Week V: Lights!

--- 20th Oct ---

Welcome back!

Week 5's lecture covered the basics of lighting and shadows. These and textures are basically the key finishing points to creating realistic looking 3D goodies.

The main bits covered were usage of 'Spot Lights' (Essentially, creating a specific beam of light at a target) and 'Omni Lights' (More 'general' lights for lighting and effects), and how to edit the effects/strength/properties of each of them.

Omni lights are nice and easy. They're literally point-and-click. When clicked onto the screen, they just appear and give out light. In practise, they're better used as a 'volume' lighter... something to add overall lighting to a scene. 'Lens Effects' can also add some stylish extras to it, like glows or rings.

Spot lights are dragged into place. The first click places it, and then dragged to create the 'field' of light.

The initial thing I found was the ability to change the colour of the lights. They're set to white by default... however, the light can be changed to help influence the 'mood' of the scene. For example, a yellow light would help to make a scene more 'summery'.

Whilst I do not have any specific examples from the lecture itself, keep an eye out for lighting to appear in the assignment's work!