AmbientLight

AmbientLight[col]

is a three-dimensional graphics directive that specifies the uniform ambient light of color col to use in coloring 3D surfaces.

Details

  • AmbientLight is also known as natural light.
  • AmbientLight is typically used to fill areas that do not have enough illumination by casting soft light rays in every direction.
  • AmbientLight[col] yields a uniform ambient light of color col.
  • Colors of light sources col can be defined by RGBColor, Hue or any other color specification.
  • The setting for AmbientLight affects only colors associated with diffuse and specular reflection on a 3D surface.
  • Light sources with color specifications of the form {dcol,Specularity[scol]} are effectively taken to have colors dcol for purposes of diffuse reflection, and scol for purposes of specular reflection.
  • Diffuse reflection is taken to follow Lambert's law, with light effectively scattered equally in all directions from a surface.
  • Specular reflection effectively takes light to be scattered only close to the mirror‐reflection direction, as specified in the notes for Specularity.

Examples

open allclose all

Basic Examples  (2)

Ambient light on surfaces:

Style a surface in a plot:

Scope  (2)

Ambient light is uniformly applied to all the surfaces in the scene:

Ambient light gives overall lighting on the scene:

Generalizations & Extensions  (2)

Predefined colored lighting:

The colored lighting is equivalent to the following explicit setting:

Predefined neutral lighting:

The neutral lighting is equivalent to the following explicit setting:

Applications  (1)

Build a scene with multiple objects and light sources:

Animate the spotlights:

Possible Issues  (1)

The default light scheme uses several colored light sources:

Set Lighting to None to turn off the default lights:

Neat Examples  (1)

A simple light show:

Wolfram Research (2021), AmbientLight, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html.

Text

Wolfram Research (2021), AmbientLight, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html.

CMS

Wolfram Language. 2021. "AmbientLight." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (2021). AmbientLight. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2024_ambientlight, author="Wolfram Research", title="{AmbientLight}", year="2021", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html}", note=[Accessed: 25-April-2024 ]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2024_ambientlight, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={AmbientLight}, year={2021}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html}, note=[Accessed: 25-April-2024 ]}