Why does a solid cone show up from my lights when rendering?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I am having some trouble with the light in ArchiCAD. Attached is a screen shot of the 3D window and then also a picture of what appears when i render it? What's happening with the lights???

Thanks
Lockers

[Karl Ottenstein]

ArchiCAD does not give you any preview of the light. You only see the effects by rendering. So, getting lighting set up in ArchiCAD requires a long loop of adjusting settings, rendering and repeat. Your other post indicated you had the Artlantis student version. There, lights are previewed in real time in the preview window. You'll get the desired result much faster. (Unless you use neon ... which has both preview and render issues at present.)

There is an option in the light object settings to show the cone or not ... but the cone that shows from this parameter is a wireframe. I've never seen a translucent cone such as you illustrate within ArchiCAD's 3D window. What library part are you using?

Cheers,
Karl

[Karl Ottenstein]

Aha. In your other post, you stated that you used the haologen recessed light. I'm now able to reproduce your image. See the attached parameters for this object.

If Show Light Cone is "on", then a wireframe cone is seen in the 3D window. If Light Cone in Rendering is also "on", then the translucent cone seen in your screenshot is seen. I didn't see this cone in the actual LW rendering though. It only shows up if you render with the "Internal Engine" (inferior to the LW engine, it remains for historical reasons).

The wireframe cone is useful in verifying that you have the light cone set up reasonably well before wasting time rendering.

Just turn the cone params off if you don't want to see them in the 3D window.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your help Karl, it is greatly appreciated. I shall give it a go when I get to work tomorrow.

Lockers