Eagle Engine support three types of analitical light sources: point light; spot light; and directional light.
All these lights share the following parameters:
- Light Color.
- Intensity.
- Volumetric Fog Intensity.
- Does Affect World. If it's set to false, the light will be ignored during the rendering.
- Does Cast Shadows. If it's set to false, the light won't cast shadows.
- Is Volumetric Light.
Note
Currently, the engine supports unlimited amount of light sources. But there's a limit on the amount of light sources that cast shadows. The limit is 1024. So, a scene can have 1024 point lights and 1024 spot lights that cast shadows. This limit doesn't really apply to directional lights since a scene can have only one active directional light.
A point light simulates a light bulb from the real world which emits light in all directions. But the difference is that analitical light sources emit light from a single point in space.
Point light, additionally, has a Radius
parameter that can be used to limit light's influence.
A spot light emits light from a single point in a cone shape. Users are given two cones to shape the light - the Inner Cone
angle and Outer Cone
angle. Basically, Spot Lights work like a flash lights.
Within the Inner Cone angle, the light achieves full brightness. As you go from the extent of the inner radius to the extents of the Outer Cone angle,
a falloff takes place, creating a penumbra, or softening around the Spot Light's disc of illumination.
Also, there's a Distance
parameter that defines the length of the cones.
Directional Light simulates light that is infinitely far away (like a sun). The world position of it doesn't matter, what matters is its direction.
Directional Light has one additional parameter - Ambient
. It can be used to light parts of the scene that aren't directly seen by it.