Since 2022 release and the move to the addon version, I feel like you have the goal to make my life miserable as the artists with bad UI/UX choices here and there. It takes too much of my time jumping between a lot of different Octane editors to setup my scenes, lights and render settings. It feels like you're just piling stuff up.
Analytic lights is a great addition in 2023. Long awaited.
Unfortunately, you're making it further even more confusing with one more node type for lights. Lights are already pretty weird in Octane how they work. In my mind analytic lights should've made it easier to light with more common approach to lights. But how you're adding them in Blender, so far, makes them even worse to me:
- You've just crammed all the possible settings in one node. You're definitely not trying to make it easier on the artist to make use of new stuff. Not every setting is working with every light type. You need to know which settings relates to which light type.
- Currently you're using Point Light object type as your light object with analytic light. Sure it'll work with sphere light type but not so well with other types. Meaning we're loosing gizmo options from Area Light types which helps to direct the size, position and direction of light.
Area light for example have a hotkey (Shift+T) which allows you easily to point light in a direction. This is very valuable feature to loose. Since analytic lights are only exists for point light object types we're loosing this feature. It's a workflow breaking feature which makes it more difficult to setup and art direct lights. You're currently downgrading the lighting experience in Blender with Octane.
I am no developer but there must be a better way to do this. By using different light objects for different light types. Exposing in the light panel only the settings which are related to the selected light object.
And leaving the emission output available for shading for those of us who use the more complex light setups.
