Light Gobos and IES

Light Gobos and IES profiles are projected textures that help with breaking the perfectly uniform lighting. They are very useful tools to create more interesting and realistic images.

In the Light Properties panel, you can enable the Textures and find controls for the Scale, Position, Opacity and UV repetition of the texture.

The Gobo textures can be found in the library folder set in the Preferences. Categories are created from subfolders present in that library folder.

Important:

• Area light Gobos bluriness is affected by its Spread value.
  A value of 180 degrees will make the Gobo completely disappear. Reduce its value to make the Gobo visible and sharper. 

The IES profiles can be found in the library folder set in the Preferences. Categories are created from subfolders present in that library folder.

Included with the add-on is a collection of public domain IES profiles, shared by the Pixar Renderman team.

While it is possible to create your own IES profiles with softwares like IES Generator or Real IES, profiles can also be downloaded from manufacturer websites (e.g ARRI Lite 750) or from the free and amazing IES Library (consider supporting the creator if you can afford it).

To add new IES profiles, simply copy them into your Library folder and press the Generate Thumbnail button to get the rendered preview.

The properties at the bottom are artistic controls that break physically based rendering but are always useful:

• Controls Light visibility to Camera, Diffuse or Glossy Rays

• Enables Shadows, and Caustic Shadows

• Controls Light Decay using different curves (Quadratic being PBR) and a Falloff Smoothness parameter.