I've been giving this some more thought. It seems to me that whatever method you
come up with for your 'diffusion gel', the spotlight/area-light will need actual
multiple light sources (multiple point lights)--in order to cast 'diffused'
light onto objects themselves (which a regular area_light doesn't do, as it's
'really' just a point light.) Even with your good diffusion-gel object in the
beam, there's still that limitation. Perhaps using *multiple*
spotlight/area_lights would work, randomly placed in a small area or volume to
represent your single spotlight. Sounds render-intensive, though.

You might also want to consider an area-light's optional 'area_illumination'
feature (new to the 3.7 betas) that Warp came up with.

http://news.povray.org/povray.binaries.images/thread/%3C478e748d%40news.povray.org%3E/

I haven't worked with it yet, but his sample images look quite nice, with smooth
diffuse lighting on objects. And it renders faster than an equivalent group of
point lights.

It may just be that you can get the effect you want without even resorting to a
'diffusion gel.'

KW

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