Octane Spotlight, with no 'hack'.

[jeremyshin]

Hello,

I was recently watching a video of Woosung Kang at The 3D and Motion Design Show and he was showing how he created some spotlight animation for Odesza, in Redshift.
https://youtu.be/14rAMg29vaw?t=675

I tried to apply the same technique and see if I could do it in Octane, as I do not use Redshift.

Wether I used the Spotlight object OR the Spotlight distribution node, I couldnt get rid of the noise at the light source (see attached image).
If you see Woosung's presentation we can see that Redshift is able to clean very easily the light, even near the emission source.
Why can Octane still not do it in 2023? If it is me that is not using it properly, I would love somebody to show me how it is achievable. When I look at Spotlight in Blender, it seems so... easy...

Also, why can't we have a functional Spotlight object? Something easy to control in C4D viewport with fall off adjustment and with a visible light source, because in reality a spotlight is amitted from a circle source that should be visible, especially in the reflections.

Please can somebody clarify this subject that has been an enigmna for many years to me.
Thanks

[jeremyshin]

Thank you Elska for answering.

Im not sure that you understood what I was talking about.

If you check the youtube link video I shared in my first post you will see how a spotlight can be achieved in Redshift. From a rectangle or disc area light, it seems possible to direct the light like a spotlight while keeping the shape (visibility and size) of the light emission source.

In Octane, spotlights are always 'infinite points' at the source, which is unrealistic (of course it may be what one would like to achieve in certain scenarios) because in real life spotlights always have a source diameter.

With the Spotlights object, the source is a point, so not realistic... (I can see it clearly on the render on your website under the Spotlight Distribution part). Also I dont like that the volume is built-in, I prefer to use a FOG Volume object over my scene.
With the Spotlight distribution node, even applied on lets say a disc area light of 10 cm, the light disc source will be hidden, which is not realistic.

In order to get a realistic spotlight I always have to:
- Create an area light, set it as a disc.
- Use the Spotlight distribution node on this area light (by the way a bit annoying to dive into the node to be able to dial the look, would be nice to have controls in C4D viewport). Disable all its visibility.
- Duplicate that area light, put it slightly in front of the first one, disable on diffuse, shadow and cast shadows.
- Put them all under a null to be able to rotate the null as a Spotlight.

You can see the c4d file attached to understand what I am talking about.

Sure I can save it as a scene and use it whenever I can but why cant something like this be coded for Octane plugin?

[jeremyshin]

It's not a point but an actual physical thin geometry surface. I believe I made it quite small in my demo (⌀10cm to ⌀30cm, IIRC) and the camera was quite far to show most of the "light beam". I'm solely using the quad light + spotlight distribution "combo" (or the equivalent using a disc geo-primitive). I made a Spectron demo in another section.

Spotlight Distribution makes the source geo invisible when the camera is pointing at it, the area light source visibility disappears.

Also I still need a lot of sample to clean the light nearby the emission source. I am not new in Octane so I know how to properly setup my kernel to avoid noise usually. You said you had a scene covering this point but I couldnt find it. I do not use standalone just to let you know.

Thanks a lot for your time!