[LE] Help | Strange lighting (or lackthereof) bug visible in CK and in-game

[Skircrow]

As the title suggests, while creating a player house/castle mod I've encountered a strange lighting bug. (This is my first ever mod, but I've watched the relevant tutorials and 'googled' the problem to the ends of the earth to no avail.) It would seem that the certain interior object (in this particular case an instance of 'DIntTowerBase02' from the Dawnguard DLC), or at least some of its faces, are failing to catch light. This only seems to be most prominent when looking directly at the object without being within its boundaries - standing within it or looking off to the side eliminates or reduces the severity of the problem. Moving light sources doesn't seem to affect it in the slightest, of course, barring removing the light sources completely where the problem becomes indistinguishable. I have tried moving the entire contents of the cell with no results, indicating the problem seems to be reliant on the objects around it. Moving the object itself CAN fix the problem, but of course it is my intention for it to stay exactly where it is.

Does anyone have ANY idea what could be causing this? The glitch is present both in the CK render window AND in-game and seems to work the same way in both. Just for reference, I have nothing but Skyrim, its Update, and the three DLCs loaded (and, of course, my mod). Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Here are some images for reference:

http://i.imgur.com/9zaj8ht.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/WcTaFFQ.jpg

 

http://i.imgur.com/934mArk.jpghttp://i.imgur.com/4p0NZEQ.jpg

 

 

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/K8yDI5s.jpg

 

Edited June 23, 2017 by Xilnath

[Urtho]

Probably the shadowcaster limit - meshes and cells have a limit (4) of how many lights that cast shadows will actually work at one time. This limit is a hard-coded engine limitation that has never been changed or "fixed" to my knowledge. There are techniques some mods have used to get around this issue that Thallassa goes into a bit in her thoughts about lighting mods but the limit is what is and has to be understood and worked around as needed when you're making your mod.

[Skircrow]

Probably the shadowcaster limit - meshes and cells have a limit (4) of how many lights that cast shadows will actually work at one time. This limit is a hard-coded engine limitation that has never been changed or "fixed" to my knowledge. There are techniques some mods have used to get around this issue that Thallassa goes into a bit in her thoughts about lighting mods but the limit is what is and has to be understood and worked around as needed when you're making your mod.

 

Thanks for the reply!

 

I was aware of this limit, (though I was not aware of what would actually occur should I ignore it) but I only have 3 lights that cast shadows in the entire cell. Just in case I'm misunderstanding some terminology here, I'll try and fix it under this assumption. Will update afterward ~

 

[solved]

 

Edit: It would appear you are correct. This problem seems to have occurred after I added some lights to a basement below and nearby the object. Will see if can't I keep the lights from reaching the problem object. Thanks for the tip! Been baffled for hours now.

Edited June 23, 2017 by Xilnath

[Urtho]

Good to hear it's solved for you. Yeah you have to be careful with lighting, it's my experience that the light marker radius shown in the CK is not always a hard limit, sometimes you'll get light extending beyond what you'd expect or get bleed through for some meshes on different levels in a cell beyond what you'd think there should be.