How Lights REALLY work?

kaosmos

Hi guys,
I´m trying to understand why what I see in the viewport when I´m puting lights is so different to the final result. In the image below you can see both. I created the spot on the table but after building lights the circle around is gone. And I would like to keep it. I need to create contrast between light but all the  shadows look too soft in the final render. The indirect lightning intensitive for all the lights is at 1. So the bounces are not the problem I guess. I´m using static lights only. 
I hope you can help me with this. Thanks.

Daedalus51

I honestly dont really see the problem Your bake looks exactly like I expect it to look. In your unbaked preview, it looks like that because there is no bounce light, so everything is rather black/grey-ish in the shadows. Once you bake, it fills that with bounce light colors.

If you really want to have it more black then you could reduce the indirect lighting intensity on those lights or just use movable ones that dont bake GI at all, but again....I think your baked result looks correct and actually a lot nicer than the other one^^

joshmtyler

Daedalus51 said:

...I think your baked result looks correct and actually a lot nicer than the other one^^

Totally agree with this. Actually, your whole point is true, but I agree the second looks a lot better, as it should. XD

radiancef0rge

If you want darker shadows, just make a few additional dynamic lights that don't contribute to GI.