You can set this value to 0% if you want to eliminate Specular shading produced by the light, allowing the creation of a "Diffuse only" light source.Īffect Caustic: Caustics are the refraction or reflection of light, either through a transparent object or off of a reflective object and projected onto a surface. This percentage value provides the ability to control how much the light contributes to any Specular shading within a scene on a per light basis. Specular is meant to simulate the reflection of a bright light source upon a surface and is calculated as an angle vector between the camera and the light source itself.
You can set this value to 0% if you want to disable the Diffuse shading, allowing the creation of a "Specular only" light source.Īffect Specular: The specular lighting is light that is dependant on the viewers position and angle. This percentage value provides the ability to control how much the lights illumination contributes to the overall Diffuse shading within a scene on a per light basis. In simpler terms, this is the normal shading users see over a surface. Light that behaves this way is described as being isotropic. Some consider it good practice to tint the shadow with a complementary color to that used for the Light 'Color' setting.Īffect Diffuse: The diffuse lighting is the light illuminating a surface that is only affected by position and angle of the light source, but is unaffected by the viewers position or angle. In most cases this color is left as black, producing the 'absense-of-light' shadows we are all used to seeing, but other times, there can be creative reasons to modify the shadow color to either simulate a specific phenomenon, or simply for artistic affect. Shadow Color: This setting will tint the shadows produced by the associated light. Also, when simulating outdoor lighting, setting a lights color to cooler values such as blue-ish tones tends to simulate mid to late day-time lighting where as warmer colors such as yellow or orange-tones will be more like evening-time. Our brains are used to seeing pure white lights, but often times, there are many reasons to change the color for artistic affect. If only one material is associated with your light, this will also dim the light itself.Ĭolor: The color control uses the standard MODO color component of three RGB values and allows direct control over the color of light emitted. Opacity: Changes the transparency of the current material layer. For more on blending, please reference the ' Blend Modes' page of the documentation. Invert: Inverts the RGB values for the lights material layer.īlend Mode: Affects blending between material layers applied to the light allowing the user to stack several layers for different effects.
If there is only one material attributed to the light, this will disable/enable the light itself. More on Light Effects can be found in the ' Lights Effect' page of the documentation.Įnable: Toggles the layer on and off.
Additional settings related to the various light items can be found within the Light Items properties.Īlso, keep in mind that since lights are shader tree items, they can have additional shader tree item layers added to them images can be added to produce 'slide projector' types of effects (by adjusting the settings of the Texture Locator), and by RMB-clicking on the items effect column, different options can be selected producing a variety of different and interesting effects. All lights have a set of default values that can be easily modified, providing an intuitive and flexible method for customizing a lights effect. Selecting the item will display its properties within the Properties viewport. The Light Material item can be found by LMB-clicking the small arrow widget next to the Light Items name to reveal/hide the material item. While Light items are located within the Item List, the Light Material item is located inside the Shader Tree outside of the camera which has no material settings, Lights are the only items the have a dual identity in MODO existing in both places.
Lights derive settings for their illumination color, shadow color and how much they contribute to Diffuse and Specular shading from the Light Material item, as well as their volumetric settings as appropriate to the light.