CAP4730: Computational

Structures in Computer Graphics

Lighting and Shading

Outline

•Lighting
•Lighting models
•Ambient
•Diffuse
•Specular
•Surface Rendering Methods
•Ray-Tracing
 What we know

• We already know how to render the world

from a viewpoint.
 “Lighting”

• Two components:
– Lighting Model or
Shading Model - how
we calculate the intensity
at a point on the surface
– Surface Rendering
Method - How we
calculate the intensity at
each pixel
 Jargon
• Illumination - the transport of light from a source
to a point via direct and indirect paths
• Lighting - computing the luminous intensity for a
specified 3D point, given a viewpoint
• Shading - assigning colors to pixels
• Illumination Models:
– Empirical - approximations to observed light
properties
– Physically based - applying physics properties
of light and its interactions with matter
 The lighting problem…
• What are we trying to
solve?
• Global illumination – the
transport of light within a
scene.
• What factors play a part in
how an object is “lit”?
• Let’s examine different
items here…
 Two components

• Light Source Properties

– Color (Wavelength(s) of light)
– Shape
– Direction
• Object Properties
– Material
– Geometry
– Absorption
 Light Source Properties
• Color
– We usually assume the light has
one wavelength
• Shape
– point light source - approximate
the light source as a 3D point in
space. Light rays emanate in all
directions.
• good for small light sources
(compared to the scene)
• far away light sources
 Distributed Lights

• Light Source Shape continued

– distributed light source - approximating the light source
as a 3D object. Light rays usually emanate in specific
directions
• good for larger light sources
• area light sources
 Light Source Direction

• In computer graphics, we usually treat

lights as rays emanating from a source. The
direction of these rays can either be:
– Omni-directional (point light source)
– Directional (spotlights)
 Light Position

• We can specify the position of a light one of

two ways, with an x, y, and z coordinate.
– What are some examples?
– These lights are called positional lights
• Q: Are there types of lights that we can
simplify?
A: Yep! Think about the sun. If a light is significantly far
away, we can represent the light with only a direction vector.
These are called directional lights. How does this help?
 Contributions from lights

• We will breakdown what a light does to an

object into three different components.
This APPROXIMATES what a light does.
To actually compute the rays is too
expensive to do in real-time.
– Light at a pixel from a light = Ambient +
Diffuse + Specular contributions.
– Ilight = Iambient + Idiffuse + Ispecular
Ambient Term - Background Light
• The ambient term is a HACK!
• It represents the approximate
contribution of the light to the
general scene, regardless of
location of light and object
• Indirect reflections that are too
complex to completely and
accurately compute
• Iambient = color
 Diffuse Term
• Contribution that a light has on the
surface, regardless of viewing
direction.
• Diffuse surfaces, on a microscopic
level, are very rough. This means
that a ray of light coming in has an
equal chance of being reflected in
any direction.
• What are some ideal diffuse
surfaces?
 Lambert’s Cosine Law
• Diffuse surfaces follow Lambert’s Cosine Law
• Lambert’s Cosine Law - reflected energy from a small
surface area in a particular direction is proportional to
the cosine of the angle between that direction and the
surface normal.
• Think about surface area and # of rays
 Diffuse Term
• To determine how much of a diffuse contribution a
light supplies to the surface, we need the surface
normal and the direction on the incoming ray
• What is the angle between these two vectors?
• Idiffuse = kdIlightcos = kdIlight(N . L)
• Ilight = diffuse (intensity) of light
• kd [0..1] = surface diffuse reflectivity
• What CS are L and N in?
• How expensive is it?
 Example
• What are the possible values for theta (and thus
the dot product?)

http://graphics.lcs.mit.edu/classes/6.837/F98/
Lecture18/Slide11.html
 Specular Reflection

• Specular contribution can be thought of as

the “shiny highlight” of a plastic object.
• On a microscopic level, the surface is very
smooth. Almost all light is reflected.
• What is an ideal purely specular reflector?
• What does this term depend on?
Viewing Direction
Normal of the Surface
 Snell’s Law
• Specular reflection applies Snell’s Law.
 The incoming ray, the surface normal, and
the reflected ray all lie in a common plane.
 The angle that the reflected ray forms with
the surface normal is determined by the
angle that the incoming ray forms with the
surface normal, and the relative speeds of
light of the mediums in which the incident
and reflected rays propagate according to:
 We assume l = r
Snell’s Law is for IDEAL surfaces

• Think about the amount of light reflected at

different angles.
N
R
L

 V
Different for shiny vs. dull objects
Snell’s Law is for IDEAL surfaces

• Think about the amount of light reflected at

different angles.
N
R
L

  V


 Phong Model
Phong Reflection Model
• An approximation is sets the intensity of specular
reflection proportional to (cos )shininess
• What are the possible values of cos ?
• What does the value of shininess mean?
• How do we represent shinny or dull surfaces using
the Phong model?
• What is the real thing we probably SHOULD do?
• Ispecular = ksIlight (cos )shininess = ksIlight (V.R)shininess
Effect of the shininess value
 How do we compute R?

