Flickering dynamic lights + PBR get cut off at a distance

[sylandro]

When using PBR materials and placing a flickering dynamic light with a large secondarySize, the edge of the emitted light gets cut off when looking at it at a distance.

Disabling shadowmaps solves the issue. This did not happen in version 3.5.1.

For reference, this is the light definition:

Code: Select all

lightsizefactor 1.75

flickerlight BIGFIRE
{
	color 1.0 0.9 0.0
	size 52
	secondarySize 58
	chance 0.5
	offset 0 32 0
	attenuate 1
}

Steps to reproduce:
- Load the wad and enter map01
- Walk a few steps back and look to the left, to the light that is being emitted from the fire.
- The flickering bug should be visible at the edge of the light.

[dpJudas]

This is a duplicate of the other PBR light range bug. I really should fix this soon, I guess.

[sylandro]

Is it really? This particular instance of the bug only started appearing in version 3.6, whereas the topic you mentioned was created in April.

[dpJudas]

It is, although it isn't so obvious to an outsider. The other bug happens because PBR surfaces are affected by lights far outside their radius.

The cutoff you see here is because the shadow maps may store depth values just outside the radius of a light if it doesn't hit anything in that direction. This won't be visible unless a light goes beyond its radius. Note that a a sad side-effect of fixing the original distance bug will be that you won't see PBR light reflections reach as far as they do on your original screenshot.