[Jonothan Desimini]

So I’ve never been in love with the lighting in 2020, it seems finicky and never truly predictable.

Main Issue: The Auto-Lighting and the Ceiling light NEED to allow us to select the light color OR you need to change the lighting to white instead of the yellow it is defaulted to. With white kitchens reigning (at least in the northeast) as the top finish choice among clients – this yellow cast ruins the render. You’re left having to turn the lights off and then manually place your own lights. Something that’s supposed to be simple and easy then becomes a nightmare.

Secondary Issues:

(1) I’ve noticed in 11.12 and perhaps it was changed in earlier versions but you used to be able to turn on and off the light from sliding doors, windows and exterior doors. Now it doesn’t seem like there’s an on off option in variables anymore and light properties give you a choice to select light color but not the angle. This is very frustrating.

(2) In general the lighting tools need to get their own revamp in the near future. A whole release should be focused completely on lighting and rendering. It’s ridiculous that for a recessed light I need to place the light, then go to light properties to change the light color, then go to variables in the item properties to make invisible and also to increase the angle of the light. I mean, why have an angle option in Light properties that’s limited to 180 but when you go to variables you can increase that to 360. And don’t take away the feature that allows the angle to go to 270, 300 or wherever I want it to go because I personally only place lights that have a 270 angle or 240 since at a lower 40 watt setting I feel I get a more controlled result – being able to place several lights strategically without having to painstakingly set each light source and keep my fingers crossed they will look alright once the global illumination render finishes.

 

That’s all for now but honestly we need to be able to select the texture for the global light color. I’ve asked for this more than 2 years ago. There’s no reason to not have this fixed for 12.0

[Neil Wilson]

Hey Jonothan,

Being able to change the default colour of the Auto lights is a great idea!  I’ll make sure the Product manager hears it.

1) There were changes made way back in 10 (when we switched rendering engines) that changed the lighting properties.  The work around we are currently using for too much light from windows and doors is to change the colour of the light in the window/door to black.

2) In version 11.12 we have added 3 new “sourceless” lights.  They are just light, they don’t come from an item like a recessed spot or standard light sconce. They are in the room_fur catalog under lighting fixtures\light source and should allow you some additional flexibility in your lighting.

Hope that helps

Neil

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[Ariana Thompson]

I have to agree the lighting is frustrating.

I am NOT an expert in it by any means, and I’ve ended up loading my Idea Centre with a spot hung high point north, a spot hung low pointing north, a spot hung high pointing northwest, a spot hung low pointing northwest, etc just so I can “grab and go” when lighting images.

Silly, but apparently necessary!

I would like to add to the “OFF” option for windows and patio doors with a “dim” option.  Sometimes a little light glancing off the cabinets from the window adds realism, but the light is simply too harsh.  Being able to change the “wattage” would be great!

Cheers!