5

Disabling Lighting
Lighting effects can significantly impact playback performance. Therefore, you might
want to temporarily disable lighting to improve playback speed while working on other
aspects of your project.
To Disable Rendering of Lighting
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From the Render pop-up menu in the status bar, choose Lighting (or press Option-L).
Shadows
Motion scenes that include Point or Spot lights can recreate more natural, realistic effects
by casting shadows. Shadows are created when an opaque or semi-opaque object blocks
light from hitting another object. To see a shadow in Motion, you need at least three
things: A shadow-casting light source, an object to cast a shadow, and another object
upon which the shadow is cast. Multiple lights cast multiple shadows that may or may
not be visible depending on the relative positions and settings of the objects in the scene.
Note: Ambient and Directional lights do not cast shadows.
Warning: Some changes you make to 3D objects with shadows applied cause shadows
to disappear. This occurs when the change causes rasterization of the 3D
object—adjusting the opacity of a group or turning on the glow attributes for a text
object, for example. Flattening the 3D group allows it to cast shadows again. For more
information about disappearing shadows, see Shadows and Rasterization.
In Motion, you can control whether a light source creates shadows and whether each
object in the scene receives shadows and/or casts shadows. You can even have an object
cast a shadow when it is invisible. The strength, sharpness, shape, and position of the
shadow depends on the type and positions of the lights and relative position of all three
objects.
1274 Chapter 21 3D Compositing