User Manual: Lighting Behavior

This page describes what lighting usually looks like on splats and which controls give the safest, fastest results.

Lighting work should move from direct light to indirect fill to shadow strength; if those three do not stabilize the scene, use the troubleshooting and reference pages next.

What You Should Expect Visually

• Splats react to direct lights, but shading is not identical to mesh materials.
• Shadowed areas should read clearly, with strength controlled by project lighting settings.
• Scene readability depends on both direct lighting and indirect/environment contribution.
• Lighting changes should be visible after adjusting light intensity, direction, or shadow strength.

Common Confusion Points

• "Everything looks flat": usually too little direct light or no meaningful light direction.
• "Shadows are too harsh": shadow strength is likely too high for the scene style.
• "Shadows seem missing": the light may not cast shadows, or receiver settings are too weak.
• "One level looks correct, another does not": each scene can have different environment and post-processing setup.

Which Setting Knobs Are Safe to Tweak First

1. direct_light_scale (first control for stronger/weaker light response)
2. indirect_sh_scale (ambient fill amount)
3. shadow_strength (how heavy shadows read)
4. Keep bias controls for later fine-tuning

Reference: - Project settings reference

When to Use Troubleshooting Docs

Use troubleshooting docs when lighting remains broken after initial adjustments:

• persistent incorrect shadow behavior
• severe flicker or unstable lighting from frame to frame
• startup/runtime shader errors affecting light or shadow output

Start here: - Recurring issues

Deeper Architecture (Engineers)

For shader/path internals and constraints: - Lighting system architecture - Render pipeline architecture