Area Lights (mental ray Renderer)

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Area lights are a feature of the mental ray renderer. Instead of emitting light from a point source, they emit light from a broader area around the source. Area lights create soft-edged shadows. This can help improve the realism of your rendering.

Scene rendered with area light turned off

Shadows are ray-traced.

The yellow cube indicates the light's location.

Scene rendered with area light turned on, showing soft shadows

The light in this rendering is a 2D (spot) area light.

Scene rendered with a 3D (omni) area light

The light uses the default radius of 20.0.

Note: To render soft-edged shadows, shadows must be ray-traced, not shadow-mapped. See the Render Scene Dialog > Renderer panel > Shadows & Displacement rollout.

Area lights support global illumination, caustics, and other features of the mental ray renderer.

Tip: Area lights take longer to render than point lights. If you are interested in creating a quick test (or draft) rendering, you can use the Area Lights/Shadows As Points toggle to speed up your rendering. This toggle is on the Render Scene dialog > Common panel > Common Parameters rollout.