Kenneth <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> Do the white blocks represent the extent of the light array? I suppose it
> should be obvious, but I don't want to assume.

  The white box is the same size as the area light / light grid.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Kenneth <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> I should have been more detailed in my follow-up to your images. What
> strikes me immediately is that lightgrid.jpg (which I take to be an array
> of real point lights) produces *much* smoother illumination on the wall and
> sphere than does the area light.  Surprisingly so.

  Why surprisingly?

> And the shadows from the
> sphere look smoother than I would have imagined.

  Well, there's the same amount of point lights than in the area light.
The shadows should be pretty similar.

> Do you happen to recall
> the difference in rendering times of the two images?

  Nope. I might try to find the original scene and re-render to measure
the times.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> > Do you happen to recall
> > the difference in rendering times of the two images?

>   Nope. I might try to find the original scene and re-render to measure
> the times.

  Rendering at 800x600 +a +am2, the area_light version took 17 seconds
and the lightgrid version 1 min 11 seconds.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Kenneth nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 21-01-2007 13:00:
> "Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
>> Le Forgeron <jgr### [at] freefr> wrote:



>>> It might be different if instead of an <area light> object, you used
>>> a real collection of point lights...
>> An interesting idea. I'll do an experiment, to compare this to an area light
>> (of the same number of point lights), to see just what a visual difference
>> there might be on a scene's illuminated objects, as well as the shadow
>> qualities produced.


> Of course, an area light can use jitter, which would automatically make the
> shadows (from the area light's discreet point lights) smoother, compared to
> using a similar array of "real" point lights. The latter would simply cast a
> number of separate, discreet shadows, all slightly displaced.

> It would still be interesting to see the difference in the surface
> illumination of an object, comparing both methods.  I.e., the area light's
> single "point light" direct illumination vs. an array of real point lights.

> Here's a really wacky experiment to try (though I haven't done ot yet):
> Start with two copies of the same object. Use the area light to create the
> shadows on one copy--but use the no_image tag for that object, so it's
> invisible.  Then light the 2nd copy with the array of "real" point
> lights--but use the no_shadow tag for that one. So what you end up with is
> the object lit by multiple real point lights, with the shadow created by
> the area light.  The best(?) of both worlds!

> KW




With the no_shadow, the lights will illuminate the shadowed area just as if the 
object was not there at all, making the shadow very faint.
What you can do, is to use an aray of smaller area_light. Something like a 3*3 
aray of smaler area_light. That way, you can have very smooth shadows, save 
rendering time and have an illumination and highlights closer to real life. Set 
the specular or phong to be rather large.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.

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Alain <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> With the no_shadow, the lights will illuminate the shadowed area just as if the 
> object was not there at all, making the shadow very faint.

  What does that last part mean?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 23-01-2007 04:24:
> Alain <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
>> With the no_shadow, the lights will illuminate the shadowed area just as if the 
>> object was not there at all, making the shadow very faint.
> 
>   What does that last part mean?
> 
Kenneth suggested having two copies of an object. One with no_image and lighted 
by an area_light, the second with no_shadow lighted by an aray of point lights.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Kenneth <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> > What
> > strikes me immediately is that lightgrid.jpg (which I take to be an array
> > of real point lights) produces *much* smoother illumination on the wall and
> > sphere than does the area light.  Surprisingly so.
>
>   Why surprisingly?

Ah, I see what you mean (and you're right, it's not so surprising after
all): The area light's *illumination* is just a point--producing the same
direct illumination on objects as a single point light would (disregarding
shadows.)  While the light grid of real point lights is lighting the
objects from multiple sources and directions.  Thus automatically smoother.

What *is* surprising though, is that the large highlight on the sphere is so
smooth, when using the light grid; I would have expected multiple, small and
discreet highlights. (Perhaps there are, but they appear to blend together
quite well.) An interesting and useful discovery, for me.
>
> > And the shadows from the
> > sphere look smoother than I would have imagined.
>
>   Well, there's the same amount of point lights than in the area light.
> The shadows should be pretty similar.

But given that the light grid is casting multiple *distinct* shadows, while
the area light is creating "jittered" shadows from all(?) of its lights,
shouldn't the area light produce much smoother shadowing?  (Although, I
admit, your experiment seems to prove me wrong there.)

KW

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Alain <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote:

> With the no_shadow object, the lights will illuminate the shadowed area just as if
the
> object was not there at all, making the shadow very faint.

You mean, the shadow will be partially "lit," no longer black or
dense.That's an interesting point, and would seem to be true. But in
experiments I've done, using two simple spheres (one with no_shadow, one
with no_image) and a single point light just for simplicity, what I see is
that the final shadow, cast onto a white ground plane, is still quite dark.
*Almost* black...even when compared to a pure black object
next to it. (And this is using assumed_gamma of
1.0)  Plugging in assumed_gamma of 2.0--which I usually do, for my own
reasons--the shadow becomes even darker.

I'm a bit mystified as to why the shadow *is* so dark. As you say, the
darkness in the shadow area *should* be a mix of "shadow" and "no shadow"
..... that is, 50% illuminated. But that isn't so. Not that I'm complaining!
The trick seems to work.  But I haven't yet tried it with an area light and
a corresponding light grid, where there could be a subtle but distinct
"shift" in shadow darkness between the fully shadowed area and the soft
shadow from the area light. That's just a guess, though.

KW

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Kenneth <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
> What *is* surprising though, is that the large highlight on the sphere is so
> smooth, when using the light grid; I would have expected multiple, small and
> discreet highlights. (Perhaps there are, but they appear to blend together
> quite well.) An interesting and useful discovery, for me.

  POV-Ray uses the phong reflection model
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phong_reflection_model) for highlights,
and the whole idea of this model is that it "blurs" the reflection of
the light source on the surface of the object.
  If you have many such blurred reflections close together, of course
they will form a uniform mass.

> But given that the light grid is casting multiple *distinct* shadows, while
> the area light is creating "jittered" shadows from all(?) of its lights,
> shouldn't the area light produce much smoother shadowing?  (Although, I
> admit, your experiment seems to prove me wrong there.)

  The area_light is not jittered in my example scene. Both examples
should produce identical shadows (except for the tiny differences
produced by 'adaptive').

  There's no visible banding because there are so many point lights
in both cases (10x20). If the camera was moved close enough of one of
the shadow borders then some banding could become visible in both cases.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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"Kenneth" <kdw### [at] earthlinknet> wrote:
>...in
> experiments I've done, using two simple spheres (one with no_shadow, one
> with no_image) and a single point light just for simplicity, what I see is
> that the final shadow, cast onto a white ground plane, is still quite dark.
> *Almost* black...

I took a more critical look at my own test image, and I have to conclude
that the final shadow isn't "almost black," it IS black. The shadow (from
the no_image sphere) is somehow taking complete precedence. There's no
"brightness mixing" at all. Odd, but interesting. Perhaps that's just the
logical operation of POV's shadow calculations.

Meanwhile, my little test has presented another useful trick, something I've
been pondering for awhile but couldn't figure out how to do, until now:
creating a variable-density shadow. By making the pigment of the no_image
sphere something like rgbt <1,0,0,.5> (the rgb components don't really
matter), its shadow can be made more or less dense/dark. So that an object
that appears to be solid (the no_shadow sphere, in my case) can cast a
variable-darkness shadow.  May not be physically realistic, but could be a
useful artistic tool. Likewise, using rgbf <1,0,0,.5> would cast a reddish,
variable-density shadow.

Ken

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