Static Lighting - Specularity + Stationary Lighting

GhosTDoG

Hi,

1) Are there any workarounds/ hacks regarding the loss of specularity with baked static lights?

2) I'm also looking for some advice for stationary lighting:

- Handling of the channel (max 4) restrictions of stationary lighting in general.

- General Setup -> which lights should be static, and which should be stationary?

Key Lights like directional and skylight = stationary; fill and rim lights = static etc.?

 

Thx

Obscura

Fill lights, definitely static because you don't even want specular from those most of the time. Rim lights in cinematics, movable, and everything else stationary if possible. I know its not always doable though. Indoors you usually don't need neither directional or skylight so you get 2 channels back there.  Also. You know that you can have as many stationary lights in the level as you want, but one can intersect with 3 other. So if you adjust the radiuses in a way that only 4 will intersect , you can have all stationary lights even in a lamp heavy scene.

GhosTDoG

@Obscura

Thx for the explanation... helps a lot.

leleuxart

Static lights will have specular in the form of a little orb at the light's position in Reflection Captures, but you can adjust the size or disable it completely through the light options. Otherwise it just comes down to whether or not the light needs direct specular. If you're trying to "shape" the environment, use static. If you're trying to get light interacting on moving objects, use stationary/movable. Movable is a good option for areas where a character might be running through, because you can cull them out based on distance without invalidating baked lighting like you would with a stationary light. 

And you can actually have as many overlapping stationary lights as you want/can afford. The 4 limit is if they're casting static shadows. Once the 5th one that intersects is placed, the smallest of the 5 lights will have static shadows disabled and it will only cast dynamic shadows at that point. There's no way around it other than using static shadows where necessary or tweaking falloff/radius.

Obscura

Brian - While that is true, the "specular" of the baked light can not be compared to the stationary or dynamic one. Its very dull, and looks way worse. If its only static lights, the result will look very flat.  I also don't get why this isn't clearly pointed out in the documentations. Only a few people really knows what is the visual difference between these.

leleuxart

While they might not be as accurate as direct specular, I personally haven't had any issues with them and all of my relights are lit entirely by static lights. If your reflection probes are accurately placed, and your emissives are bright enough relative to the light intensity/scene exposure, the reflection capture should be able to do a large amount of work. Plus, in reflection captures with static lights, you'll get the emissive source and the light orb, which may or may not be desirable but that's 2x the specular.

Obscura

I see what you mean by getting the light orb with static light. It just isn't always exactly where you would expect it to be in the reflections due to how the reflection captures are projected.