# Blender 3D: Noob to Pro/Lighting Suzanne: Introductory one lamp lighting

|previous=Pipe joints|Pipe joints
}}
```
# Lighting Suzanne: Introductory one lamp lighting

If you have followed all these tutorials you now have quite a library of
images: A simple figure with a hat, a penguin, a volcano, a jeep and
several goblets, not to mention dice, a head and a house! To show them
off to best effect, you need to experiment with lighting.

**Lighting** is a complex subject, as any photographer can tell you.
Blender allows many different arrangements and numbers of lamps to be
used in combination to light your image. For this introductory tutorial,
let us consider single lamp lighting and do some experiments to see how
it works. (In later sections more complicated lighting is covered:
Lighting
Rigs.)

\_\_TOC\_\_

## Suzanne, Our Star

We need an object to light. Who better than Blender\'s favorite resident
simian, Suzanne! Open the default startup page. Delete
 the default cube. Be sure the 3D
cursor is at the origin. Add a plane. *Add\>Mesh\>Plane*, scale it up
nice and large
,
and in the Properties panel (which by default is the lower right panel)
add a material
![](Blender255MaterialContextButton.png "Blender255MaterialContextButton.png")
color such as light blue that will render well. In that same panel be
sure that under SHADOW the Receive box is checked.

Now Add Suzanne, the famous monkey. *Add\>Mesh\>Monkey*. Move her up
about 1.5 Blender units so she is above the plane but close to it.
.
Rotate her around the Z axis so she is facing the Right View.
.
Add a material
![](_Blender255MaterialContextButton.png "_Blender255MaterialContextButton.png")
color such as red (red is my favorite color).

## The default light

!300 px\|Default Quad
view!300 px\|First
Render Now lets change to
the Quad view, which you should refer to extensively throughout this
tutorial. Press

to bring up this view. You now have the TOP, FRONT and RIGHT ORTHO
views. In the top right you will see your camera view. Suzanne should be
seen in 3/4 profile just above the plane. If not, rotate and scroll in
or out until she is. Then I suggest you bring up the object panel
, scroll down to View and put a check
next to Lock Camera To View.

In the outline panel, select Lamp. You will see the default lamp
position. In Ortho Quad view, we can see that the default lamp is up, in
front of and slightly to the right of Suzanne as she now faces. If you
don\'t see it, scroll out in each view window until the lamp shows up as
a point with a double dashed circle around it.

When your screen looks like the screenshot, render for the first time to
get a good image of Suzanne and her shadow.

## Types of lamps

Lamp should still be selected in the Outline panel. In the Properties
panel, click the
![](Blender-2.5_lamp_radio_button.png "Blender-2.5_lamp_radio_button.png")
button to see the properties of the light. The default lamp is a POINT
lamp with ENERGY 1.000. Let\'s experiment with those settings. First,
click in turn each of the different kinds of lamp, SUN, SPOT, HEMI and
AREA, and render after each one. You can see that each of the light
types has its own characteristics. With the light in the default
position, your images should look like this:

!800 px\|Comparison of light
types.

### Point lamp

This is the default type. The light rays are assumed to originate in a
single point and spread from there. At the default value of ENERGY 1.000
is not very bright and covers a limited area. It casts a good sharp
shadow. Point is the basic general purpose lighting in Blender. Advanced
lighting rigs will frequently use several point lights with different
settings.

### Sun

The sun is assumed to be infinitely high in the sky so its rays are all
parallel. It puts out a bright light and casts heavy shadows. It is the
lighting type of choice for outdoor scenes but can also be used to good
effect indoor.

### Spot

The Spot lamp behaves very much like a theatrical spotlight (DUH). It
casts a limited circle of light. Within the circle it is bright and
casts a heavy shadow, but outside the circle all is dark. (Note: Under
the Shadow setting, the Spot lamp is the only one that can cast a Buffer
shadow. The distinction is subtle but important in some more advanced
applications.)

### Hemi

The Hemi lamp resembles lights photographers choose for indoor shots. It
is the only kind of light that does not cast shadows. It gives a very
bright lighting that is relatively even over the entire picture.

### Area

This light behaves more like a flood light, as if the area is flooded
with it. It is extremely bright and casts a very heavy shadow.

