In most cases, you’re going to use more than one single distant light in your 3D scenes. This section shows you how to add lights. Follow these simple steps to add lights to LightWave Layout to get a feel for how they work. And remember, unless you are working with Auto Key enabled, you’ll need to create a keyframe to lock your lights into position after they’re moved, just like objects.
Exercise 4.1 Adding Lights to Layout
1. Open Layout or select Clear Scene from the File drop-down menu. This sets Layout to its default of one distant light.
2. Make sure you are in Perspective view so that you have a full view of Layout. On the Items tab, under the Add category, select Lights, and then select Spotlight to add a spotlight to the scene. Figure 4.2 shows the menus.
You can choose to add any type of light you want.
3. Before the light is added to Layout, a Light Name panel appears (Figure 4.3).
Figure 4.3 After a light is added, the Light Name panel appears, enabling you to set a specific name for your light.
4. Type in the name you want to give the new spotlight, such as the name of your favorite ex-boss.
Figure 4.2
You can add lights directly in Layout under the Items tab.
Note
You don’t have to change the name of a new light. Instead,you can accept LightWave’s default light name by clicking OK when the Light Name panel appears. By default, LightWave names new lights Light (1), Light (2), Light (3), and so on.
Layout places the new light at your scene’s origin point (the 0 coordinate shared by the X-, Y-, and Z-axes) (Figure 4.4).
Figure 4.4 Layout places newly added lights at the origin point, aiming toward the back of the scene down the positive Z-axis.
Clone Lights
Besides adding lights, you can clone lights. Cloning a light creates an exact duplicate of a selected light. This includes the light’s color, intensity, position, rotation, and so on. Any parameter you’ve set will be cloned. Cloning lights is just as easy as adding lights, but often good to do after you’re sure of your existing light’s settings. You don’t want to clone a light 20 times, only to realize that you forgot to change the color! You’d need to make changes to 20 lights. However, should you have to make changes to many lights at once, you can quickly select the lights to change in the Scene Editor. Figure 4.5 shows two lights in the Scene Editor selected at once.
Figure 4.5 If you have one light, two, or twenty, you can use the Scene Editor to edit variables for those lights all at once.
Note
With LightWave 8, you can multiselect lights directly in Layout. Just hold down the Shift key and select them.Then, rotate, move, and so on.
To clone a light, first select the light to be cloned in Layout, and then select the Clone button under the Items tab in the Add category. Enter the number of clones (copies) of the light you want in the pop-up panel, and click OK or press Enter. Shazaam! The selected light is cloned. You know what else? This operation works the same for cloning objects or cameras. Figure 4.6 shows the command.
Figure 4.6 You can clone lights (or any other item) directly in Layout from the Items tab.
Mirror Lights
You know what’s cool? Mirroring your light! Let’s say you move the light to a specific position. Use the Mirror button in the Add category on the Items tab. Select a light (or other item in Layout) and click the Mirror button in the Item tab’s Add tool category. Choose the axis to mirror across, and go! Figure 4.7 shows the operation.
Figure 4.7 In addition to cloning lights, you can mirror them.
You can also choose to mirror around an object’s keyframes or at frame 0. Mirroring at frame 0 is important for more complex setups such as bone rigs for characters.
Ambient Light and Ambient Color
Did you know that the light around you is either direct or ambient? Direct light comes predominantly from a light source. Ambient light has no specific source or direction, such as the light underneath your desk or behind a door.
Back in the Light Properties panel, you can set the intensity of your ambient light. To open it, click the Lights button at the bottom of the interface and then press p or click the Properties button. The Ambient Controls are at the top of the panel. A typical Ambient Light setting is around 5%, which is LightWave’s default value. In some cases, it is better to lower the value, sometimes to 0%, and use additional lights for more control over your scenes ambient. Don’t rely on ambient light to brighten your scene. Instead, use more lights to make areas brighter. This will create a more dramatic look, with more depth in the final render.
You also can set the color of your ambient light so that the areas not hit by light still have some color to them. Let’s say you have a single, blue light shining on an actor on a stage. Only the portions of the actor upon which the light falls directly will be lit. If you want to reveal more of the actor, or just lessen the severity of the boundary between light and shadow, you can apply an Ambient Intensity setting. Set the Ambient Color values to the same shade of blue as the light, and your shot will look accurate. Remember, ambient light hits all surfaces, not just those that are unlit by actual lights, which is why knowing about ambient intensity is important.
Lens Flares
The lens flare, often overused but needed, was introduced in LightWave v3. Lens flares are a popular addition to animated scenes, but too often when you add a light (such as a candlestick) to a scene, the light source emits but no generating source is visible. By adding a lens flare, you can create a small haze or glow around the candlelight. Other uses for lens flares are lights on a stage, sunlight, flashlights, and headlights on a car. Any time you have a light that is in view in a scene, you should add a lens flare so that the viewer understands the light has a source. Lens flares in LightWave can be viewed directly in Layout before rendering. You’ll be setting up lens flares later in this topic.
Volumetric Lights
You need to be aware of one more area when it comes to LightWave lighting before you start working through exercises. Volumetric lighting is a powerful and surprisingly fast render effect that can create beams of light. Have you ever seen how a light streaks when it shines through a window? The beam of light that emits from the light source can be replicated in LightWave with volumetrics. Volumetric settings add volume to a light source. Additionally, you can add textures to a volumetric light to create all sorts of interesting light beams.