• N*(N.L)
• R+L=2N(N.L) L

• R = 2N(N.L)-L
N R
N(N.L)
 V
L

 L V
H
L V
I specular  k s I light _ specularity N  H 
shininess Simplify this
• Instead of R, we
compute halfway
between L and V. H

• We call this vector the

halfway vector, H. N R

 V
L

 Let’s compare the two
R  2 N ( N  L)  L
I specular  k s I light _ specularity V  R 
shininess

L V H
H
L V
I specular  k s I light _ specularity N  H 
shininess
N R
Q: Which vectors stay
constant when viewpoint V
is far away? L 

A: V and L vectors -> H 

Q: What does this buy us?
 Combining the terms
• Ambient - the combination of light reflections from
various surfaces to produce a uniform illumination.
Background light.
• Diffuse - uniform light scattering of light rays on a
surface. Proportional to the “amount of light” that
hits the surface. Depends on the surface normal and
light vector.
• Sepecular - light that gets reflected. Depends on the
light ray, the viewing angle, and the surface normal.
Ambient + Diffuse + Specular
 Lighting Equation
I final  I ambient kambient  I diffusekdiffuse N  L   I specular k specular N  H 
shininess

lights1

 I lambient kambient  I ldiffuse kdiffuse N  L   I lspecular k specular N  H 

shininess
I final 
l 0

Ilambient = light source l’s ambient component N

Ildiffuse = light source l’s diffuse component R
L
Ilspecular = light source l’s specular component
 V
kambient = surface material ambient reflectivity
kdiffuse = surface material diffuse reflectivity
kspecular = surface material specular reflectivity
shininess = specular reflection parameter (1 -> dull, 100+ -> very shiny)
 Clamping & Spotlights
I final  I ambient k ambient  I diffuse k diffuse N  L   I specular k specular N  H 
shininess

lights 1

 I lambient k ambient  I ldiffuse k diffuse N  L   I lspecular k specular N  H 

shininess
I final 
l 0

• What does the value Ifinal mean?

N
• How do we make sure it doesn’t
get too high? R
L
• Spotlights? How do them?
 V
 How would we light a green
cube?
I final  I ambient k ambient  I diffuse k diffuse N  L   I specular k specular N  H 
shininess

lights 1

 I lambient k ambient  I ldiffuse k diffuse N  L   I lspecular k specular N  H 

shininess
I final 
l 0

N
R
L

 V
 Attenuation

• One factor we have yet to take into account

is that a light source contributes a higher
incident intensity to closer surfaces.
• The energy from a point light source falls
off proportional to 1/d2.
• What happens if we don’t do this?
 What would attenuation do for:
• Actually, using only 1/d2, makes it
difficult to correctly light things.
Think if d=1 and d=2. Why?
• Remember, we are approximating
things. Lighting model is too
simple AND most lights are not
point sources.
• We use:
1
f d  
a0  a1d  a2 d 2
 Subtleties

• What’s wrong with:

1
f d  
a0  a1d  a2 d 2
What’s a good fix?

 1 
f d   min1, 
2 
 a0  a1d  a2 d 
 Full Illumination Model

 
lights1

 f d l  I ldiffuse k diffuse N  L   I lspecular k specular N  H 

shininess
I final  I lambient k ambient 
l 0

 1 
f d   min1, 
2 
 a0  a1d  a2 d 

Run demo
 Putting Lights in OpenGL

• 1. glEnable(GL_LIGHTING);
• 2. Set up Light properties
– glLightf(…)
• 3. Set up Material properties
– glMaterial(…)
 Shading
 
lights1

 f d l  I ldiffuse kdiffuse N  L   I lspecular k specular N  H 

shininess
I final  I lambient kambient 
l 0

• When do we do the lighting equation?

• What is the cost to compute the lighting for
a 3D point?
 Shading

• Shading is how we “color” a triangle.

• Constant Shading
• Gouraud Shading
• Phong Shading
 Constant Shading
• Constant Intensity or Flat Shading
• One color for the entire triangle
• Fast
• Good for some objects
• What happens if triangles are small?
• Sudden intensity changes at borders
 Gouraud Shading
• Intensity Interpolation Shading
• Calculate lighting at the vertices. Then interpolate
the colors as you scan convert
 Gouraud Shading
• Relatively fast, only do three calculations
• No sudden intensity changes
• What can it not do?
• What are some approaches to fix this?
• Question, what is the normal at a vertex?
 Phong Shading
• Interpolate the normal, since that is the
information that represents the
“curvature”
• Linearly interpolate the vertex normals.
For each pixel, as you scan convert,
calculate the lighting per pixel.
• True “per pixel” lighting
• Not done by most hardware/libraries/etc
 Shading Techniques
• Constant Shading
– Calculate one lighting calculation (pick a vertex) per triangle
– Color the entire triangle the same color
• Gouraud Shading
– Calculate three lighting calculations (the vertices) per triangle
– Linearly interpolate the colors as you scan convert
• Phong Shading
– While you scan convert, linearly interpolate the normals.
– With the interpolated normal at each pixel, calculate the lighting at
each pixel