Lighting your scenes and assets

The scene's light lights everything under it: the visualizer, your pictures and your words, like the lights on a film set. A layer's own light lights one picture, logo, shape or line of words by itself: bright on the side the light comes from, darker on the far side, with a rim, a shadow and a glow if you want them.

Both are drawn the same way in the preview and in the export, in Classic, Studio and the Video Studio, and both are saved with the project.

• Open the Classic editor
• Open the Video Studio

In Classic and Studio, open Lighting and press a ready-made light. It becomes a Lighting layer on top of your layers, so it lights everything below it; pressing another light changes it, and Remove the light takes it away.

On a Timeline, each part has its own light: pick the part, then light it. In the Video Studio, pick a part on V1 and use This part's light in the inspector.

• Studio key light: a soft key light from the top left, the far side falling gently to shadow.
• Golden hour: a low, warm sun from the left, its rays across the scene.
• Blue hour: the cool light after sunset, soft from above.
• Moonlight: a pale, cold moon from the top right over a dark night.
• Spotlight: a stage spot: a pool of light in the middle, the room dark around it.
• Candlelight: a warm, low flame that sways, the corners in darkness.
• Neon night: a magenta neon sign from the left on a dark street.
• Club lights: cyan beams from above that turn slowly across the floor.
• Sunrise rays: morning light breaking from the top in long beams.
• Overcast: flat, even daylight under clouds, the shadows faint.
• Stage wash: a rose stage wash from above.
• Film noir: a hard light from one side, the rest of the frame in deep shadow.

Every setting of a scene's light has its own slider: Light, Shadow, Comes from, Spotlight, Spot across, Spot down, Spot size, Warmth, Colour, Colour hue, Rays, Flicker and Turns. Comes from turns the light around the frame; Spotlight changes a broad light into a pool with the room dark around it, placed with Spot across and Spot down; Warmth runs from a cool blue sky to a warm lamp, and Colour gives it a coloured gel.

Rays add beams from the light, Flicker sways it like a flame, and Turns moves it slowly around the frame. Each slider has its diamond, so you can animate the light over the song, or follow the music with a binding.

In the Video Studio, Add clip, Lighting puts a light on a video track: it lights everything under it (the parts on V1 and the tracks below) while it plays, fading in and out with the clip. Trim it, move it or change it like any clip.

In Classic and Studio, open Lighting, pick the layer in Apply to (or click it on the canvas), and press a ready-made light or move a slider. In the Video Studio, pick the clip and use Its own light in the inspector.

The ready-made lights for a layer are Off, Key light, Golden, Cool, From above, Rim light, Neon edge, Soft glow and Drop shadow. The sliders are Light, Shade, Comes from, Warmth, Colour, Colour hue, Rim light, Shadow, Shadow length, Shadow softness and Glow.

The shading follows the layer itself, so a logo in a corner is lit across the logo, and its shadow falls away from the light. A visualizer takes its light from the scene's light above it.

A light never flashes: a flicker sways the light by a little, never faster than three times a second, and a light that turns moves smoothly, so the video stays comfortable for people sensitive to flashing light.

Say it the way you would to a lighting operator: "light it like golden hour", "give it moonlight", "put a spotlight on it", "candlelight" or "turn the lighting off". SW Agent lights the open project, each change one step of undo.