledge I would be inclined to agree. When I use the plane Ryan had me put down it does work. I just want the light to be much more intense - I’m sure I can play with settings to get that right.

The problem I’m having now and the question I have is - should I be generating specific meshes for each one of my shapes? I thought I could use the cube and apply the material to whatever I needed, but it seems like lightmap UVs are done on a mesh-by-mesh basis and that may be the problem I’m having (using default game engine cube)

The cube is fine but bear in mind you will be wasting lightmap resolution for the sides you aren’t seeing if the other faces. If your level is small its not a big deal but it will eat into your rebuild times if you are turning up high resolution lightmaps for everything.

Which cube mesh are you using? All the ones in engine should have lightmap UVs already.

Would it be better to use plane’s? I agree it seems like a waste, I was actually hoping to find a better solution.

Okay so - I still have some issues. If I use the plane you had me put down and set the lightmap resolution to 1024 it works! I can even put my material on it, and it works perfectly! But the second I use a cube mesh, I get problems. It does shines through the grate as if it wasn’t there at all.

Hopefully the answer to my former question will be the solution.

Thank you so much for your time!

It may just bee that you are attempting to shine through two pieces of transparent meshes. Therefore the light is either not bright enough or not at an angle to project through both of them. With a plane it’s computing one map and therefore works much more efficiently as Ryan pointed out by not computing the sides you will never see, as well as not having to bump the intensity of the light in order to see anything.

Planes would have ideal lightmap resolution but they introduce issues with light leaking. Basically what you want is a plane that has been extruded slightly that has hand made lightmapUVs that give all the lighitmap resolution to the “visible” face. You should purposefully make the “back side” of such a mesh have tiny-tiny UVs in the 1st channel so that you don’t accidentally use that side and get no lightmap res.

I switched over to planes and things seem to be working, plus my render times are much faster. The static lights aren’t 100% what I was hoping for in terms of quality, but it seems like it’s going to be the best I can get with baked lighting. The stationary spot lights however, seem to be giving superb quality and a very low FPS drop, so I think that’s what I’m going to stick with! Thank you for all the help.