When I want to have more then 8 light sources I get the message in the console "the maximum supported lights is 8".

jit.gl.light reference says: "Multiple jit.gl.light objects can be added to a scene, up to a maximum that is specific to your graphics card. "

jit.gl.light wiki says: "You can use up to 8 lights in a scene at a time."

Which is right? I assume it is the second one so the limitation comes from Max and not from my graphic card? If so, could you PLEASE change that to some larger number, this is really limiting... I can't even make a christmas tree with 8 lights :)

feature-request-light-sources-not-limited-to-8

Create a shape like a sphere.
Use jit.material with emissive texture.
Use jit.gl.multiple for lots of copies.
Not true lights but it'll come close.


Thanks Andro but I need real lights. Christmas tree was a joke:) I am doing some AV composition where I want that tiny dim lights (like firefly) fly around and through a 3D object and slowly reveal the shape that is initially hidden in the darkness. I needed 13 lights because these lights also create sound but I had to strip down the audio tracks/layers to 8....which is a really annoying limitation to be honest.

I have no idea if this would work, but to get around the max limitation you might be able to make a standalone that does 8 lights and then a second patch that receives the rendering from the standalone via siphon and renders the other lights on top ....

I have no idea if this would work,  but to get around the max limitation you might be able to make a standalone that does 8 lights and then a second patch that receives the rendering from the standalone via siphon and renders the other lights on top ....


Is there a way to have more than 8 spotlights 8 years later?

I think it is still a limitation related to jit.gl.material's internal shader.

When dealing with complex lighting, maybe a better approach would be to build an environment texture and use it with the new jit.gl.pbr material shader instead...

perhaps it’s time to raise limitations- new technology can handle it and although I don’t know a lot about coding Max objects   I’m sure it’s just a matter changing some numbers to raise the bar. Just make 8 light limit 17 or 19 (some random prime number that not many folks use anyway) 

I’ll take a look at material shaders but I think they emit light from the object rather light being projected onto the object.

In case you haven't seen, we have an example patch that shows rendering with arbitrary number of point lights by utilizing texture buffers that you could base something off of. Check out 

Extras -> glcore Examples -> Point Lights

Would be fairly trivial to adapt the shader to use spot lights instead of point. I can offer some suggestions of how to do that if interested.

But I agree the 8 light limit is a bummer. We'll think about solutions. 

I  have less than 8 spot lights with very detailed shadows. The disco lights work perfectly for what I already was doing with a separate lighting scheme.

[Feature Request] light sources not limited to 8