Limit on # of Lights

Why is there a limit on the # of lights that you can have on at anyone
point in time in a Part/Assembly file? Is there a work around in SW or
am I to export it to say Lightwave or 3DS and start in that direction?

T.I.A.

 

Good question. Why!?

In Rhino and LightWave and most likely 3DSMAX, you can have unlimited
light sources.

More subscription $ and next release promises.... = more revenue!!

...

 

I was told at SolidWorks World (when I asked this question) that the light
limit is directly related to an open GL limitation. Sounded like a round
about answer to me.

 

Yep, forgot about OpenGL being limited to showing only 8 light sources
"at once", so that answers Arthurs question.

But, why does SW limit themselves to only 8 lights sources?

...

 

Because!!! OpenGL sounds cool. ;^)

Corey

 

Yes, SWX should change to Phigs! Phigs Rulez!!!!!!

 

So tell em again why we are using open GL, and not what some of those
other programs are using to get more than 8 lights? I mean I am sure
that SW must have a good reason for going that route

 

Brain,

Don't think it's ported to windows. In fact, the last time I even used a
system with Phigs was in 1994. It was an RS6000 running AIX (yuk). I
remember installing Gra-Phigs on these IBM boxes, took up allot of disk
space.

Does anyone even use it anymore ???

Mark

 

the PHIGS standard was never updated to include texture mapping among
other modern features that it is missing. I belive its been replaced
with the equally worthless PEX on most X servers. GL is used because
it runs on everything now, *NIX, win32, macintrash, etc...


-=BAHR=-

 

-PREEMPTIVE RESPONSE-

I do realize PEX is actualy short for (P)HIGS (E)xtension to mit-(X)
so that PHIGS is PEX, I just didnt think about it before posting

 

-PREEMPTIVE RESPONSE-

I do realize PEX is actualy short for (P)HIGS (E)xtension to mit-(X)
so that PHIGS is PEX, I just didnt think about it before posting

 

So tell em again why we are using open GL, and not what some of those

OpenGL is open API so it is not directly related to any operating system or
any hardware (graphics cards). Using OpenGL in your software is free. OS and
graphic card suppliers are free to decide whether or not to support OpenGL
API. One could say that OpenGL is a kind of agreement; if you write your
application using OpenGL, your application *should* work on most hardware
platforms. (As we SW users well know, some graphics cards do not support
OpenGL well, ie. their OpenGL implementation is poor.)

By using OpenGL it should be *lot* easier to port the application to
different operating systems (like Linux) and hardware platforms (like cell
phones ). For example, if SW would use DirectX instead, there would be
absolutely no hope for seeing SW in Linux in the future, since DirectX is
Wyndowz stuff. Now it is at least theoretically possible, yet unlikely.

-h-