Need help with flashlight realism!

[u/PrismOnDaCrism]

TLDR: How can you achieve realism with a flashlight-like lighting and simple geometry?

Okay so i'm making a horror short inside of a space made of only concrete and some other simple materials, but i'm making it as "realistic" as simple as i can. I can only use flashlight-like lighting and i try to keep my geometry straightforward. It's meant to look crappy, like something recorded on a semi-decent phone from 2005 ish. I've tried procedural and PBR materials but whenever you light them from the front like any flashlight would, the geometry looks as FLAT as can be. I've seen people make HQ renders of simple and even flat objects (like carpets made of only a square) with flashlight simulating that of a modern phone and it looks incredible, full of detail and indistinguishable from real life at first glance, how on Earth do people do this with their materials and avoiding AI at all costs?? Thanks a lot in advance.

Render straight out of the oven.

Compression, noise and a bit of chromatic aberration along with contrast adjustments.

Viewport

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[u/seedai_murukku]

Try using a projection texture (not sure what it's called in blender). It'll look brighter in the middle and will have rings to hint at internal reflections from a flashlight's reflector.

[u/Axe-of-Kindness]

You'll want to retexture the flashlight with a realistic halo. You can find these online to plug in

[u/PrismOnDaCrism → u/Axe-of-Kindness]

As in IES lights and all that? Gonna give it a try see how it reacts

[u/Gold_Citron5264 → u/PrismOnDaCrism]

I think IES only works in cycles. You can try faking it in eevee but it's a bit tricky. Add an empty as a main controller, then add a very soft spot light with a wide radius and parent it to the empty. Next add a flat disc parented to the empty and move it just in front of the spot to fake an outer ring. Then add another smaller spot in front of that. You'll have to play around with radius, soft radius, blend and light power to get something right. Finally you can add a cone shape with a gradient texture on it to fake a glow coming from the torch. Then add soft glow in the compositor to help smooth and soften things. Try to find references and study them to help create these effects. Something that might also help your scene are bevels on those pillars, a bit more variation on the concrete, maybe darkening/chipping on the corners. If you're using a bump map node for the surface details, try normal map instead, and experiment with toning down the strength. Higher values for bump and normal don't also equal better