SSE A question about lighting a room...

[utf8x]

I'm quite new to Skyrim modding so please be gentle :laugh:

 

So my problem is, I've created a room, placed a floor and walls and then I've added some lights. They kinda work but there are these weird dark spots aligned with the individual floor and wall pieces... Those same dark spots are also visible in game.

 

 

Any idea how to fix this?

[maxarturo]

You have way too many lights !.

The game engine has limits in handling lights.

Non Shadow Lights

- You should never put more than 2 'Non Shadow Lights' illuminating the same mesh.

* By pressing "L" you can see the light radius / area of influence.

- There is a limit on how many lights you can place in one cell or in one 'Roombound'.

If you are at the limit of the light count and everything works fine, by placing one more above the limit will start causing "Flickering" on random meshes, even if none of the lights intercepts with each other or light the same objects.

* I have a cell like that, i'm exactly at the limit of placed lights and everything works fine, but if i place 1 more light miles away from any other light, "Random Flickering" occurs everywhere.

Shadow Lights

- No more than 3 can be used.

To be more specific no more than 3 can be Rendered at the same time, you can place as many as you want in one cell as long as they don't get Render simultaneously, this means that you need to use "Roombounds and Portals" so that each Roombound has in it the maximum of 3 Shadow lights.

But you need to place them and / or construct your cell and your "Roombounds and Portals" in such a way that you can not see more than 3 lights at the same time when looking through a "Portal".

* If done correctly you can add 'Shadow Lights' to each room - corridor in your cell with no problems.

Lights in Skyrim Engine works along side with "Lighting Templates" and "Imagespace" to balance the "Lighting Limit".

In your situation i wouldn't place more than 4 "Non Shadow Lights" (1 at each corner), and use "Lighting Templates" to fill in the rest of your lighting.

I hope this helps...

Edited March 16, 2020 by maxarturo

[utf8x]

Cheers, I'll try using less lights. I haven't had any issues with flickering though...

[maxarturo]

"I haven't had any issues with flickering though..."

The symptom shown in your picture is the symptom of 'Flickering' either if the mesh is turning on/off rapidly or from an angle or if it stays static.

Edited March 16, 2020 by maxarturo

[cumbrianlad]

Maxarturo's advice is sound, as ever, so follow it as far as not letting more than 2 lights hit one object goes. BTW Maxarturo, that bit about 3 Shadow lights being allowed in one Room Bound was news to me. good to know.

 

Practically, I'd just add a couple of things...

 

1. open up your 'Preferences' window in CK and tick the box "# number of lights" box. Now your cell will light up in green, blue, purple and red. Green and blue are no issue for the number of lights. purple is a bit risky but I've never seen issues in-game with my PC, red is dangerous. I don't know if this flag is dependent on the player's GPU or not. Ideally avoid red areas, though you may get away with them on your own PC. That's no guarrantee that other players will not have issues.

 

2. think about what you are trying to achieve with the screenshot... it's a very brightly lit room with 15 chandeliers. The player expects it to be brightly lit everywhere. They don't care how you achieve that effect in CK. Two lights that are relatively bright (Adjust the light's brightness by clicking on it and holding 'ctrl' + 'alt' + 's' and moving the mouse)., will achieve that effect while not stressing out the game engine.

 

3. If you can't get the affect you want with lights (though 9/10 you will) you can add a brighter lighting template to the room.* That will have the effect of 'filling in' the darker corners.

 

Finally, you may be able to see problems in CK without needing to add the shader. Sometimes, when you move around in the render window, some objects will go suddemly from very dark to bright. This is symptomatic of a lighting issue that will always show up in-game. Bear in mind that CK and the "# Number Of Lights" filter do not take account of if any of your lights are disabled. They treat all of them as active. This can be important if you have activators that turn some lights off and turn others on. To test in CK in these circumstances, show only the lights that are active at one time. Use the '1' key on all other lights to hide them.

 

* if you can use room bounds for a cell that has them enabled, you can select one room bound, hit the '-' key and apply a different lighting template to each room in the cell.

[maxarturo]

@ cumbrianlad.

To be more detailed.

No more than 3 'Shadow Lights' can be Render simultaneously, this means that you need to be very careful with how you arrange your portals + roombound + lights, so that they can only be render / light / affect / the objects inside the Roombound and the portal they are in.

Each roombound can have 3 shadow light as long as the player can't see another one from any portal in the player's FOV at any given time or angle, otherwise you will encounter problems with the most common being the noticeable massive FPS drop even with a strong pc, and there are some visual bugs that comes along with this.

You can even encounter CTDS.

Also very important is that all 'Shadow Lights' used must have ticked the "PORTAL DISTRICT" option in their properties.

[cumbrianlad]

Cheers for that clarification, Maxarturo. I may make use of this information in my current mod. Thanks.