Two review points on the merge:
- env_pixels returned None both for an unconfigured light (no Source, no
Environment Layer) and for a failed source (a deleted layer, missing
footage, a failed decode), so a selected source that failed silently
swapped in the default studio environment — relighting and reshadowing
the scene behind the user's back. It now tells the three apart
(EnvPixels::Absent/Image/Failed): only the unconfigured light uses the
default; a failed source contributes nothing, exactly like a layer whose
source fails renders nothing. The repair the user can act on stays where
it already lives — missing footage is flagged on the item, with the
relink commands to fix it.
- The docs claimed only a uniform image casts no shadow. A non-uniform one
can be directionless too: opposing bright regions cancel, and anything
under 1% directional is rejected. agents.md, architecture.md and the
sun/dominant_direction doc comments now say an image without a
sufficiently strong dominant direction.
Tests: an unreadable Environment Layer (auto-picked), an unreadable
selected Source and a deleted one all light nothing — pixel-equal to the
unlit render, no studio default, no default-environment shadow — while an
unconfigured light still lights; two equal bright spots at opposite
azimuths cancel to no sun and no key, and tilting the balance re-emerges
pointing at the brighter spot.
The default studio environment's level-preserving mean of 1 acted like a
100% white Ambient light: with only the Environment light on, a white floor
rendered at full white (95% of the frame saturated) while its shadow core
went to pitch black — a fog over the scene, nothing like After Effects'
default. Three changes bring the look in line, CPU and GPU alike:
- The default environment is a dim studio now: a solid-angle-weighted mean
of 0.3 (and a stronger key gradient), so a white floor reads a mid gray
and the light's colour x intensity still scales the level.
- The shadow occludes only the image's directional (key) fraction of the
light — |sum of dir x radiance| / sum of radiance, computed beside the
dominant direction and carried in the scene — so the fill keeps shining
inside the shadow: an area-light shadow, partial like After Effects'
(a lone bright spot on black still shadows almost fully; a uniform image
not at all).
- The environment shadow map's penumbra has a floor — eight output pixels,
or four map texels where those are coarser — because the map covers the
whole scene bounding sphere rather than the view, and its texels would
otherwise stair-step the edge (all the more in a draft render's flat 512
budget). Shadow Diffusion widens it further, as before.
Tests: the key fraction tracks directionality; the default keeps its dim
level, its direction and its key; the default and a bright key both shadow
the floor (the default partial, the key deep) with Cast Shadows off lit
everywhere; and the full look — a mid-gray lit floor (no fog), a partial
core, and a soft edge ramp in quality and draft renders alike.
Z User
aiongg
Minher0
skylar taylor-barrick
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