I have been meaning to ask this for a while.
I was wondering how torch light spread works underground. And why does holding 1 torch have the same light spread of 2 placed torches. It’s been kind of a problem for me because I have to place a substantial amount of torches to light up a small area where as holding 1 torch pretty much lights up everything.
I can’t speak authoritatively (because I’m not one of the devs), but it occurs to me that the purpose of a held torch is to help you navigate and not fall off of (or into) things. The illumination level of a held torch would naturally need to be higher.
I’m not in the game at the moment (obviously) but I’m of the opinion that the mounted torch isn’t identical to the held torch, so it may well be smaller and generate less light.
Ok, I understand what you are saying but from a logical perspective it’s technically the same torch. There is no difference between the torch in your hand and the one on the ground. So theoretically a placed torch would generate the same amount of lighting as when it was just in your hand.
Are you placing them on the ground, or on walls?
Well, I hate to be pedantic** but they look different to me. I think our hand-held torches are better somehow.
** Actually, I love to be pedantic. It’s #3 after Thai food and sleeping late on Saturday morning.
Personally i think all placed light blocks need a bit of tweaking. Lighting inside anywhere is kind of awful (too dark) if you let night happen and don’t change back to daytime. Maybe its just me though - I do horribly suck at lighting.
Do you have a GPU next to your graphic card? If yes, may be that Oor… B< (^^) uses the wrong one. My Laptop for example has an intel HD chipset and a Nvidia GPU. Normally games use the Nvidia one (which is right) but B< used the HD chip at first. After changing that (I had set all apps to use only the Nvidia and never the HD one), My game was faster (+10-20 frames) AND I had better lightning. Using the HD chip a torch was like a candle when placed in the dark. With the nvidia gpu it feels like 3 times brighter.
Just an idea 
Why on earth does the choice of GPU affect how bright everything is? Shouldn’t it just take more time to render everything?
nope, had that prob back the time, but It’s a while ag (was in the time or short after the dx11 beta)
Because a more advanced GPU can run code a less-advanced GPU can’t? There are different lighting models that can be employed, and as near as I can tell, not all the Intel HD cards run OpenCL or the equivalent. The logical choice in that case is to run CPU-based algorithms that are less computationally expensive, in order to maintain the desired frame rate.
But the logical choice would also be to make the lighting act the same way even if the work in background isn’t the same.
Also since the fps dropped the maintaining part didn’t really work^^
The torch assets are out of sync at the moment, and the particle effects are all placeholder (and weirdly scaled in some places). To answer your original question, currently it’s a case of balancing.
Making the held torch the same radius/luminance as placed was too short, and totally ineffective. Making the placed torch the same radius/luminance as held was too overkill, and overbloomed the environment. We decided in the end to have them be separate values, best for each situation.
