Important: The UI has been moved from the 3D Viewport to the Light Data properties!

Quick introduction to using Natural Lighting:

Instructions for Blender 3.0 or above. For Blender 2.93 see the FAQ

Setting up the asset library

Unpack the provided zip file somewhere in your system

Go into the Blender Preferences and into the File Paths section

Click on the + icon to add an asset library

Navigate into your extracted Natural Lighting folder and click on Add Asset Library

Important: Do not click on the Sources directory. The path should end in \Natural Lighting\ and not in \Sources\

Make sure your new asset library is correctly named

Allowing Python Execution

It is recommended to allow automatic python execution in order for the asset UI to load automatically after dropping an asset into your scene. This setting can be found under the Save & Load preferences.

Usage

Open up an Asset Browser window

Switch to the Natural Lighting asset to be presented with the full list of Natural Lights!

Drag one of the assets into your scene and position the lamp as required.

Go to the Natural Lighting tab in the Light Data Properties to access the lighting interface!

Feature overview

Note: Some Natural Lights have slightly different functionality and interface.

Light

The main lighting controls are here:

Power

The energy of the lamp in Watts

Spot Size

The angle of the spot size

Border Softness

The softness of the edge of the spot lamp

Temperature

The color of the main light in Kelvin based on black body radiation. You may be familiar with this type of measurements when buying a light bulb at the hardware store. For example 2500K will emit a warm yellow light, 6000K will emit a white light compared to daylight at noon, and 1200K will emit a cool blue light.

Tint

Allows to colorize the light with a simple RGB color picker.

Cast Shadows

Controls for the cast shadow effect are here:

Strength

The strength of the cast shadow pattern. A strength of 0.0 will completely turn the shadow effect off and look as a regular light in Blender. A strength lower than 1.0 will make the shadow effect more subtle.

Softness

The softness of the cast shadow pattern. The higher the softness the more blurred out the shadows will be, the lower the softness the sharper the shadows will be.

Rotate

A convenient control to easily rotate the shadow effect without having to manually rotate the lamp.

Scale

Allows to zoom in the shadow pattern in order to make it bigger.

Offset

Allows to shift the shadow pattern to find the pattern area that best suits your needs

Hue

Shifts the hue of the shadow, for example allowing to turn a green tinted shadow into a red tinted shadow.

Saturation

A saturation of 0.0 will give a completely gray shadow, a higher saturation will tint the shadow with the original colors, for example to simulate the effect of translucency in foliage.

Brightness

Controls the shadow brightness. Less bright shadows will be darker and full, while higher brightness values will make for lighter, subtle and softer details.

Contrast

Controls the shadow contrast. Less contrasted shadows will be more subtle and smooth, while higher contrast values will step between fully lit and fully shadowed areas quite sharply.

Warm Edge

The warm edge light adds a soft warm glow, mostly visible at the edges of the shadows. The warm edge controls are:

Strength

A factor of the main light's power. a Strength of 0.0 means no warm edge effect, a strength of 0.5 means half of the power of the main light and a strength of 1.0 means the same power of the main light.

Temperature

Usually the temperature of the warm edge light should be about half of the temperature of the main light, hence the warm effect.

Softness

A factor of the main light's softness. Usually the warm edge light should be much softer than the main light, giving it it's glowy appearance.

Clip

Natural Lighting is based on movie clips that we've carefully recorded and curated to be suitable for the use of lighting.

Length

Let's you know the total available length of the clip in frames

Frame Offset

Allows your to offset the clip to select a different starting point.