Light Create

Define here the geometry of the new light.

Directional

Directional lights emulate lights very far from the objects they illuminate (as the Sun illuminating the Earth), so: 1) the light beams can be considered as paralel; 2) the attenuation produced by the distances between the objects is negligible, compared to the attenuation produced by the distance from the source (the intensity of the Sun light iluminating the top of a building or a street nearby is approximately the same).

Directional lights are thus determined by the x, y, z coordinates of the Direction vector.

Positional

Positional lights emit from a single point into all directions, with equal intensity. The attenuation in the beam intensity, from the source to the objects might be already significant (the visibility produced by street lights decreases rapidly with distance).

Positional lights are thus determined by the x, y, z coordinates of the light Position.

Spot

Spot lights differ from positional lights because they emit in a given Direction, as in a lamp. The Angle (beam aperture) between this Direction (the spot) and the light outer limit (the cutoff), can vary between almost 0 degrees (as in a laser) and 90 degrees (as in a ceilling light).

A spot light is thus determined by its position, direction and angle.

Direction, Position, Angle and Attenuation entries are automatically enabled or disabled, according to the type of light selected.

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