Lighting Style Dialog Reference

Creates and edits model environment Lighting Styles and individual lights within styles.

What's New: 2024

When you modify lighting style settings, the lighting style is copied into the document and all changes are maintained locally in the document. If the modifications need to be shared with other Inventor users, the lighting style should be saved to the library, overwriting the existing style, or renamed and then saved to the library as a new style.

Access

Click View tab Appearance panel Lighting Style list Settings (at the bottom).

Click Manage tab Styles and Standards panel Styles Editor and expand the Lighting node if needed.

Expand the lighting folder and display the lighting styles. Select a lighting style and modify the parameters to suit your needs. Environment lighting styles can include directional lights. Directional lighting styles do not contain an environment source.

Environment dialog tab

Display Scene Image

Sets the environment image to display as the background image.

Note: The model location of the environment image is based on the ground plane. Use Ground Plane Settings to modify the image location in relation to the model.

Note: Specific hardware requirements must be met to display the source image as the background.

Upload Image

Opens the image source dialog where you can browse to and select a preferred high dynamic range (hdr) image for use in lighting the scene. Custom images are automatically copied to the Environment folder.

Note: Images are stored and retrieved according to the Application Options File Environment folder path.

Exposure

Increases or decreases the light source brightness in the scene.

Rotation

Adjusts the orientation of the environment around the model.

Scale

Sets the scale factor for the image and 3D background geometry.

Lighting dialog tab

Use up to 4 lights in a style.

Light#

Edits properties of the selected light.

• Color - Click the color pad to change the color of the light source.
• Brightness - Use the slider to increase or decrease the intensity of the selected light source.
• Relative Movement
  • Camera based - associates the selected light with the view camera. The behavior is like walking around in a room while using a video camera with its light on.
  • ViewCube based - associates the selected light with the ViewCube. The scene provides the lighting and the lights do not move with the camera. When the ViewCube is redefined, the lighting direction is updated to represent the new position.
  Tip: The Camera based and ViewCube based options enable you to mix the two settings within a single lighting style.
• 
  • Azimuth, called Longitude in Inventor Studio, sets the light position by revolving light around the vertical axis.
  • Altitude, called Latitude in Inventor Studio, sets the light position by revolving the light around the horizontal axis.

All Lights (Directional only)

Settings affecting all directional lights in the style. The values are applied equally for each light.

• Brightness

  Sets the intensity of the directed light sources in the style. Use the slider to increase or decrease the intensity.

• Ambience

  Sets the level of ambient light in the scene, controlling the level of contrast between the lighted and unlighted areas of a face. Move the slider left to increase the contrast; move it right to decrease the contrast.

Shadows dialog tab

Shadow Source

Specify the shadow orientation by direction, light object, or environment light.

Ground and Object Shadows

Density controls shadow darkness. Increase the value to darken shadows.

Softness controls shadow diffusion or how well defined the shadows are. Higher numbers increase softness. Sharp shadows, like under a lamp or sunlight, increase with lower numbers.

Ambient Shadows

Controls the amount of shadows in corners and cavities. Used to visually enhance the transition of shape changes.

Import

You can import lighting styles using the option button at the bottom of the list pane. The lighting style is appended to the list of local styles in the document. To add the local style to the library, right-click the style and select Save to Style Library

Context menu commands

• Active - sets the selected style to the active scene lighting style.
• New Style - creates a new lighting style based on the lighting style used to access the command.
• Rename Style... - places the style name in edit mode so you can rename it.
• Purge Style - removes the selected, non-used lighting style from the document.
• Purge Style and Sub-Styles - disabled for lighting styles.
• Export... - saves the selected lighting style in .styxml format. Only one style is saved at a time.
• Update Style - apply recent changes in the library style to the document version of the style.
• Save in Document - saves the selected style in the document.
• Save to Style Library - saves selected style in style library.