area lights shadow banding

[Jim M]

Hi Guys,

I keep coming accross this issue with area lights shadow banding.

Any ideas of the cause and how to fix?

Cheers,
J

[jure]

Did you try increasing Area lights min/max recursions?

[Jim M]

Hi Jure,

Thanks for the reply. When I set the preset to low, it looks fine. When I set it to bespoke preset it seems to band.
Nothing special going on with the lights. I will investigate with a basic scene.

I have noticed on a couple of occasions the area lights have rendered like spherical lights. Some kind of bug I think. Deleting the light and replacing with an area light fixes that issue. Maybe it came from cloning the lights rather than creating them.. hmmm

[Jim M]

After some investigation it seems the issue is more pronounced with higher quality settings.
This is worrying, as I cant work out what is happening, and I dont really want to have to fix in post.

Thanks for any input.
J

[jure]

Please try turning to "Custom" preset on Quality tab and then modify by hand area lights quality setting to min rec. 3, max rec. 4.

[jtrower]

That does help. Though still not perfect..
Will investigate further.

[jtrower]

So the banding at the top is still present though greatly reduced.
I can only assume the effect is coming from a long thin area light in the skylight.
Thanks for the input.
Jim