Point light vs linear point light ???

WillowRaven

What is the difference? I am only familiar with the regular point light.

Herald of Fire

Much the same as the point light, the Linear Point light can have its falloff and spread adjusted without having to raise or lower the light intensity. It's not intended as a 'realistic' type of lighting, but can be very useful for creating special lighting effects in your work.

Richard Haseltine

As well as having the option for a set distance to fall off the linear light dims in proportion to distance, not the square of distance as with the point light proper.

WillowRaven

Hmmmm ... Maybe I should change the light in my scene to the linear point, then. Can I c/p the settings of the point light that's already there? Can I make the light reach a short distance from the bottom elements and a longer distance to the top elements, allowing me to use one light to light the book and not have to use a second light to light the face?

kj_54e8eded70

My question: so, which point light should be used for which situations, especially in doing lighting for lamps, campfires, candles, etc.?

aaráribel caađo

For most situations, you'll likely want the regular point light, since that produces the light we expect to see. The linear one would be good in situations where you want fill light to  brighten a scene without having to worry about it getting darker over distance, or for special effects. 

Richard Haseltine

kj_54e8eded70 said:

My question: so, which point light should be used for which situations, especially in doing lighting for lamps, campfires, candles, etc.?

In Iray there is no difference.

In 3Delight it's a matter of goal - we can nowa djust the gamma of the render in Render Settings, so the old issue of introducing posterisation if trying to adjust the tonemapping to bring up a point light has gone. Linerar pointlights are totally uibnrealistic but more controllable, and because they end at a set distance they can also avoid having a lot of ray-tracing calculations for transparency mapped surfaces in areas where a reguklar pointlight's contribution would have little or no visible result.

LeatherGryphon

The regular point light loses its punch very quickly, good for illuminating tight little dark corners or as a wall sconce where you want the light to make a small splash on the wall but otherwise not affect the scene.

The linear point light retains its strength longer and can be used to light bigger areas without having to have super bright light or brilliant little pools of light from multiple regular point lights.  But still have the illuminating characteristic of a lamp, moreso than a candle.

Sevrin

kj_54e8eded70 said:

My question: so, which point light should be used for which situations, especially in doing lighting for lamps, campfires, candles, etc.?

In Iray, for most lamps, campfires and  candles, I use the emissive settings, rather than DS lights.