Hugo <hua### [at] post3teledk> wrote:
> Why does light from a big distance slow down rendering? My guess: it's got
> to do with the nature of floats.

  Yeah, larger floats are slower to handle... ;)

  No, the true answer is that the farther away the light source, the longer
it takes to reach the object (why do you think that it takes about 8
minutes for light to travel the distance from the Sun to the Earth?).

  No, seriously.
  The value of a float has no effect on its speed.
  The most probable answer to your question has something to do with light
buffers. The light buffer algorithm works best when the objects are about
equally distributed all around the light source. If all the objects are
inside a very small area from the point of view of the light source, the
less efficient the light buffer algorithm is.

-- 
#macro N(D)#if(D>99)cylinder{M()#local D=div(D,104);M().5,2pigment{rgb M()}}
N(D)#end#end#macro M()<mod(D,13)-6mod(div(D,13)8)-3,10>#end blob{
N(11117333955)N(4254934330)N(3900569407)N(7382340)N(3358)N(970)}//  - Warp -

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