Light Cone Down 11 - Rendering issue

[Anonymous]

Hello!

I'm using AC11 student edition and have in my model the 'light cone down 11' lamp object. this light is playing funny tricks with me: the only way i can get it to show in the LW rendering is to modify the shadow settings in the LW render settings - from 'by lamp settings' to 'hard'. which i suppose is no big problem, i'm not really sure... however, this is the really odd bit, i have another one of these 'light cone down' objects elsewhere in the model and it works fine. the only different between the two is the tilt angle. the one that works is pointing directly down, the other is at a downward angle. honestly i have trouble setting all the 'general light sources' that come in the standard library: the intensities don't seem to be equivalent across each lamp type, for instance on the down light (the one that works) i have an intensity of 100 and it only just gives out enough light, whereas if i use a 'general light' object it has to be set right down at an intensity of 10 or it is way too bright... it seems i'm getting something wrong, any help would be appreciated, thank you.

Nick

[Dwight]

This seems very odd.
Using hard shadows is a bad approach.
Please post the complete settings you are using for the two light cones.

[Anonymous]

Hi!

Unfortunately, since posting the original message, i had deleted the downlight that was working, so i have recreated a similar situation: i have two downlight cones with exactly the same settings, except that one has a tilt angle and the other is pointing straight down. Unfortunately neither of these lights is working properly now - but in different ways.

Attached below is the settings for the light objects, the only difference between the two is the tilt angle which is zero for one, and 17 degrees for the other...

[Anonymous]

below is the lightworks settings i'm using when the lights aren't rendering properly.

following is an example of the error in rendering. the left is using the settings attached and the right is changing the shadow setting to 'hard'

[Anonymous]

and here is an example of the situation - left with shadows set to 'by lamp settings' and right with shadows set to 'hard'. the light cones indicate where the light should be...

when i posted the original message the situation was different, the light pointing directly down seemed to have a complete light cone, ie circular even with shadow settings set to 'by lamp', now however it's gone all square, and the tilted light wasn't showing any light at all unless the setting was 'hard' (it may be relevant that in the first situation the tilted light wasn't angled to hit the floor at all, whereas here part of it does).... ?

[Dwight]

If you look at the pages and pages of light behavior studies in my book, you would know that i am the guy to answer your issue.

I'm sorry to be of no help here because i have duplicated your settings - except for the color - and it produces a lovely light quality.

[Dwight]

The light cone down makes a lovely diffuse light as long as the originating diameter is large. Here are three light cones [version 11] down lighting an entire room.

That is a fake light, floating in the space.

[Anonymous]

Nick and Dwight,

Have either of you found the solution to the square light cone behavior? I am having the same problem with both the general cone and within a lamp object like a recessed spot light. I was able to fix the recessed light object, but only thru a fluke setting change, which once I repeated, didn't work for the general light.
Any thoughts?

[Dwight]

Can you please remind me what problem we are discussing?

[Anonymous]

I had the same problem with spotlamp ceiling 11 - a workaround is in the last post:

http://archicad-talk.graphisoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=120471&highlight=#120471