Lights

Overview and Key Concepts

Light objects added to the model are shown in the Toolbox.

You can hide and show lights using the right-click menu in the Toolbox. Hidden lights will continue to influence the scene, but they will not be drawn as objects in the 3D view.

If the model has light objects, then those will be used instead of the default lights defined in view settings.

FlexSim's default shader can use up to 8 lights at a time. By default, shadows will be rendered for the first directional light in the scene. If the scene has more than 8 lights, then FlexSim will use the lights that are closest to the viewpoint of the view.

In RTX Mode, FlexSim can render using all of the lights in the scene, and all of the lights can cast shadows.

Properties

A light has the following properties:

Type

The type of light determines how the light affects the scene.

• Directional - Directional lights apply to each object from a single direction, like the sun. The rotation of the light affects the direction. The position and size of the light are unused.
• Point - Point lights emit from a specific point towards each object, like a lamp. The position of the light controls its origin. The rotation and size of the light are unused.
• Area - Area lights emit from a rectangular area in a specific direction. The position, rotation, and size of the light control its area of influence. In RTX Mode, the rectangular area is used directly. Out of RTX Mode, the center of the rectangle emits light in a radius influenced by the area of the rectangle.

Range

The range controls the distance that a point light influences. For an area light, this value is calculated based on the size of the light rather than directly edited. Directional lights have infinite range.

Intensity

The intensity controls the brightness of the light. The color of the light will be multiplied by the intensity value when calculating the influence of the light.

Radius

In RTX Mode, the source radius of a point light will affect the softness of shadows cast by the light. Greater values will make the shadows softer. A value of 0 will cast hard shadows.

Angle

In RTX Mode, the angular size (in degrees) of a directional light will affect the softness of shadows cast by the light. Greater values will make the shadows softer. A value of 0 will cast hard shadows.