Sheiken wrote:Lewis, what do you use as a toll for light simulations?
Dialux for exact Light calculations to se ehow much lux i have by ISO standard on what part of room/wall/desk....and then aproximate instensity with LightWave Photometric Light as close as possible to real world (since LW also don't read Lumens from IES files and it also depends on ColorSpace you are working in but I'm workign with many Luminaires Manufacturers so i often get real lamp samples for testing on site and the i can see/compare how it works/looks in real world and check with Luxmeter how intensive it is and then do it in LightWave native render engine by "eyeballing" to get close as possible. For some manufacturers (like Philips, Schreder, Thorn, Osram, Bega, Zumtobel..... which i used extensive during last 7-8 years i've managed to get some data/numbers which type of light needs whcih multiplyer for LW lights to get close to Dialux but so far I've not yet managed to use those logic in Octane render engine since it works completely different and as i said size of luminaire/polygon affects lightign too much to be taken as accurate).
Also I find Octane rendertimes suffer highly when usign lot of Lights. I've recently had scene with abotu 70 IES lights and dozen of COVE lights (various sahapes) and it takes eternity to render it clean (tied PT and PMC, AO was out of question for that scene due bad quality) and adjustind intensities is very hard/problematic since IPR don't show real intensity instantly but it takes quite some time untill it reaches full power and constant tweakign light sampling rate to see soem before ther is hard job (way to omany clicks/steps).
So i can't imagine usign Octane on heavy light scenes what i had in Lightwave during years, I had scenes with 5000+ IES lights and on my dayjob (Decorative/Street/Bridge Light simulations) i use 500+ light on daily basis for mid sized projects.
So unless they make a better way of OpenGl IES representation (grated this might be plugin specific but not sur eI've seen it any bette rin other softwar eplugin versions?) and some Light Lumens/reading option to be fully intensive as in real workd and instantly visible at IPR instantly as it starts i don't see Octane as viable option for such Light calculations/simulations.
Sorry if that dissapoints you but that's my findigs in last 6 months of using Octane for various tasks/projects.