Normals are accentuated on surface that is only lit by surface lightmap.

[flappybird]

Beginner question, please bear with me.

The docs say surface lightmaps are not directional. Also, I expected voxel light probe to be.

To check that I made a scene with a wall lit by only indirect lighting. I cloned the setup once; one wall is lit by voxel probes, one is lit by lightmaps. As per expectation, the wall lit by probes has normals accentuated better, but the wall with lightmap has normals accentuated as well. I realized part of this is because of SSAO and turned it off but some accentuation is still there in the lightmapped wall. THere are no environment probes and the 'sun' node is deleted. How to explain that? Thanks.

Edited June 12, 2022 by flappybird

[silent]

flappybird

Lightmaps non-directional, but Voxel Probes are in fact directional. The difference on your screenshot is mostly caused by specular reflection difference.

Thanks!

[flappybird]

Specular from what in the first image? There are no environment probes. The spot light is facing away. Thanks.

Edited June 15, 2022 by flappybird

[silent]

Maybe it's just a global environment. Try to adjust settings in Windows -> Settings -> Environment -> Intensity.

[flappybird]

I turned off Environment and all GI effects. The highlights are still there. The lightmap texel density is not high enough for the hightlights. The highlights show up in the indirect lighting and diffuse debug views only. Thanks.

[silent]

As far as I know you can increase lightmaps resolution so it would be more detailed (Lightmap Target Resolution option on import). Will this help?

[flappybird]

I was wondering about the normals accentuation. I figured that must be because of non-lambertian diffuse that will make the surface brighter at oblique angles even when there is no directionality in the lightmap.