Lighting our houses -- dealing with the frustration as best we can

FrancisCrawford

So far as I can tell, public spaces in the game have a lot more light inside than a house ever would. (The main floor of Sentinel Palace is an excellent example.) That said, what are the best choices for actually lighting our homes, other than putting our most attractive furnishings outdoors and looking at them in daylight? (Since my main house is Hunding's Palatial, that's actually a somewhat practical choice.)

In the real world, the light a single-light-source lamp gives off can be basically be characterized by:

• How strong the light is.
• What color the light is.
• At what angles the light shines out (vs the angles at which it is blocked by the solid part of the lamp).
• Whether the blocking part is mirrored and, if so, which way it points the light that hits it.

All else being equal, the amount of light shed at a point would be inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the light source. Light scattering -- e.g. off of white ceilings -- is also a significant contributor to overall light levels.

ESO lights don't work exactly the way real-world ones do, the most obvious example being ceiling lights that shine through to the floor above. Has anybody worked out how their physics does work?

Probably more important, has anybody figured out what the strongest lights available for housing are? My own thoughts -- all tentative -- start:

• The best I've noticed for lighting wall displays are the Nord Triple Torch (which is basically a small bonfire resting on the floor, and hence inconvenient in other ways) and the Wood Elf Censer (which hangs from the ceiling), both craftable items with fire-colored light.
• None of the white-light lanterns impresses me much. I briefly thought that the Thieves Guild reward Wedding Lantern was brighter than crafted ones, but now I'm less sure.
• Various crafted holders with multiple candles (Khajiit lantern that's shaped like a gravy boat, Redguard candelabra, etc.) do a pretty good job of lighting up a single table that they're placed on.
• I haven't figured out which is brighter between Breton sconces/torches and the crafted lanterns.
• However the object is constructed with what appear to be opaque and transparent parts, most lights seem to shine pretty evenly across a surrounding sphere.

Sweetpea704

Breton torch gives a lot of light.

ProfesseurFreder

I've put streetlamps in one of my houses. Casts a lot of light, looks cool, more cost-effective than chandeliers.

FrancisCrawford

ProfesseurFreder wrote: »

I've put streetlamps in one of my houses. Casts a lot of light, looks cool, more cost-effective than chandeliers.

Good point. But like Nord triple torches, streetlamps take up a lot of floor space and interfere with conventional (tables, chairs, etc.) kinds of furnishing set-ups.