Lights
Incari has two types of Light Object; the Spot Light and the Point Light.
The Point Light is omnidirectional, meaning that light is emitted equally in all directions; while the Spot Light is directional and will only light the area that it is rotated towards. Additionally, unlike Point Light, Spot Light supports shadow mapping, and has an extra set of Attributes for that purpose.
| Attribute | Spot Light | Point Light |
|---|---|---|
| ✔ | ✔ |
| ✔ | ✔ |
| ✔ | ✔ |
| ✔ | ✘ |
| ✔ | ✘ |
Light
Color
Color determines the color of the light being emitted.
Please note that the Color Attribute's brightness level will affect the brightness of the light itself. It is therefore recommended that you always have the brightness level set to 1, and use the actual Brightness Attribute to alter the intensity of the light.
Color's alpha level has no effect.
Brightness
Brightness governs the intensity of the light, with lower values giving less intense light emission and vice versa.
Attenuation
Attenuation relates to the spread, or reach, of the light. Lower levels only illuminate close Objects, whereas high levels allow the light to reach Objects that are further away.
Radial Falloff
Radial Falloff is used to change the smoothness of the light falloff. Lower levels will give a smoother transition between light and dark areas, but will be darker overall. Higher levels give a much more contrasting light-to-dark transition and will appear comparatively brighter.
This Attribute is only available on the Spot Light Object.
Shadow Mapping
Shadow Mapping is a performance-based method of approximating shadows in real-time. Without getting too technical, Shadow Mapping takes the depth and normal passes of the Scene from the perspective of the Spot Light, calculates which areas are occluded, and projects the shadow map onto the Scene.
There is no 'one size fits all' setup for Shadow Mapping. It is invariably a matter of tweaking and adjusting to achieve the desired visual result for your Scene, as well as meeting the performance requirements of your project.
Enable
Shadow Mapping can be turned on/off using the Enable switch. Whether or not you use this effect often comes down to performance. If you are having performance issues, then you should consider removing the effect, or adjusting the other settings.
Resolution
Resolution alters the size of the shadow map. Just like with normal 2D textures, higher resolutions produce better quality, at the cost of processing time and file size.
Kernel Size
Kernel Size relates to the size of each sampled area during the calculation. It is a fairly complex subject, but it affects the smoothness of the shadow map. Lower levels give crisp, but jagged, shadows; whereas higher levels give smoother, but less defined results.
Increased Kernel Size may help improve results that suffer from shadow acne, or to reduce artifacts in cases where the shadow map Resolution is low.
Clip Near
As stated above, Shadow Mapping takes passes from the Light's perspective. Like the Clip Near Attribute of Camera, everything within the defined distance isn't rendered and is therefore excluded from those passes and the Shadow Mapping algorithm.
Offset
Offset offsets the depth of the shadow map and can massively improve its appearance, by reducing shadow acne. It is recommended that you increase this value by very small increments (0.0001) until you get an acceptable reduction in artifacts.
Due to the effect Offset has on the Shadow Mapping algorithm, higher values can cause shadows to appear to be disconnected from the geometry that casts them.
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