SST_1601 – Outdoor Lighting

Rendering is a fun art of using Vectorworks and in the past we have covered lighting (1502), but we covered it from the point of view of interior and architectural lighting. This manual is about exterior lighting, which suggests that we should be looking at nighttime lighting for architectural and landscape projects.
This means that we have to think about our rendering from a completely different point of view. Instead of trying to make sure that everything is visible, we’re trying to create a mood. We have to consider things like the moon, the night sky, the lights on the building, the lights inside the building, street lights, garden lights, et cetera.

We will start by looking at the different types of light sources that are appropriate for this nighttime and exterior lighting. I do not want to repeat all the information it’s already covered in the lighting manual (SST_1502), so the discussion about the types of lights will be brief. We will also be looking at lighting options such as environmental lighting, ambient lighting, and background and looking how these can be controlled with Renderworks Styles. These options are important to give your overall scene the correct tone and shadows.
We want to create a mood, so we will have to briefly cover some physics about lights, such as light falloff and the light color temperature. Then we will look at the different types of lights that you can apply to your model to create the mood that you want. Finally, we will look at bringing all of these techniques together to light a scene using a viewport.
Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Light Physics
  • Color Temperature
  • Distance Falloff
• Light Sources
  • Point Light
  • Spot Light
  • Line Light
• Lighting Options
  • Environment Lighting
  • Ambient Info
  • Ambient Occlusion
  • Emitter Brightness
• Renderworks Styles
• Use Symbols
• Image Prop Textures
• Visibility Palette
  • Lights and Cameras on the Visibility palette
  • Controlling Lights in Viewports
• Build The Scene

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