Christian Froeschlin <chr### [at] chrfrde> wrote:
> I just tried complementing fade_power and fade_distance for
> light_sources with an experimental new keyword
>
>    fade_cutoff_distance
>
> and then simply ignoring all light_sources which are farther
> away from a given point. The idea is that fading light sources
> may be needlessly considered in the calculation even if they
> are so far away that they no longer contribute noticably.
>

The 'calculations' that come to my mind are those for shadows (and possibly
reflectivity of an object, in some way.) This may be a bit off-topic, but I've
recently been wondering about how fade_distance and fade_power currently work
with those--based on some odd rendering results I encountered with my B-29
bomber scene.

The basic question I have is this: When a light's intensity finally drops to
zero at a certain distance, is POV-Ray still spending time trying to compute
shadow calculations for objects out past that distance? I had assumed that it
does not, but I'm not so sure.

Ken

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