Tips on creating lighting

[aurreth]

I've downloaded a lot of light mods, trying to find something that acts like normal, real world lights, and inevitably I'm disappointed.  While I applaud all the efforts, I've noticed they usually suffer from a misunderstanding of how light works in the game.

In the real world light scatters.  A desk lamp can actually illuminate a room because the light from it bounces off the walls, ceiling, floor, whatever.  The light bounces around enough that even a small lamp can provide at least some ability to see the room.

Game lighting doesn't work this way (at least not in Bethesda games).  There are two types of light records (LGHT), spot and omni.  When modders create lights they tend to only use one or the other.  For example I just placed a ceiling light that should obviously provide illumination over at least 180 degrees... and it's a spot, with a 90 degree cone.  It looks horrible.

Here's the "tip" part:  you can use more than one LGHT in a light source.  When I made the ceiling light for my Starborn Furniture mod I included two LGHT objects in the light, one for the direction it is pointing (down) and a dimmer omni to simulate scatter.  The PKIN cell contains the physical object, the STAT, and the two LGHT records.  The result is a ceiling light that provides more illumination below it, while still providing some light in the area around it.  Much more realistic and useful.

So, if you are making a new light object, don't feel restricted to one LGHT.  Use multiple ones to achieve more realistic lighting effects.