Feature Request Add a "dark spotlight" or similar to make parts of a scene darker (subtractive light)

Consider the following shot - one character in the scene (the foreground one) is purposely darkened for cinematic effect. Using spotlights I know how to lighten things, but is there like an anti-light spotlight that can darken an object? It is for this sort of effect - making a character look dark and mysterious, or have them hide in a corner.



I was wondering about using a local volume like for fog, but I don't want to darken the air around the character - just the character. Here the character is separated from the other characters, so I could try putting objects just out of camera shot to cause shadows.

Is there a better approach? I like spotlights for example as they have angle and ranges, so you can control what is affected, but a volume (box, sphere, etc) is fine as well.

 

If you are using HDRP (I am assuming that you are given where you posted) you can use Light Layers for something like this.

 

Ah, thanks. I will check that out. My first quick test of just turning it on was weird (all the characters got darker instantly, but not their surroundings, even through they are all the in Default layer), so I must have some weird settings somewhere or need to increase some buffer sizes (its strange - the Scene window light is right, its the Game window that they are darker in - maybe a post processing effect I messed up somewhere - I did have light layers on once in the past not really understanding them, then went through and turned things off if I did not understand them).

 

I gave light layers a go, but it was not very convenient. What I really would like is all the existing lights (point, spot, etc) to have a "subtractive" mode. They absorb the light using all their standard capabilities. Or allow negative intensities instead of capping them with a minimum of zero.

For example, I had a character lurking in an alleyway. I wanted the alley *and* the character darkened (for cinematic effect). I also wanted to control different characters in different shots in different ways - I did not want a light layer per character!

Creating a dark transparent object in front of the alley is my best idea at the moment, but "negative lights" would give a lot more control more easily.