Hi all, this is probably a stupid question, but I'm going to ask it
anyway ...

In the search for the "perfect lighting", especially to obtain
realistic soft shadows. The suggested method is to use area lights.
Indeed, an area light circular and oriented comes pretty close. Of
course with the usual problem that too few lights in the area give
banding, and that jitter gives a somewhat spotty result.

So I wondering: with spotlights one can excellently define and
fine-tune *lights* which soften towards the rim.

I'm not sure how spotlights are coded, but I would assume they
calculate the inner and outer radius and then the intermediate results
are calculated with some mathematical function. Can't a similar
approach be used for *shadows*? Use the extreme points of the area
light to determine maximum and minimum shadowing and apply some
mathematical function inbetween, rather than banding it with
intermediate lights? (I guess a similar effect could be obtained by
using spotlights instead of point lights inside the area light)

-- 
Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta


"Ma niente: prima si fanno delle cazzate,
 poi si studia che cazzate si sono fatte"
(Altan)
("And what about the history of the human race, dad?"
 "Oh, nothing special: first they make some foolish things,
  then you study what foolish things have been made")

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