Just a thought, someone mentioned that the POV Area lights don't behave as
true area lights with respect to illumination coverage and photons, but they
do make great, fast smooth shadows. To get the best of both worlds, why not
create an area light in the center, then an array of SHADOWLESS point lights
around the center? This would handle both optimized soft shadows as well as
more realistic illumination coverage and photons. It should be a whole lot
faster than a plain array of point lights because no expensive shadow
testing has to be done.

George Pantazopoulos

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