Getting started
Importing
Design process
Light plays a big role in the overall look of the scene
The same scene can look completely different with different lighting.
Even a simple cube with basic material can look interesting if the lighting is used wisely.
Creating a beautifully lit scene requires some experience and skill. To make the process of creating a scene faster and smoother, Vectary defaults to global lighting, called Environment. You have at your disposal a library of different environment options (outdoor and studio). The environment has a number of settings: intensity, rotation of lighting, blurring in reflections, and others.
The second way to illuminate a scene is with local light sources. To better see how they work, turn off the global lights and add local lights.
It is also possible to combine both. There is no unique recipe, it all depends on the effect you are trying to reach.
What is the Environment?
Environment = Global illumination.
The image below is an example of an HDRI-map. Below you see just a png cover, But in order for such a map to work should be in .hdr format. The HDRI map is usually intended to be imported into 3D software to shape the Environment (global illumination).
In the image, there are areas with lights that will provide illumination to the scene. Such lighting can be adjusted in various ways or turned off altogether.
<aside> 💡 Note that Environment and Background are not the same things. The Background is visible, and the Environment is a global illumination that works regardless of the selected background and its settings.
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Vectary has its own Environment Library, which has two kinds of environments: studio and outdoor.
You can also import your own image in .hdr .exr format.
<aside> 🔥 Check out https://polyhaven.com/hdris with a lot of free resources.
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<aside> 💡 Different environments can dramatically change the appearance of your objects and the scene as a whole. We encourage you to try different environments and change the settings. If you don't have enough environments in the Vectary library, you can find many other maps of them on the web.
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Each Environment has the following adjustments for you to fine-tune as needed:
There are four kinds of light sources at your disposal. There are different schemes of studio lighting arrangements (you can easily find them on the web). These schemes will help you understand the general principles.
It is easy to control local light sources in Vectary Studio. Take a look:
Point Light — light spreads equally in all directions, as from a normal incandescent lamp.
Spot Light — light is emitted in the form of a cone from a single point. You can adjust the size of the spot and its softness.
Directional Light — light is emitted from a source that is infinitely far away. That is, you cannot bring the source itself closer or farther away, but you can control the direction of the light. All the shadows cast by this light source will be parallel, ideal for simulating sunlight.
Angle — directional lighting is determined by the angle formed between the light's position and the coordinate system's origin. The direction of the light is established by the line connecting these two points. ****Changing the angle value is particularly noticeable in reflections on glossy objects; the light source appears to become larger or smaller.