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Fluorescent Light Troubles

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am ready to tear my hair out after trying to get the Fluorescent Recessed 01 13 light fixture to give me realistic looking lighting.I'd used these lights in the past in AC 9 & 10 and didn't have any trouble.

I am enclosing an image of the two extremes I am getting.I will add two additional posts with attachments showing the settings for each level.. For the record: The lights are in a slab used as the ceiling grid and there are holes cut out for the fixtures. I tried the fixtures alone with the ceiling deleted and it made no difference. Also the sun and other light sources are off.

The lower level shows the default settings which have wide angles for a & b, huge distances for d1 & d2 and gives me the v-shaped shadows on the walls and the grid of light and shadow on the floor. It is as if the fixtures are being sharply cut off and give me the shadows.

The upper level shows what happens when I reduced the distance and angles to what I would think were realistic values. I get the dimly illuminated squares on the floor.

Does anyone know what the ballpark settings would be to get even lighting on the floors and walls using a 10' (3m) ceiling height, and an 8'x8' (2.44m x 2.44m) center to center fixture spacing? Thanks in advance.

Jim Mahoney

Fluor Lights.jpg
4 REPLIES 4
Anonymous
Not applicable
The settings for the lower level lights
Anonymous
Not applicable
The settings for the upper level lights
Dwight
Newcomer
Try increasing 'r' to approximately double the fixture length.
Dwight Atkinson
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thanks Dwight. I'd actually tried changing that value and it simply made a small square of light on the floor smaller and less intense. Where you are the expert on this stuff and your solution behaved weirdly, the solution suggested itself for me.

This file was created in AC 9 and had been opened on and off since then. This was the first time it had been opened in AC 13 and it was behaving strangely. Parameters just weren't behaving the way I'd expect. These lights had originally been set at the defaults, raised 2 feet higher and the intensity value was dialed down. There was very little fuss involved.

Figuring something may have changed in these objects along the way, I selected all of them, switched to a different fixture type and then back. This set the fixture back to the defaults. I raised it 2 feet and took a look. All was well again and I was getting relatively even lighting. I just tweaked the falloff up a bit higher. Now I need to tweak the settings a bit and throw in some general light bombs to illuminated the ceiling.

So for whatever reason these objects seem to have changed in their behavior and didn't behave the same way in 13 as earlier. Your suggesting something I'd also tried and it not working told me I was in a bizzaro universe and it was time to start from scratch. Thanks.

Jim