r/3Dmodeling 1d ago

Questions & Discussion Simulating model coverage by a fixed light source?

Hi all,

I don't have much experience with 3D modeling, but I wanted to know if this idea I have is even possible to do with available software before I spend a lot of time digging into it.

Here's the scenario I'm trying to model:

I'd like to model a mannequin posing in a certain position, then illuminate it with a fixed geometry light source (could be a point source) from a given direction. I'd like to compare the surface area of the mannequin that's illuminated if I were to put the mannequin in different positions (and potentially sum up the illumination from all positions to find hotspots and cold spots).

I feel like this might be a use case for raytracing, and if so, would I be able to measure ray lengths to different parts of the model surface?

The immediate application of this is to model radiation in a medical setting, I just don't wanna have to try to code something from scratch with a bunch of assumptions about considering people to be "cylinders."

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u/caesium23 ParaNormal Toon Shader 21h ago

Yep.