## Light Energy

Each type of light has its own brightness. This is controlled mostly by
the ENERGY setting of the light. Obviously less energy reduces the
amount of light, more energy increases it. Still in the Properties
panel, try different settings for ENERGY and see how it affects the
image.

Begin with energy increased to 2.000. Render each type of lamp. We can
see that reacts differently to the energy settings. Area is almost too
bright at Energy 2.000, while Point and Spot are just reaching nice
bright levels. Sun is \... Sun. Remember that it is infinitely far away
and its rays are parallel. Little changes with the Sun. Now reduce
energy to 0.300 and render each type of lamp. Point and spot at these
settings are way too dim, while Area becomes a very useable setting.

!800 px\|Lighting varying energy
settings

## Distance and Height

The distance of the lamp also affects brightness and its position
affects several things, particularly including the shadows. In the quad
view, grab the default lamp and raise it up quite high, say to Z=25. The
light falls off with distance, so point becomes very dark. The spot area
increases with distance so the circle in the spot example is now quite
large. The Sun \... well, the sun was infinitely far away already,
remember? The shadow cast by the sun does not change, and hemi still
casts no shadow. But the shadow cast by the other three lights moves
considerably and is now almost directly under Suzanne.

Lower the lamp to Z=3, placing it almost directly at a level with the
subject. Both the distance and the angle of light change. The brightness
increases, the size of the spot circle shrinks, and now the shadow is
long and far behind the subject, except, of course, for the Sun which
remains infinitely far away and casts parallel rays.

!800 px\|Effects of height on
lighting

## Rotation

!400 px\|Effects of Rotation on
lighting

The last setting we will consider in this lesson is Rotation. The Point
light cannot be rotated since it is equal in all directions. Each of the
others reacts differently to being rotated.

The Sun finally shows a different effect when rotated. I am not sure how
Blender interprets the difference between location and rotation for the
Sun. It seems rather counter intuitive. The sun when rotated seems to me
to behave as if it has been moved. But in any case you can see that the
shadow and the lighting show a distinct difference.

The Spot behaves very much like a real spotlight. Its circle of light
moves with the rotation and frames whatever it is pointed at.

The Hemi lamp also finally shows a bit of difference. Even pointing it
entirely way from the subject still lets light leak through it and give
that same shadowless flat lighting.

The Area lamp has its characteristic brightness over a large field, and
then suddenly cuts off in to total blackness. The contrast is very
striking.

## Experiment!

You can experiment with other placements of the light, and see the
effects on the illumination and the shadow. There is an almost infinite
variety of ways to light a Blender image, and this is just with a single
lamp. Multiple lamp setups increase the variety many fold as will be
seen in the Advanced portion of this tutorial.

## Note on Transparency

thumb\|left\|300 px\|Where does that shadow come
from?thumb\|right\|300
px\|Plane Shadows set to Receive
Transparency A special case of
lighting is transparent objects. What sort of a shadow do transparent
objects cast? You can try an experiment. Click on Suzanne to select her.
Now in the Material panel
![](_Blender255MaterialContextButton.png "_Blender255MaterialContextButton.png")
scroll down to Transparency and put a check in the box. Just below that
is the Alpha setting, which controls the amount of transparency, with
1.000 being fully opaque and 0.000 being completely transparent to the
point of invisibility. Lets try setting it to 0.200 for an almost glassy
effect. Render your view, and then ask yourself, why does this glassy
object still cast a thick black shadow in the render?

The answer is not in Suzanne, but in the settings for the plane which is
her background. Recall that we checked Receive under shadows for that
plane. But go back to the properties panel for the plane, and notice
that there is another check box under Shadows that says Receive
Transparent. By default, to save rendering time, Blender assumes that
all objects block light equally. Only if that box is checked does it
make a check for transparency in the object casting the shadow. Now
render your view and you will see that the shadow is suitably glassy.

Experiment with this one. Try different types of lamp (Area is so strong
that transparent objects effectively disappear) and different values for
the alpha setting. You might want to remove the color material from
Suzanne and see what effect that has.

## Note on World Lighting

It is not absolutely necessary to use any lamp source. In the World
panel
![](Blender255WorldContextButton.png "Blender255WorldContextButton.png")
you will find several lighting settings that simply produce light
throughout the scene without any particular source. Experiment with
Environment Lighting and Indirect Lighting and see the effects they
produce.

