PhotoWorks lights- c photon, g photon

While looking into new junk in PWx 2005, there are new settings for the
lights that reportedly interact with global illumination. The most
mysterious are G Photon and C Photon.
I could not find any mention in a search of the the help about what they
mean (the only suggestion is to fiddle with them along with other settings
until you get the rendering you want!!... insert profane editoral comment
here)
A google search of those terms came up pretty empty (I figure that 'C
Photon', the band out of Sarejevo, is not what they were refering to).
Searches of 'C photon light' and 'C photon rendering' also did not seem to
deliver any enlightenment, though I admit I did not spend more than ten
mintues looking at the results and I suppose I could have missed soemthing

Anyone got any ideas before we (again!) have to go into rigourous controlled
tests to reverse engineer the software to see what its suppsoed to do?

Thanks,
Ed

 

Maybe a silly notion, but what about directing that thought to your VAR, who
should pass it along to SW, or go there directly. There might just be some
help from that direction....

WT

 

You might want to contact the folks at http://www.lightwork.com abo G
Photon and C Photons.

I understand PhotoWorks is run off their engine.


FYI.
I contacted them a while back, asking them when Lightwork images(.lwi)
will be usable in Photoworks and they told me sometime in the future.

 

I had a play around a little while back with these (way back when I had
spare time), and I believe the C Photons are used when the Caustic
Illumination is activated, and G Photons are used when Global
Illumination is activated (all activated thru the Rendering Options).
By increasing the number, the effects got more detailed, if I recall
correctly. Can't tell you much more than that, though.

Been a while since I used them - we're still running SW04 here and I
was trying to evaluate the new SW05 features.

A.

 

SWx2005, edit a light.
There is a button at the top for PhtoWorks properties for the light (I jsut
found out you have to activate the Pwx add-in to see the button - I end up
turning off PWx when I don't need it because the materials are searched for
when opening SWx parts even if you aren't thinking about doing a render -
can bog things down, especiallyu if a material can't be found)

Oops... the C-photon and G-spot options aren't there! Jeesh, what is wrong
with just graying them out or collapsing the group box???

It turns out you have to click the 'hand of god' icon (our company nickname
for the options dialog icon) then turn on global illumination or caustics
first under the illumination tab in order to see the light options!!! Now
you can go back to the light and see the options.

I like Adams theory that G photons are for global illumination, and C
photons are for caustics. If his theory is correct, it seems weird that you
cannot see the dialog unless you have one or the other active, but you get
BOTH photon options if you have only one active.

 

Yup, they are exactly as Adam said. This is a huge help - you saved me
from blowing a lot of time adjusting C when I am messing with global
illumination and vice versa.
Thanks,
Ed

 

No problems.

I can't wait for us to upgrade to 05 so I can play around with it more.
These are the sort of controls I've been wanting for a while. Now I can
finally make metal detectors look good. ;-)

A.