Question Difference in Light Types

[Phawniks]

I can't find a post explaining the diffence between Point, Spot, Directional, Area. I know that they sound self explanatory (and I thank the developers for that consideration) but they act strangley sometimes in scenes like spot lights flickering on and off depending on where I am and point lights having a similar quirk with shadows rendering. I would like to know more about how they work specifically.

 

[Matt_]

The flickering is most likely due to the limit of 6 lights if you only have on light does it still flicker

 

[Phawniks]

It's hard to reproduce but I'll be sure to remember that next time it happens. Thanks guy.

 

[Matt_]

Unity - Manual: Types of light

docs.unity3d.com

 

[HolySchmidt]

I can't find a post explaining the diffence between Point, Spot, Directional, Area.

Point is like the standard light: it expands from the point where its at in every direction like a lightbulb, you can adjust the intensity and the range for example.
Spot is like a spotlight: you can lighten up one spot, the direction and position of the light are the most important factors here. Also adjustable of course, like in size of the spot. Expands from the point where its at.
Directional is like a global light, like the sun. You can adjust the direction and you will have the same light everywhere in your scene. Position is not of interest if I'm right, you can put it everywhere, you will always have the same global light. Direction matters.
Area: I still dont know about that. Makes no light for me. But I dont need it anyway cause all the other lights deliver what is needed in every case I would say.

 

[MacGruber]

spot lights flickering on and off depending on where I am

Sounds like your pixel light count is too low in user preferences. If your scene has more lights than you allow there, it will try to pick the most important ones (based on distance from camera and probably strenght) and disable the others.

Wiki Article - 01. Performance Tab

User Preferences / Performance Tab “Quick Quality Settings” are presets you can use to quickly boost your FPS or improve the visual quality of the VaM experience. There are a variety of choices from “Ultra Low” to “Max” quality. When you change any of the settings away from the presets it is...

hub.virtamate.com

 

[SlimerJSpud]

I've noticed that in some scenes, as you adjust one light's intensity up and down, the point where it dominates the lighting or not, is rather abrupt. Perhaps this is the source of the observed flickering. If a character is moving back and forth, the render engine might be getting confused about which one is dominant.

 

[DJ]

I've noticed that in some scenes, as you adjust one light's intensity up and down, the point where it dominates the lighting or not, is rather abrupt. Perhaps this is the source of the observed flickering. If a character is moving back and forth, the render engine might be getting confused about which one is dominant.

I suspect this is also due to exceeding the maximum number of pixel lights in the scene. When that happens, Vam will constantly try to determine the most important lights in the scene and make them the pixel lights. By increasing the intensity of one light, that calculation changes and Vam may set it to pixel anda less significant light to vertex. light

 

[Phawniks]

Thanks everyone for replying. The performance setting that was the culprit.

Thank you for the explanations Schmidt and DJ.