Spotlights & lighting in general

Patroklos

Why does Angle make a difference to the light but Ray Length make no difference?

Why does light go if Ray Trace is on?

Why is it that although light falls on surfaces facing the light, and does not fall on surfaces facing away from the light, there are no shadows on the floor or walls?

Its all completely illogical.

Does Age of Armours' stuff work more logically?

millighost

Patroklos said:

Why does Angle make a difference to the light but Ray Length make no difference?

Why does light go if Ray Trace is on?

Why is it that although light falls on surfaces facing the light, and does not fall on surfaces facing away from the light, there are no shadows on the floor or walls?

Its all completely illogical.

Absolutely! DS uses 3delight, which is "high performance", not "high accuracy".

Does Age of Armours' stuff work more logically?

No. In the CG world "more logical" is spelled "more physically correct". You could try SphericLabs' stuff which probably does exactly what you want.

Richard Haseltine

Patroklos said:

Why does Angle make a difference to the light but Ray Length make no difference?

Angle is a light setting - it controls how wide the light cone from the spot is. Ray Length controls the on screen avatar for the light, it doesn't have anything to do with the way the actual light behaves. Seeing which group, on the left of the pane, the properties are in may make this clearer.

Why does light go if Ray Trace is on?

Ray traced is a shadow setting - if you turn shadows on and the light is blocked by an object then the scene will go dark.

Why is it that although light falls on surfaces facing the light, and does not fall on surfaces facing away from the light, there are no shadows on the floor or walls?

Because you don't have the light set to cast shadows, so it will illuminate every surface that faces it (if you looked inside the objects you'd see that the inner back was lit, and the inner front was unlit as it was facing away from the light).