Orchid XP v3 nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 02-01-2007 16:35:
>> The shadows and glows do look fantastic from the lights that are there 
>> though.  Area lights?
> 
> Yeah, each light source is a 16x16 area light. Given that the tree has 
> hundreds of thousands of tiny needles - wait, just read the render 
> stats! Look at the number of shadow rays, for crying out loud! o__O
Over 4 BILLIONS!
> 
> By the way, the floor is actually more patchy than it looks here. JPEG 
> compression and all. (Check out the render resolution; this image is 
> scaled down.)
> 
> I did also try this with radiosity - but it makes absolutely no visible 
> difference. (Well, given how puny the light sources are, the extra 
> bounces don't contribute much.)
As Christmass lights are geting smaller and smaller, actual point_lights should 
be "good enough", especialy if you have 100's of them. Just a few 12's should 
make the use of area_light mostly pointless. Don't forget to set fade_distance 
to a suitably small value.
If manual placement is to tedious, why not try some procedural placement, maybe 
integrated in the building of the branches. In real life, the lights are often 
placed between branches.
If the parceing gets to long, why not use a switch to turn off the needles while 
you place and test the lights?

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those
entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it
into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson

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