In the original paper, the falloff inside `bcone.theta_e` is assumed to
be `pi/2`, which is too large for spot light and resulted in an
overestimation near the cone boundary.
To address this issue, attenuate the energy of a spot light using the
minimal possible angle formed by the light axis and the shading point
when traversing the light tree.
Ref: #122362
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/122667
it is not clear from which point the `cos_theta_u` should be computed in
volume segment, so the original implementation was mixing the closest point
and the point where the minimal angle is formed.
Use the closest point on segment as a conservative measure.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/119965
By restricting the sample range along the ray to the valid segment.
Supports
**Mesh Light**
- [x] restrict the ray segment to the side with MIS
**Area Light**
- [x] when the spread is zero, find the intersection of the ray and the bounding box/cylinder of the rectangle/ellipse area light beam
- [x] when the spread is non-zero, find the intersection of the ray and the minimal enclosing cone of the area light beam
*note the result is also unbiased when we just consider the cone from the sampled point in volume segment. Far away from the light source it's less noisy than the current solution, but near the light source it's much noisier. We have to restrict the sample region on the area light to the part that lits the ray then, I haven't tried yet to see if it would be less noisy.*
**Point Light**
- [x] the complete ray segment should be valid.
**Spot Light**
- [x] intersect the ray with the spot light cone
- [x] support non-zero radius
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/119438
For spherical spot light, when the shading point is close to the light
source, we switch to sampling the light spread instead of the visible
cone from the shading point. This has the benefit of less noise when the
spread is small.
However, the light spread sampling was not considering non-uniform
object scaling, where the actual spread might be different.
This patch switches sampling method only when the smallest enclosing
spread cone is smaller than the visible cone from the shading point.
An alternative method would be to compute the actual solid angle of the
scaled cone, and sample from the scaled cone. However, that involves
ray transformation and modifying the sampling pdf and angle. Since
non-uniform scaling is rather a niche case, it's probably not worth the
computation effort.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/119661
Add new "Soft Falloff" option on point and spot light that uses
the old light behavior from Blender versions before 4.0. Blend
files saved with those older versions will use the option.
This option is enabled by default on new lights.
Fix#114241
Co-authored-by: Weizhen Huang <weizhen@blender.org>
Co-authored-by: Clément Foucault <foucault.clem@gmail.com>
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/117832
based on concentric disk mapping.
Concentric disk mapping was already present, but not used everywhere.
Now `sample_cos_hemisphere()`, `sample_uniform_hemisphere()`, and
`sample_uniform_cone()` use concentric disk mapping.
This changes the noise in many test images.
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/109774
The spotlight is now treated as a sphere instead of a view-aligned disk.
The implementation remains almost identical to that of a point light,
except for the spotlight attenuation and spot blend. There is no
attenuation inside the sphere. Ref #108505
Other changes include:
## Sampling
Instead of sampling the disk area, the new implementation samples either
the cone of the visible portion on the sphere or the spread cone, based
on which cone has a smaller solid angle. This reduces noise when the
spotlight has a large radius and a small spread angle.
| Before | After |
| -- | -- |
||
## Texture
Spot light can now project texture using UV coordinates.
<video src="/attachments/6db989d2-7a3c-4b41-9340-f5690d48c4fb"
title="spot_light_texture.mp4" controls></video>
## Normalization
Previously, the normalization factor for the spotlight was \(\pi r^2\),
the area of a disk. This factor has been adjusted to \(4\pi r^2\) to
account for the surface area of a sphere. This change also affects point
light since they share the same kernel type.
## Versioning
Some pipeline uses the `Normal` socket of the Texture Coordinate node for
projection, because `ls->Ng` was set to the incoming direction at the
current shading point. Now that `ls->Ng` corresponds to the normal
direction of a point on the sphere (except when the radius is zero),
we replace these nodes with a combination of the Geometry shader node
and the Vector Transform node, which gives the same result as before.
Example file see https://archive.blender.org/developer/T93676
Pull Request: https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/109329
The original names were `...update_position()`, but no update in
position is performed in these functions, rather, the entries in
`LightSample` are updated. Also make clear that the functions are used
by MNEE.
Cycles ignores the size of spot lights, therefore the illuminated area doesn't match the gizmo. This patch resolves this discrepancy.
| Before (Cycles) | After (Cycles) | Eevee
|{F14200605}|{F14200595}|{F14200600}|
This is done by scaling the ray direction by the size of the cone. The implementation of `spot_light_attenuation()` in `spot.h` matches `spot_attenuation()` in `lights_lib.glsl`.
**Test file**:
{F14200728}
Differential Revision: https://developer.blender.org/D17129
Uses a light tree to more effectively sample scenes with many lights. This can
significantly reduce noise, at the cost of a somewhat longer render time per
sample.
Light tree sampling is enabled by default. It can be disabled in the Sampling >
Lights panel. Scenes using light clamping or ray visibility tricks may render
different as these are biased techniques that depend on the sampling strategy.
The implementation is currently disabled on AMD HIP. This is planned to be fixed
before the release.
Implementation by Jeffrey Liu, Weizhen Huang, Alaska and Brecht Van Lommel.
Ref T77889
* Split light types into own files, move light type specific code from
light tree and MNEE.
* Move flat light distribution code into own kernel file and host side
building function, in preparation of light tree addition. Add light/sample.h
as main entry point to kernel light sampling.
* Better separate calculation of pdf for selecting a light, and pdf for
sampling a point on the light. The selection pdf is now also stored in
LightSampling for MNEE to correctly recalculate the full pdf when the
shading position changes but the point on the light remains fixed.
* Improvement to kernel light storage, using packed_float3, better variable
names, etc.
Includes contributions by Brecht Van Lommel and Weizhen Huang.
Ref T77889
