Remember now, 'area_light' is not a *true* area as far as the source and
highlights go. Only works for shadows.
Aside from this, you need to watch out how you end up orientating the
light. Most common mistake can be translating it without reorienting to
the subject in the scene. Darcy's area light would become as one light for
everything in the x-axis, far as I know (and I've tried other ways before)
the 'area_light' can only be used as a planar source. No volume, as in
cubical, etc.


Bill DeWitt wrote:
> 
> Well, I've been playing with it and even though it gives diffuse shadows
> that are as wide as I would expect, I can't get an area light to illuminate
> a wider area of a plane no matter how wide I make the light. Here's the
> original (slight changes so I could work with it) and one I made out of the
> stock insert file. They both don't work the way you want them to. I suggest
> a line of regular lights.
> 
> ////////////// Camera //////////////////////
> camera {                                  //
>         right      < -1.333, 0.0, 0.0 >   //
>         up         <  0.0, 1.0, 0.0 >     //
>         direction  <  0.0, 0.0, 1.0 >     //
>         location   <  0.0, 12.0, 0.0 >     //
>         look_at    <  0.0, 0.0, 0.0 >     //
>        }                                  //
> ////////////// end Camera //////////////////
> 
> /*
> light_source
> {
>   0//pos
>   color rgb 1.0//color
>   area_light
>   x*100, z//area
>   100, 1//#lights
>   adaptive 0
>   jitter
>   translate < 0, 1, 0 >
> }
> */
> 
> ///*
> light_source
> {
>   0*x // light's position (translated below)
>   color rgb 1.0  // light's color
>   // <widthVector> <heightVector> nLightsWide mLightsHigh
>   area_light
>   <5, 0, 0> <0, 0, 2> // lights spread out across this distance (x * z)
>   2, 2                // total number of lights in grid (4x*4z = 16 lights)
>   adaptive 0          // 0,1,2,3...
>   jitter              // adds random softening of light
>   translate < 0, 2, 0 >   // <x y z> position of light
> }
> file://*///you may have to fix this line if it says 'file'
> 
> ///////////////////////////// Plane /////////////////////////////////
> plane { <0.0, 1.0, 0.0 >, 0.0 pigment { rgb < 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 > } } //
> /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> ////////////////  Sphere  ///////////
> sphere  {
>   < 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 >, 0.5
>   texture { pigment { rgb 1 }
>             finish  { phong 0.25 }
>              }
>     }
> ///////////////////////////////end Sphere

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