AmbientLight

AmbientLight[col]

is a three-dimensional graphics directive that specifies the uniform ambient light of color col to use in coloring 3D surfaces.

Details

  • AmbientLight is also known as natural light.
  • AmbientLight is typically used to fill areas that do not have enough illumination by casting soft light rays in every direction.
  • AmbientLight[col] yields a uniform ambient light of color col.
  • Colors of light sources col can be defined by RGBColor, Hue or any other color specification.
  • The setting for AmbientLight affects only colors associated with diffuse and specular reflection on a 3D surface.
  • Light sources with color specifications of the form {dcol,Specularity[scol]} are effectively taken to have colors dcol for purposes of diffuse reflection, and scol for purposes of specular reflection.
  • Diffuse reflection is taken to follow Lambert's law, with light effectively scattered equally in all directions from a surface.
  • Specular reflection effectively takes light to be scattered only close to the mirror‐reflection direction, as specified in the notes for Specularity.

Examples

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Basic Examples  (2)

Ambient light on surfaces:

Style a surface in a plot:

Scope  (2)

Ambient light is uniformly applied to all the surfaces in the scene:

Ambient light gives overall lighting on the scene:

Generalizations & Extensions  (2)

Predefined colored lighting:

The colored lighting is equivalent to the following explicit setting:

Predefined neutral lighting:

The neutral lighting is equivalent to the following explicit setting:

Applications  (1)

Build a scene with multiple objects and light sources:

Animate the spotlights:

Possible Issues  (1)

The default light scheme uses several colored light sources:

Set Lighting to None to turn off the default lights:

Neat Examples  (1)

A simple light show:

Wolfram Research (2021), AmbientLight, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html.

Text

Wolfram Research (2021), AmbientLight, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html.

CMS

Wolfram Language. 2021. "AmbientLight." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (2021). AmbientLight. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_ambientlight, author="Wolfram Research", title="{AmbientLight}", year="2021", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html}", note=[Accessed: 30-July-2025 ]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2025_ambientlight, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={AmbientLight}, year={2021}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/AmbientLight.html}, note=[Accessed: 30-July-2025 ]}