Light and materials are inseparable; in fact, they determine each other: neither is visible to the human eye until the two come together. Light and materials depend on each other. Materials are essential to understanding light in architecture because they directly affect the quantity and quality of light. Two qualities of materials – their finish and their color – are the most important in this regard. Many factors affect the properties of lighting, and I discuss a few that are the most important. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Parallel lights cheat a bit. They represent light coming from an infinitely distant light source. As a result, all light rays that reach the object are parallel. The standard use of parallel lights is to simulate the sun. Point lights are better than directional lights. They represent infinitesimal points that emit light. The light spreads equally in all directions. Depending on how much effort we are willing to put into the light, we can have a decrease in intensity based on the inverse square of the distance from the light, which is how real lights work. Floodlights are the most expensive type of light and should be avoided if possible as it is not for a real-time environment. We model a projector similar to what we would see in a theater production. These are point lights, but the light only leaves the point in a particular direction, spreading out depending on the aperture of the light. This is the overall color of the object due to the overall ambient light level. This is the color of the object when there is no particular light, just the general lighting of the environment. That is, ambient light is an approximation of the overall lighting of the environment and does not rely on any light in the scene. This is usually an overall value added to each object in a scene. This is the color of the object due to the effect of a particular light. Diffuse light is the light from the surface if it were perfectly matte. Diffuse light is reflected in all directions from the surface and depends only on the angle of the light relative to the surface normal. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized paper now from our expert writers. Get a personalized essay This is the color of surface reflections. Specular light imitates the shine of a surface and its intensity depends on the angle at which the light reflects off the surface. Specular materials, such as glossy finishes, reflect light like a mirror, which can result in reflected images of the light source visible “on” the surface. Matte surfaces, such as natural stone, wood and plaster, reflect light diffusely and equally in all directions. Of the three aspects of color – hue, value and intensity – value is the one that determines the amount of light absorbed and reflected..