How to Create a Scene in Blender

This chapter is from the book

Learning Blender, 3rd Edition

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Learning Blender, 3rd Edition

Learn More Buy

Turning On the Lights

Now that you have materials set up, it’s time to make the scene look more realistic with some light and shadows. Lights are also compatible between EEVEE and Cycles, even though some of their options are different. For basic use, however, there shouldn’t be any problem. (Chapter 14, “Lighting, Compositing, and Rendering,” provides more information about lighting.)

Light Options

There are different types of lights with different properties, but there are two properties that all of them share and that are compatible in both EEVEE and Cycles: Color and Power. Color, as the name implies, will change the color of the light, and Power will increase or decrease its intensity (it’s measured in Watts).

To access the light properties, select a light in your scene, and the Object Data tab of the Properties Editor should change into a teal light bulb. From that tab, you will find options to change the light type and its properties.

Remember that using EEVEE in Rendered viewport shading mode, you should be able to preview the lights’ effect on your scene as you adjust them.

Adding Lights to Your Scene

Follow these steps to create a basic lighting scheme for your scene (and remember that you can access the menu for adding new objects to the scene by pressing Shift+A):

1. Select the light in your scene (or create a new one if you don’t have a light yet).

2. Duplicate the light, and place it on the other side of the scene to fill the shadow areas.

3. Adjust the Color and Power of your lights so that the one on the right is brighter (this will be your main light), while the one on the left is dimmer and a different color (this will act as a fill light, to prevent the area in the shadow from being completely dark).