blender-lighting

Blender Lighting

Light scenes the way pros do: with structure, intent, and physically reasonable values.

The five light types

Type	Behavior	Use for
AREA	Light from a rectangular surface; soft shadows automatic	80% of cases. Window, softbox, fluorescent panel
SUN	Parallel rays from "infinity"	Sunlight, moonlight, distant directional
POINT	Omnidirectional from a point	Bulbs, candles, small omnis
SPOT	Cone with falloff	Stage lights, headlights, focused beams
HDRI/World	360° environment image	Realistic ambient, outdoor, product photography

Default rule: Use Area lights for almost everything except the sun. Soft shadows come for free.

Decision tree

What's the mood?
├── Studio / commercial → Three-point lighting (key+fill+rim) + HDRI fill 0.3
├── Outdoor / sunlit → Sun + HDRI sky environment
├── Indoor cinematic → Sun through window + HDRI low + practicals (lamps as Point)
├── Dramatic / noir → Single Spot at high angle, no fill
├── Stylized / cartoon → Three-point with high contrast + saturated key color
└── Unsure → Three-point with HDRI grounding (works for 90% of cases)

Reference-look handoff

If the goal is to match an original/reference image rather than make a generally attractive render, chain-load reference-look-calibration. It owns measurement of hue/saturation/value, object extent, glow/aura color, and before/after look metrics. This skill should then apply the requested material/lighting/render changes within that calibrated target.

Recipes

Helper: aim_at(light, target) — required for subject-aware lighting

Recipe 1 below positions lights at fixed world coords with hardcoded rotations. That's fine for a generic 1m subject at the world origin. For ANY other subject (small jewellery, tall sword, sprawling building), you need lights aimed at the subject. Use this helper:

from mathutils import Vector

def aim_at(light_obj, target):
    """Aim a light at a world-space target.
    target may be a Vector or a tuple/list (x, y, z) or a Blender object.
    """
    target_pos = Vector(target.location) if hasattr(target, 'location') else Vector(target)
    direction = (target_pos - light_obj.location).normalized()
    light_obj.rotation_euler = direction.to_track_quat('-Z', 'Y').to_euler()