8

Workin g with Lights 1129
•A Light view p ort (page 2–1183) can be a useful
way to adjust spotlights in your scene.
Pr ocedur es
To create a light:
1.
OntheCreatepanel,clickLights.
2. Choose Standard or Photometric from the
drop-down list. Standard is the default.
3. IntheObjectTyperollout,clickthetypeof
light you want to create.
4. Click a viewport to create the light. This step
varies slightly depending on the type of light.
For example, if the lig ht has a target, you drag
and click to set the target’s location.
Lightobjectsreplacethedefaultlighting.As
soon as you create a light, the default lig hting is
turned off. If you delete all l ights in the scene,
the default lighting is restored.
5. Set the creation parameters.
Likeallobjects,lightshaveaname,acolor,and
aGeneralParametersrollout.
To create shadows, do one of the following:
• In the General Parameters rollout, make sure
On is checked in the Shadows group. Adjust
shadow parameters in the Shadow Parameters
rollout and the additional (
Shadow Map (page
2–1208), Advanced Ray-traced (page 2–1200)
,
Area Shadows, (page 2–1202) or Ray Traced
Shadows (page 2–1207)
)shadowrollouts.
• Right-click the light, and turn on Cast Shadows
in the Tools 1 (upper-left) quadrant of the quad
menu.
Turning on Cast Shadows also turns on the On
toggleintheShadowsgroupoftheGeneral
Parame ters rollout, and vice versa.
Shadows are visible only when rendered, either
inafull
rendering (page 3–1) or by ActiveShade
(page 3–17)
.
Tip: Toturnshadowsonoroffformultiple
lights, select the lights and then use the
Light
Lister (page 2–1139)
.
Youcansetanobjecttonotcastornotreceive
shadows. By default, objects do both. See
Object Propert ies (page 1–111) .
To control t he display of light objects:
• On the Display panel, on the Hide By
Category rollout, turn on Lights.
All light objects in the scene disappear, but the
lighting itself is unchanged.
Lightobjectscancastlightwhetherornot
their display is turned off. The Zoom Extents
commands are affected by whether light icons
are displayed or not. When lights are displayed,
Zoom Extents (page 3–783) and Zoom Extents
All (page 3–782)
includes the lights in the
zoom.
Tip: To control whether a light casts light in the
scene, you can use its On togg le, or you can
toggle its Renderable property on the light’s
Object Proper ties dialog (page 1–112) .
To change a light’ s para meters:
1.
Select the lig ht.
Tip: Lights can be hard to select by clicking.
Use the keyboard shortcut H to select the light
by name.
2. Open the Modify panel.
3. Change the li g ht’s parameters in the General
P arameters rollout and other rollouts available
for that light.