Blender 5.1.1, Linux Mint 22.3, recently started with Grant Abbitt's beginners series.
I have a streetlamp. I am using a spotlight to emulate the light from the streetlamp. The spotlight starts as a small point, but the streetlamp has a larger, rectangular face from which the light should emanate. So this looks like a very bright firefly is just below the actual streetlamp. Works from a distance and some angles but I feel it can be better.
https://imgur.com/a/xBjLK2N
Basically the same as what this person is asking, but that is a couple years old and didn't really get answered.
https://www.reddit.com/r/blenderhelp/comments/1246tyv/help_reddit_how_acheve_near_attenuation_on_a/
Apparently in previous versions of Blender there were "clip start" and "clip end" settings that would let me manually set the length of the light, so I could place the spot above the streetlamp but not have it start until the appropriate spot. But I don't see any controls to do that.
As alluded to, I'm a beginner, so would greatly appreciate detailed instructions or a link to same. I don't have enough knowledge to apply something like "Just use xyz shader". Thanks for your assistance.