How to Fix Low Lightmap Texel Density Causing Pixelated Baked Shadows

Blocky baked shadows mean the lightmap has too few texels per world unit on that mesh. Increasing texel density on the surfaces that need it sharpens the shadows.

How to fix it

1. Inspect texel density with the debug view

Switch the scene view to the lightmap/texel-density visualization (Unity's Baked Lightmap draw mode, Unreal's Lightmap Density viewmode). Surfaces shaded red are under-resolved and need more texels.

2. Raise the per-object lightmap scale

Increase the object's lightmap scale or overridden resolution rather than the global setting, so only the offending mesh gets denser texels and memory stays controlled.

3. Spend texels where the camera looks

Give floors, walls, and hero props high density and leave ceilings or distant geometry low. Uniform high density wastes lightmap memory on surfaces nobody inspects.

4. Rebake and recheck the gradient

Rebake and confirm shadow edges now span enough texels to read as smooth. If memory is tight, split the mesh so only the shadowed region carries the high-density chart.

Catching the ones you can't reproduce

The hardest version of this to fix is the one you can't reproduce — it only happens on a player's hardware, OS, driver, or save state, under conditions that simply aren't present on your machine. A report that says “it crashed” or “it froze” gives you nothing to act on, so the bug survives release after release while quietly costing you players.

Automatic error capture closes that gap. Each failure arrives with its full stack trace, the device and OS, the build number, and a breadcrumb trail of what the player did right before it broke, so even a failure you have never seen becomes a specific, reproducible issue. Fold identical failures into one signature ranked by how many players each hits, and your worklist sorts itself worst-first instead of arriving as a stream of vague complaints.

This is where a tool like Bugnet earns its place. Its SDK captures every error automatically with the full stack trace plus device, OS, memory, build, and game-state context, folds duplicates into one grouped issue with an occurrence count, and ties each to the build it first appeared on — so you fix the problem that hurts the most players first and confirm it is gone when its signature disappears from the next release.