Indigo Renderer Forum

Here is an idea for a basic studio light for indigo that I came up with after perusing google images a few days ago. It works quite well with linear tonemapping set to 1 ( ) and is also really easy to tune shadows by scaling the lamp size or changing the blend amount of the diffuse cover.

Some simple pics using the light.

(Please excuse my noise)

The .blend file didn't attach earlier , so here it is in a zip

That's nice. But interfering with light rays like this must really slow things down.

Yeah, pretty sweet, but I think it's kind of overkill. I'm shure there should be a simpler way to get the same result. But if you want the perfect rendering...

I just figure whats the point of using a realistic renderer if you don't use realistic lights (or close to)

Here's another experiment - In the 1st image I replaced the material of the diffuse cover with the light emitter material so it's now a typical flat plane emitter while the 2nd image uses the studio light.

The 'ball' subject is 2m wide and the light intensity is that of a 'typical' 575w studio lamp. Also both are unprocessed (linear tonemapping=1) and there was virtually no speed difference in rendering at all !

No speed difference? The second rendering looks noisier though. Maybe try to get both to about the same brightness so it's easier to compare?

Btw: Got those screwdrivers too

that's the point. he set both to the same brightness. This way, it's easiest to compare

Nice effects!
But isn't the IES an easier way to get similar effect??

not really...
this technique works like a diffuser.
IES actually do the exact opposite:
The light of any lightsource in Indigo usually emits perfectly uniform(/diffuse) over the light source's surface.
IES files include data, in which direction how much light gets emitted. So, it makes the light less uniform or less diffuse

Now test this technique with mirrors. Check if you have identical reflection (light pattern) in the mirror. Somehow IES lights works properly but reflected light is some sort of caustic and causes a looooooong time to bake properly.