Directional Light

Emit light from an infinite direction.

Method #

Add a directional light node to a scene to produce ambient directional lighting throughout. Light is emitted in a parallel direction at the normal to an infinite plane.

Directional lights only cast shadows with raytracing enabled.

All nodes connected to this node are treated as if flowing to the parent node, and inherits any transformation changes along the chain.

Parameters

Transform

These properties control the 3D transforms of the node. Transforms will generally be inherited by child nodes, although they can be ignored through the Inherit Transform Channels attributes.

Parameter	Details
Position X	Move along the local x-axis.
Position Y	Move along the local y-axis.
Position Z	Move along the local z-axis.
Rotation Heading	Rotate around the local y-axis.
Rotation Pitch	Rotate around the local x-axis.
Rotation Bank	Rotate around the local z-axis.
Scale X	Scale along the local x-axis.
Scale Y	Scale along the local y-axis.
Scale Z	Scale along the local z-axis.

Inherit Transform Channels

Toggle which transform channels should be inherited from the parent node. By default, all transforms will be inherited.

Parameter	Details
Position X	Toggle inheritance of the X Position from the parent.
Position Y	Toggle inheritance of the Y Position from the parent.
Position Z	Toggle inheritance of the Z Position from the parent.
Rotation Heading	Toggle inheritance of the Rotation Heading from the parent.
Rotation Pitch	Toggle inheritance of the Rotation Pitch from the parent.
Rotation Bank	Toggle inheritance of the Rotation Bank from the parent.
Scale X	Toggle inheritance of the X Scale from the parent.
Scale Y	Toggle inheritance of the Y Scale from the parent.
Scale Z	Toggle inheritance of the Z Scale from the parent.
World Position Only	Inherit the world position from the parent only, rotation and scale will be ignored. Overrides above properties.
Inherit Time	Toggle inheritance of time from the parent.

Attributes

These properties control the core behaviours of the node.

Parameter	Details
Colour	The colour of the light.
Brightness	How bright the light is.
Apply Specular	Control whether this light applies specular light onto objects.
Apply Diffuse	Control whether this light applies diffuse light onto objects.
Show Light Cone	Show a cone in the scene to represent the lights current position and rotation.

Shadows

These properties control shadow properties from the light.

Parameter	Details
Raytraced	This will enable raytracing in the skylight. Only works with raytracing enabled in the Root node
Raytraced Shadow Samples	How many samples will be taken per frame for raytracing. Best used with continuous refinement enabled and the Denoiser Node
Shadow Softness	Change how much softness is applied to the shadow edges.
Z Bias	Increasing Z bias will improve the accuracy of grounding objects to their shadows.
Post Filter	Apply a filter to the light map which blurs the output result, smoothing it out.

Inputs

Name	Description	Typical Input
Projection Image	Controls the direction the image is projected from, independant of the light. Only functions if an image is being projected from the light.	Video Loader
Point Cache	Use a point cache node to calculate the surrounding lighting calculations.	Point Cache
Affected Nodes	Choose which nodes are affected by the light node. by default, all are affected.	3D Object
Texture Projection Node	Controls the direction the image is projected from, independant of the light. Only functions if an image is being projected from the light.	Null
Multi-Source Controller	Deprecated feature.
Transform Modifiers	Apply the transforms of another node to this node.	Null
Target Node	Modifiy the rotations of the node to always direct the z axis towards the input.	Null
Local Transform Override	Apply the transforms of another node to this node, relative to its parent.	Null