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Spotlight Problem - Visibility clipping range?

ShadowzShadowz Posts: 45
edited November 2023 in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

So I'm just figuring out lighting stuff and I wanted to use Spotlight because distant light gave really strong/sharp shadows. When I'm on the spotlight view, it gives me limited range of what I can see. Is there a way I can increase that view range. Since I have a big outdoor scene, I need to be able to see everything. 

See attached pic for the example. You can see like a greyish color encircling the spotlight I'm on. I would like to remove that view range filter. 

EDIT: Attached another screenshot. Its the grey area (clipping view?) I am talking about not spotlight falloff (apologies for not being clear)

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ex2.PNG
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Post edited by Shadowz on

Comments

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,171

    That's the decay of preview lights... just presse Ctrl + L...

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,287

    Spotlights do fall off (inverse square law in Iray, thoug that can be adjusted or removed in 3Delight). However, I think you are meaning the clipping from whata er called in othe applications the "Hither" and "Yon" values (I think Yon is th distant one) - which are not exposed in the UI or scripting (assuming that they even exist as properties).

  • ShadowzShadowz Posts: 45
    edited November 2023

    Richard Haseltine said:

    Spotlights do fall off (inverse square law in Iray, thoug that can be adjusted or removed in 3Delight). However, I think you are meaning the clipping from whata er called in othe applications the "Hither" and "Yon" values (I think Yon is th distant one) - which are not exposed in the UI or scripting (assuming that they even exist as properties).

    Yeah its the clipping view I mean not the spotlight's falloff light. Sorry if it was confusing, So is there a way to change the clipping view? or is this simply how spotlight acts and is? 

    Here is another example, as you can see, the grey building is not fully viewable and past that range, everything is grey.

    ex2.PNG
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    Post edited by Shadowz on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,171

    Why are you not willing to just simply turn off preview lights... ?

  • ShadowzShadowz Posts: 45

    crosswind said:

    Why are you not willing to just simply turn off preview lights... ?

    Its not preview lights. I already tried turning preview light on and off. I think you misunderstood what I'm trying to do. Its not about the lighting itself. See my second attachment pic, there is this clipping issue I am having

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,171

    If so, it's weird... how about Iray Preview, and same issue in other scene?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,287

    crosswind said:

    Why are you not willing to just simply turn off preview lights... ?

    They are not related to the issue.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,287

    Shadowz said:

    crosswind said:

    Why are you not willing to just simply turn off preview lights... ?

    Its not preview lights. I already tried turning preview light on and off. I think you misunderstood what I'm trying to do. Its not about the lighting itself. See my second attachment pic, there is this clipping issue I am having

    I am not aware of a way to adjust it, no - it's been a while since I hae encoutnertred it as an issue though - it may be worth trying the Frame function, see if that auto-sets it to helpful values.

  • ShadowzShadowz Posts: 45

    Richard Haseltine said:

    I am not aware of a way to adjust it, no - it's been a while since I hae encoutnertred it as an issue though - it may be worth trying the Frame function, see if that auto-sets it to helpful values.

    Hmm that is unfortunate. Looks like I have to use something else instead of spotlight then. The frame function brings you to the building however (it moves the spotlight closer to it) and I want it to stay at a specific spot. So trying to use spotlight view from a distant is not gonna work. What's weird is that if I render, the light goes past that clipping range(if enough lumens etc). It just becomes a hassle to adjust the position when in the spotlight viewport mode. A sort of messy hack I found is to use a camera to get the view (so you don't get the clipping visibility) and then when I create a spotlight, I apply the camera's viewport settings.\

    I think since mostly people do smaller or less distant shots with spotlights, is why this hasn't been much of an issue but I have a pretty big scene.

     

  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,171

    Shadowz said:

    crosswind said:

    Why are you not willing to just simply turn off preview lights... ?

    Its not preview lights. I already tried turning preview light on and off. I think you misunderstood what I'm trying to do. Its not about the lighting itself. See my second attachment pic, there is this clipping issue I am having

    OK, I could reproduce the issue though I rarely did so ~ If you do need to have a view thru a spotlight, keep the distance in between the farthest object and spotlight <4000 centimeters (safest...), in terms of X / Z espcially, adjust Spread Angle as needed.

    Normally we do not use splotlight with long dist. in exterior scene...BTW...

    SNAG-2023-11-25-0004.png
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  • ShadowzShadowz Posts: 45
    edited November 2023

    crosswind said:

    OK, I could reproduce the issue though I rarely did so ~ If you do need to have a view thru a spotlight, keep the distance in between the farthest object and spotlight <4000 centimeters (safest...), in terms of X / Z espcially, adjust Spread Angle as needed.

    Normally we do not use splotlight with long dist. in exterior scene...BTW...

    Yeah, distance is the issue. The trick you can do is use perspective view/camera view that does not have that distance limitation for the view and then create a spotlight and applying the camera's/perspective views viewport setting.. The spotlight view mode just becomes pointless when it exceeds its distance. In render mode, if you make the light powerful enough, it will go past that range you cannot see in spotlight view mode. So technically spotlight works with long distance in render but is a hassle in view/non iray mode.

    Hopefully they change this in the future because I see no reason for that limited distance view if the light can go past that.

    Post edited by Shadowz on
  • crosswindcrosswind Posts: 6,171

    Shadowz said:

    crosswind said:

    OK, I could reproduce the issue though I rarely did so ~ If you do need to have a view thru a spotlight, keep the distance in between the farthest object and spotlight <4000 centimeters (safest...), in terms of X / Z espcially, adjust Spread Angle as needed.

    Normally we do not use splotlight with long dist. in exterior scene...BTW...

    Yeah, distance is the issue. The trick you can do is use perspective view/camera view that does not have that distance limitation for the view and then create a spotlight and applying the camera's/perspective views viewport setting.. The spotlight view mode just becomes pointless when it exceeds its distance. In render mode, if you make the light powerful enough, it will go past that range you cannot see in spotlight view mode. So technically spotlight works with long distance in render but is a hassle in view/non iray mode.

    Hopefully they change this in the future because I see no reason for that limited distance view if the light can go past that.

    Yeah, so let's see if there could be any improvement in the future ~~

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