Software:
Blender 2.82
Adding a texture to an area light can make it produce softer and more detailed highlights and an overall more organic lighting effect.
Note:
Since an Area light in Blender isn’t rendered as an actual mesh object with UV coordinates, it’s texture coordinates are parametric (see below).
Adding a texture to an Area Light:
- In the Area Light properties click the Use Nodes button (see image A) to initiate its node graph and allow texturing it.
- In the Shader Editor view (with the light selected), drop your texture to the light’s node graph and connect it to the light’s Emission node’s Color input. (see image B)
- Create a new Input > Geometry node, and connect it’s Parametric output to the Image Texture’s Vector input. (see image B)
A. Without a texture the Area light produces a hard flat highlight:
B. With the vignette texture, the Area light now has a more subtle organic effect:
* The Emission node’s Strength was increased in this case to compensate for the lower light output with the texture.
Related posts:
