Assumptions

To model any physical system, one needs to make assumptions about the system. This document should cover most of the assumptions that are used in Flares Science.

Point light source

Probably the most fundamental assumption is that the light source is a point light source, which is infinitely far away. This means that all rays of light have the same direction and only the position varies.

Because of this, area light sources are not supported natively in Flares Science. They can however be simulated by rendering multiple times with slightly different positions or approximated with a blur on the output.

Black body light source

While not a fundamental part of how the rendering works, the current implementation of Flares Science assumes that the light source behaves like a black body¹.

Various others

Many other assumptions needed to be made and will be discussed in the realism subsections of the application in which they are relevant.