Lights
Five types, all sharing a colour, an intensity, a cast-shadows switch and visibility.
| Type | What it does | Also has |
|---|---|---|
ambient | lifts everything evenly; no direction, no shadows | — |
directional | parallel rays, like the sun | — |
point | radiates in all directions from a spot — a bulb, a torch | distance, decay |
spot | a cone — a lamp, a stage light | distance, decay, angle, penumbra |
hemisphere | sky colour from above, ground colour from below | ground colour |
Directional and spot lights point along the object's own forward axis — there is no target field to fill in. Want it to track something instead? Add a look-at.
A rig that works
If you are not sure where to start: one hemisphere or ambient light, plus one directional light.
The directional light gives you shape and shadows; the ambient light stops the shadow side going completely black. Tune the balance between them and most scenes look right. Add point and spot lights afterwards for the places that need drama.
Shadows are the expensive part, so switch them on for the one or two lights that matter rather than all of them.
What animates smoothly
When something changes inside a transition — a state switch with a duration, an animated step — these ease rather than jump:
| Where | What eases |
|---|---|
| Transform | position, rotation, scale |
| Material | opacity, colour, emissive colour and intensity, metalness, roughness, and the physical extras |
| Light | colour, intensity, distance, decay, cone angle, penumbra, ground colour |
| Text | font size |
| Media | video and audio volume |
Everything else switches at the end of the transition instead of easing into place. Worth knowing: chroma-key settings do not ease — they snap.
Coming from an older project
Two material kinds, Lambert and Phong, no longer exist — they belong to a lighting model this renderer does not use.
Your project still opens. Materials using them are converted to standard, with shininess
turned into the matching roughness. Their specular colour is not carried over, so a very shiny
old material is worth a second look after you open it.
Next: Resources — models, images, sounds and how objects point at them.