Area lights

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Area lights

Hi,

Do area lights behave exactly as point lights if you disable their shadows? I was trying to use area lights not for getting soft shadows, but for simulating a ceiling with rectangular lights. However, the floor is still getting round-shaped highlights even if the area lights are very rectangular (the width much larger than the height).
 
Hi,
yes that is true. For small area light's it is a good assumption which speeds up rendering time. For big area light it is far away from beeing correct.
I've put it onto my todo list to remove that limitation. To make physically correct area lights.

I've planed in a few months to remove such bugs and polish up the available features after release 2.3.

By,
Martin
 
Light behaviour

I have also noticed this problem with point reflections from Area Lights... good to know it's not just me. Martin, if you're still collecting suggestions for future improvements my vote would be for more realistic light behaviour, especially for interior scenes.

Two other minor lighting problems I've come across:
1) Rectangular spotlights seem to throw some light backward as well as forward.
2) Some spotlights occasionally seem to 'forget' their smooth cutoff setting and revert to a setting of 1.

But these are very minor problems in a generally fantastic piece of software. Keep up the good work, Martin.
 
Hi,
I've aleady started some work to remove that limitation of the area light. But it might take some more time. Don't worry I haven't forgotten that.

1) That was a bug of course. It will be fixed in the next update
2) I wasn't able to reproduce that behaviour. If you have a sample scene please mail it to me.

By,
Martin
 
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