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Shading surfaces

The Shade surfaces command adjusts the shade of colour filled surfaces according to the current lighting settings. The incidence of the light on the surface, the brightness and the level of ambient light all effect the shading.

The Shade surfaces option may be set via the Display toolbar. The Shade Surfaces option is also available in the Graphic settings dialog box.

Lighting settings​

The lighting settings are made up of:

  • The position of a point light source, in global axes.
  • The colour of a point light source.
  • The colour of ambient light.
  • The specular exponent, a measure of the shininess of the surface. (Higher values = more shiny)

Adjusting lighting settings​

The Graphics > Orientation > Shine light from here (Ctrl+Alt+H) command sets the position of the point light source to the current eye point, considering both the current direction of view and the distance of the eye point from the object point, transformed into global directions.

All lighting settings can be edited in the Lighting settings dialog box. Open the Lighting settings dialog box either by giving the Graphics > Orientation > Lighting settings menu command or from the Graphic settings dialog box.