Hello folks!
I have a large cloud that I am having some trouble lighting. I have my render settings well optimized, but I am wondering what the best light source is for point density-derived volumes.
Intuitively I figured sun or point would deliver fastest results, but I am finding that area lights seem a bit better?
Does cycles even have light primitives or are they all essentially geo lights?
Cycles have a few light primitives; area/portal, point, spot, sun. I tend to use area light primitive a lot to fake/aid light bounces. They keep their power regardless of size and I believe they converge faster. However, they cannot be textured (yet). Line/disk/cylinder, pyramidial and cube lights are not implemented. They don’t seem to react to some light based nodes, of which only some options are available on object level (ray visibility, can’t exclude sharp glossy only i.e.).
Sorry, don’t know enough about volume stuff.