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I’ve been wondering how to make global lighting in cycles but i’m New to lighting and I have not seen this question anywhere else. I know how it’s possible in the internal engine but is it also possible in cycles.

Thanks

user61431
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1 Answers1

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The Internal (rasterizing) engine simulates even, undifferentiated lighting from a distant environment, chiefly using two settings: the Environment Lighting, and the adjust-to-taste Ambient setting of materials, setting the degree to which the environment lighting contributes to the color of a surface. Ambient Occlusion can further simulate proximity shadows. These methods are essentially informed trickery.

The Cycles (Path Tracing) renderer approximates that same lighting by actually sampling the environment, including the light scattered from other objects in the scene.. no trickery is required. In Cycles (in principle, at least), you don't set 'environmental lighting', you set the environment.

That might include giving the world an emissive color, using the 'Surface' and 'Strength' settings in the World tab, or an HDRI texture; it might involve constructing a local environment of lights, emissive and reflective surfaces as you would in a photographic studio.

Have a look at gandalf's answer here for an introduction to the differences between the renderers

Robin Betts
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    Expanding on this, hopefully without creating confusion, in cycles, in the world property tab, there are two options that effect the global light source. The first is the Surface property where you can create a surface of a particular color and strength that is effectively the global light. You can also enable Ambient Occlusion, which isn't what you really want. – Marty Fouts Nov 21 '18 at 01:08
  • @MartyFouts thanks .. that makes the answer much clearer - I've edited it to include your comment. – Robin Betts Nov 21 '18 at 08:22