Does anyone know how to more effectively create soft shadows with a quadratic, volumetric spot? See the attached image. Of concern is the shadows on the rock face (this is a hyperterrain). They're still a lot more crisp than I'd like. I've got the softness of the spot turned up to 10 and softness quality (in the editor) turned way up. This is just a final quality render, but the results are the same in ultra.

This is V10I on PC.

Any suggestions?

You need to turn up the volumetric quality for the light, it's not in the softness parameters, but in the volumetric parameters. You should turn it up to +4, and expect long render times, but the result is worth it. Also, make sure that "Optimize volumetric lighting" is off in the render options.

Thanks, Bruno. That seems to have helped some. Now I just need to figure out the rest of the composition

For what it's worth, I ended up switching to a volumetric point light - something I'd never tried - and the results are 1000% better. Definitely long render times, but worth it, I think. I'll post the final image when completed.