Hey all,

I wanted to talk about realistic lights for a minute.

The following is quote from Bagginsbill:

"Because, as an example, real ceiling lights are rectangular or round boxes, not infinitesimally small points. The reflections from such lights are not rendered correctly when modeled as points.

Lights with a non-zero area (in some renderers these are called area lights) do not exist in Poser. But glowing props of any shape and size do exist, and I prefer to use them over point or spot lights."

That quote is from this thread:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2880290&page=2

But that got me to thinking about the actual structure of real lights, and the fact that we dont' really use anything like that in Poser at the moment.

Doesn't that seem odd to anyone else?

A standard lightbulb is comprised of a small tungsten wire suspended inside a glass bulb that is filled with an inert gas. We apply a current to the tungsten wire and the bulb lights up. So while the tungsten wire is not infestismally small, it is rather tiny and the actual source of the light.

We talk quite a bit about how truly realistic renders rely on proper lights and accurate materials. So why aren't we using accurate lights?

How hard would it be to build some realistic light props? And I ask that as a person that is completely incapable of producing that prop. :P

Anyway just thinking out loud and I was curious what other folks thought about the topic.