shadow problems
 

Using a spotlight on an object gives a (sharp) shadow on the ground plane, using "ray trace" by light properties and switching on in the render panel "raytrace shadows". So far so good.
But I want to use a shadow map to get a more soft shadow. By light properties I select "shadow map" and then all of the sudden the spotlight is gone. Comes back when selecting "ray trace" again. There's no other light in the scene so all is dark. The cast shadow of the object is on.
The camera view still shows the spotlight but the render doesn't.
Anyone any ideas?

It is still weirder: changing the shadow color does change the color of the light. When the shadow color is black a volumetric light shows black foggy arrays...! I think that's why the spotlight light is gone as I wrote before. The light turns into a black color light.

I just tried the steps you outlined, and it works correctly on my end. Made a quick sphere on a ground plane, all options on Layout are default, I set the light type to spotlight/volumetric, then rendered once with shadow mapping, and once with ray tracing. Could you give some more details? Perhaps a step by step of everything you're doing, and having Lightwave version would help too.

Raytraced:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/76b5zhvqwr...trace.jpg?dl=0

Shadow Mapped:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sza92pbvbl...20map.jpg?dl=0

For some reason it's not showing my pics, here are the links:

Ray Traced

Shadow Map

This is a bit old, have you still got problems? perhaps if you delete your configs, it seems it isn't much of an issue if the light still works, it seems to be an Open GL issue.