Detailed information about what the various lighting settings do on a light source object. The basic light settings including brightness and color are combined into a single article, while the other options have their own article as each setting is unique in their own way.

Learn more about

Basic Light Settings

Minimal Roughness

Near/Far Begin

First Person Contact Shadows

Cone

Animation

Oriented Bounding Box (OBB)

Area Light

Light Group

Contributors

Okom

The Minimal Roughness tool is a valuable feature used to enhance lighting effects, particularly for fill lighting, adjusting specular highlights, and quickly diffusing materials within a specific area.

Usage Guidelines:

• Keep the intensity low and adjust the Min Rough Value for optimal results, especially with point and spot lights.

• Useful when micro lighting adjustments are unnecessary or when specular highlights are too bright on objects.

• Adjusting minimal roughness can create a diffused look for distant lighting, enhancing vistas.

• Ideal for materials with dark albedo (Color), adding vibrancy without altering the material properties significantly.

Caution: While the Minimal Roughness tool is powerful, it can impact materials significantly. Exercise caution when using higher values, especially on metallic materials, as it can flatten the texture, resulting in the loss of micro details.

Examples:

Observations:

Higher values of minimal roughness (approaching 1) can result in a flat appearance in materials, especially noticeable on metallic surfaces. To preserve material details, it is advisable to use low values or none at all.

Characters, particularly those with metallic armors, are affected by minimal roughness adjustments. The tool can significantly alter their appearance, as showcased in the images. Bright key lights exacerbate these effects, but reducing the values mitigates the extreme changes.

Contributors Tyler | Lighting Artist Captain Punch

Near/Far Begin is a versatile optimization tool used in lighting to enhance visual quality and improve performance, especially in scenarios involving unmotivated lights or complex environments.

Functionality:

• Near Begin: This parameter determines where the light rendering begins, originating from the Light object. It serves a crucial role in optimization by stopping the rendering of pixels, effectively minimizing computational load. Near Begin acts as a boundary for rendering, preventing unnecessary pixel calculations.

• Far Begin: Also starting from the light source, Far Begin softens the edge created by Near Begin. By defining the boundary between illuminated and non-illuminated areas, Far Begin ensures a smooth transition. Without this parameter, a harsh seam akin to an Oriented Bounding Box (OBB) would be visible.

Usage Scenarios:

1. Faking Light: Near/Far Begin can be used to simulate natural light sources, such as sunlight or smaller fixtures, by spreading light effectively. By adjusting Near and Far Begin values, one can conceal artificial lighting, avoiding noticeable specular highlights.

2. Large Forerunner Rooms: In expansive environments, especially Forerunner-style rooms, point lights with tweaked Near and Far Begin values create hollow centers while generating lights at the outer bounds. This technique enables the creation of rim lights and specular hits without cluttering the space with additional light sources.

3. Optimizations: Applying Near/Far Begin settings to all lights can significantly optimize rendering. By excluding the top portions of spotlights from calculations, fewer pixels are processed, enhancing overall performance. Utilizing this optimization across all lights collectively improves performance, contributing to a more efficient rendering pipeline.

4. Organic Maps: In organic environments like caves, where curved surfaces complicate the use of Oriented Bounding Boxes (OBBs), Near/Far Begin settings prove invaluable. These parameters minimize overlap and optimize lighting calculations in intricate, curved spaces, ensuring a visually appealing result without sacrificing performance.

Here is an example of default lights and their heatmaps. Notice how the more pixels are being affected near the source of the lights.

And lastly here is an example of Far begin, Where is softens the edges but it doesn't contribute to cutting off Pixels. Only Near begin does that.

Contributors Tyler | Lighting Artist Captain Punch

First Person Contact Shadows is a screen space effect designed to enhance smaller shadow details that might be missed under low-resolution shadowed lighting conditions. This effect specifically targets the first person model of the player within the illuminated area, providing a more detailed and realistic shadow appearance.

Shadow Light Resolution Settings

In the Forge engine, all shadow lights render at a default resolution of 512 for Ultra, High, and Medium settings when activated and the player is in close proximity to the light source. For Low settings, the resolution is reduced to 256. However, low-resolution shadows and wide outer angle cones used in spotlights can result in light leakage and gaps, diminishing the visual quality. First Person Contact Shadows are employed to address these issues by filling in the gaps, creating the illusion of higher resolution shadows for the lights.

Usage and Limitations

It's crucial to note that only up to four instances of First Person Contact Shadows can render simultaneously. If this limit is exceeded, the effect will not function as intended. Fortunately, this limitation is not a significant concern because the effect is limited to the first person model and ceases to render once the player exits the illuminated area.

However, it's advisable to use discretion when enabling this feature. Applying First Person Contact Shadows to lights positioned very close to the player's weapon or key lights can significantly improve shadowing effects. Additionally, it's important to be aware that these shadows do not automatically render on Low spec settings.

Performance Considerations

While First Person Contact Shadows primarily contribute to visual fidelity, they can impact performance in resource-intensive scenarios. If players encounter performance issues in specific areas, disabling this feature could provide a performance boost.

Customization and Integration

One of the notable advantages of First Person Contact Shadows is their independent applicability. They can be added separately from other shadows, offering a flexible approach to detailing. This flexibility proves useful in situations where allocating resources for a full shadow might be impractical or when designers aim to enhance specific details without compromising overall performance.

Contributors Tyler | Lighting Artist Captain Punch

Oriented Bounding Box, commonly referred to as OBB, is a crucial feature in lighting that allows precise adjustment of the area affected by light pixels. This tool is invaluable for resolving issues related to shadow overlaps and light bleeding, enhancing both visual quality and performance optimization.

Key Features:

• Enable OBB: This option toggles the OBB feature on or off.

• Scale with Light Range: Automatically adjusts the bounding box as the light range changes, ensuring it stays within defined bounds.

• Bounding Box Faces (Lower X, Y, Upper XY, Top, Bottom): These parameters enable adjustment of the faces of the OBB, determining the exact boundaries of the affected area.

• Orientation (Yaw, Pitch, Roll): Allows rotation of the OBB, providing flexibility in aligning the bounding box with the scene's geometry.

• Show: Activates a visual representation of the OBB, aiding in visualization without selecting or highlighting objects.

Usage Guidelines:

• When rotating the OBB, utilize the Yaw, Pitch, Roll options. Note that the rotation occurs independently from the light source, requiring careful consideration during adjustments. It's advisable to finalize lighting placement before fine-tuning the OBB to avoid unnecessary rework.

Practical Applications:

1. Optimizations: OBB plays a pivotal role in optimizing the lighting pass. By precisely defining the affected area, unnecessary computations are minimized, leading to substantial performance improvements while preserving the desired visual outcome.

2. Fog-Only Lights: For scenarios requiring fog-only illumination (with volumetric fog enabled), configuring the light's OBB with minimal parameters (e.g., -.1 and .1) restricts the light emission to a confined area, generating fog without casting extensive illumination. This method optimizes volumetric fog usage efficiently.

Issues:

This does create a harsh seam where you clamp the OBB. This can be seen in the environment and characters.Try to avoid this as best as possible and put the seam on edges or seams to be less noticeable.

Contributors Tyler | Lighting Artist Captain Punch

Light Properties

Animation

Cone

Gobo

OBB

Contributors

Nitro Tyler | Lighting Artist Captain Punch