Is there an estimate time when this option will be available. I am in urgent need of rectangular plan lights (rhino plug in) for office corporate interiors.
Thanks!
Hi @palitoloco
rectangular area lights will be included in the v2.1 release of Enscape, which will arrive in the next couple of weeks! However if youâd like to have a look at the upcoming features of 2.1 already, youâre welcome to try our preview version. This already contains all of the upcoming features, including area lights. You can find a link to the preview version at the bottom of the download page. 
@Clemens_Musterle Maybe some improvement are possible. For example if the size is 80 cm, than I get a shadow, but if the size is 150 cm, than not. Some times I get a half shadow. Also the shadow looks sharp like from a point light.
Yes, weâre aware of the shadowing issue with high intensity lights. Itâs actually not completely gone, but the bias (which is required to reduce artifacts in real-time graphics) is too big at the moment, which leads to shadows âhoveringâ a few centimeters from the shadow caster. Weâll definitely improve that in future versions. In the meantime one workaround would be to reduce the intensity until the shadows look ok again.
Thank you for the workaround. Soft shadows isnât so easy, right?
Just to tag on to this: we were hoping to use large Revit families with planar lights to quickly and evenly light up small closed spaces that donât have there real lighting (yet) ). Bathrooms are a great example. Itâs a trick we used to do in Vray a LOT.
Right now the really large planes in Enscape cast shadows from one spot (as if it were a spotlight). I understand that corners have to be cut to get this rendering in real time so perhaps what weâre hoping for is not possible with todays hardware.
Actually, the new build that was released today opens up a new workaround for the planar light issue.
We can now darken the diffuse maps by using the âbrightnessâ slider in Revit. That means that we can give the ceiling a âself illuminationâ value and then compensate by making the texture darker!
Quick and easy!
I rendered a large space and needed to fill it with light, same situation like at your bath, only large. For Enscape it works finde to use place point/spot light arrays. You get quite soft shadows. Also you can try to place the light a little bit in the ceiling geometry for some extra effects.
@Micha What light settings do you use in that case? Just simple point lights or spots/ies? Do you switch the daylight time to night when you do this?
I use simple spots and point lights. Right, I set a night time because the sun added unwanted light at the closed interior.
I remember me now that finally I wasnât complete happy, the space wasnât right filled with light and I found it helps to set the render quality at âmediumâ. So, I got some subtle light from the skybox HDRI into the closed space. Iâm not sure the current rendering quality slider is a good tool. I wished I had more detailed control over different aspects of quality - GI quality, bounces, reflections, noise, ⌠. But with the âmediumâ trick I got a good basic lighting and the spot/point lights added some brilliance to specific areas.
Maybe a knowledge forum section? If a thread looks informative, than moderator could move a thread to this section. User could write there, but not start new threads (I know it form the VfR tutorial section, people doesnât understand to post tutorials, only asked for tuts there.)
We have a knowledge base on our webpage. All kinds of documentation will be added there.
@Thomas_Willberger At some threads cfg file parameters are explained. Could it be possible to get a collection of this available parameters? Or is it planed to keep the knowledge not so much in the focus of the users? I think, this parameters are very important for advanced users to get the best quality output.
For example the far clipping plane parameter.
A further wish - could it be possible that all user set parameters are collected in one file instead in Pre/Post/UserPost? And could the parameter be kept during a new version install?
@Clemens_Musterle Do you mean the shadow bug will be fixed soon? The current area lights canât be used, turn the intensity down doesnât work, since the light is needed.
Please donât oversee the last post.
@Clemens_Musterle Additional I tested the area light of Rhino today - still no shadows also at lowest visible intensity. (I set the skybox at lowest value and the camera brightness at strongest high - see attached image, no shadow.)
As mentioned above, weâre aware of the shadow bias issue for high intensities and have it on our development agenda.
However I just had another look at a similar scene and noticed we seem to have a Rhino specific bug regarding the exported area lightâs dimensions, which may result in the shading issues youâve reported. Weâll look into this asap.
Thanks, I wasnât sure that you understand me right that I miss the shadow and no workaround helps, also not your suggestion. Good luck for fixing.
@Clemens_Musterle I found a trace for the missing area light shadows issue - I changed the scene units from centimeters to meters and Rhino scaled the scene numerical down â the shadow is working! 
I hope it can be fixed now.
Attached the same scene in centimeters and meters.
Could it be possible to get softer shadows? The size of the area light is approx. 1qm.
Yes, weâve found out that thereâs a missing unit conversion for the lights depending on the projectâs settings. Weâve already fixed that (so itâll be released with the next preview version and possibly in a hotfix for 2.1) But thanks anyway for your ongoing testing efforts!
Smoother shadows are difficult with regular realtime techniques (which only evaluate visibility from a single point) - because it will inevitably result in more bias/leaking issues. One workaround if you really want to polish a certain scene could be to âpatchâ multiple smaller area lights closely together - this will then result in e.g. 4âŚn overlapping shadows and should therefore simulate the area light effect better for shadows. Thatâs of couse nothing Iâd recommend for larger scenes, as the performance impact of lots of overlapping lights is significant!