Long Shadows?

I am trying to make a realistic Flashlight and I got some of way. I currently got a Point Light with an IES Texture. It looks decent enough but I need Flashlight to be more realistic.

If you take a scene like this:

http://puu.sh/7JvPw.jpg

You will see that shadows don’t continue onto wall as they would in reality. Or even see shape of chair on wall which would make sense using a flashlight. This is a horror game so it’s very important that flashlight makes long shadows and such.

How would I do this?

My Blueprint looks like this:

http://puu.sh/7Jw44.jpg

Hey Vipar,

You might want to consider using a Spot Light instead of a Point Light. There’s a good tutorial available here: https://www…com/watch?v=lPuBZYPEr4k

controls might be different than what you’re doing now, but basics should be same.

Hope that helps!

If you shine a light directly at something you aren’t going to see a shadow as light is coming from your perception.
In order for you to get that long shadow on wall you will have to lower light to knee height or keep it where it is and perceive it from a different location to see results.
I can assure you way light is acting is ‘realistic’ in regard you are referring to.

I couldn’t make spot light work as I wanted to. You can’t apply IES Textures to Spotlights unless that changed from beta. Otherwise I would have used a spotlight.

Ah, perspective. Well if that’s true then I guess there is no problem.

I have looked and you can apply IES textures to spotlights now.

Okay, I had another look. You can’t honestly tell me that this is how shadows are supposed to work. You can even see how light casts a shadow on chair itself, despite nothing actually blocks light that would create shadow (Up to right on chair):

http://puu.sh/7Q0KO.jpg

I’ve made following picture to illustrate my point:

http://puu.sh/7Q1fP.png

But shadow doesn’t even extent to wall behind it. It stays locally around chair.

Right. I forgot Eject button even existed… ._.

http://puu.sh/7Q255.jpg

It really looks weird though, when you don’t check it out this way. I don’t know why that is. When I see it, my mind keeps telling me that shadow doesn’t extend at all.

I have tried this and in real world I can clearly tell that shadow is extending itself to wall behind. For some reason, this effect completely escapes me in game :confused:
My only guess would be lack of depth.

cone of light is still too narrow when it hits chair, you can see it at bottom left corner of chair as well. I see no problem there.

Get your phone, turn on auto flash and put screen up to your eye, take a picture. You will notice no shadows, then put it out to side and do same thing, you will see all shadows.
I don’t see an issue with picture you have posted.

Light from anything other than sun does not run in parallel rays, further away from cone you get less parallel rays are, you are not seeing a shadow in center of chair because light is hitting that directly.

Try this: replicate what you have done in that screenshot again, then while in ‘play’ mode, eject yourself (You can only do this in viewport play mode) and check out shadows being cast out of your direct perception.

Yeah, best way to wrap your head around this is to grab a flash light and lock yourself in a dark room with a chair. :slight_smile:

Maybe FOV is messing with your perception. Try higher values and see if it helps.