Lights

MANU provides several different kinds of lights: sun, spot light, and point light. The guidelines below describe tools you could use to set up lights in your game both in Edit and Animation modes.

Light Settings in Edit Mode

The guidelines below describe light settings available in the Edit Mode.

Sun

Sun is one of the default units of every scene in MANU. It is a light with parallel rays that will illuminate the scene with an even light. Since the sun is infinitely far away, the position of it does not matter, only its direction. Use sun lighting to brightly-lit outdoor scenes (i.e. a sunny day).

To change the parameters for a sun, select it from the Scene Panel and go to the Inspector tab. The properties to edit the sun include intensity, color, and direction for XYZ axes. The values for intensity range from 0 to 100 units, where 0 will make your scene look completely dark. The default value for intensity is 1.

Spot Light

Spot light produces light constrained to a cone-shaped beam, and has some special features. It is the only light source that can be made visible with the 'halo' option, to simulate light in fog or dark environment. In addition, it is also the only light source that can cast buffer shadows.

In MANU, the settings for spot light include color, intensity, range, angle, penumbra, and cast shadows toggle.

Similar to the sun lighting, there is an option to select the color for the spot lighting using the color picker.

The intensity values for spot lighting range from 0 to 9999. The higher the value for intensity, the brighter the color of the spot lighting.

The range defines the length of the beam. In MANU, its values can be set within 0 to 9999 units.

Spot light’s angle determines the area of the halo effect. It can be set to values that range from 0 to 180 degrees.

The penumbra is the region in which only a portion of the light source is obscured by the occluding object. In other words, the penumbra is the region where some or all of the light source is obscured. The higher the value of penumbra, the more obscured the lighting source is. In MANU, the values for this setting range from 0 to 9999.

Lastly, there is an option in the Inspector panel to toggle On or Off for the spot light to cast shadows.

Point Light

Point light is a single point light source. Useful to provide very localized light. The shadows can be sharp, or you can set its size to something nonzero to make the shadows fuzzy. Can represent light sources within the scene; e.g. if there is a lightbulb or candle or something in the scene, position one of these within it to give the impression of light coming from that object.

In MANU, the following settings are available for the point light - color, intensity, range, and cast shadow toggle.

Similar to the sun and spot lighting, there is an option to select the color for the spot lighting using the color picker pop-up.

The intensity values range from 0 to 9999. The higher the value for intensity, the brighter the color of the point light.

The range defines the area of the localized light. In MANU, its values can be set within 0 to 9999 units.

To turn ON or OFF for the point light to cast shadows, use the toggle in the Inspector panel.

Light Settings In Animation Mode

In MANU, you can animate the appearance of sun, point and spot lighting. The following properties are available to animate for both types of lighting - position, enabling, color, and intensity. In this section, we will focus on animating color and intensity.

Color

You can animate the color of any spot or point lighting in MANU using the animation timeline. It is useful for creating “blinking” or color effects for your lights in a game.

Intensity

The intensity for any spot or point lighting can be animated in the animation timeline. It may be useful for creating additional lighting effects for your game scene.