# ambient light on a light source?!

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Hullo hullo again good people! Today I have a question about lighting. I noticed that a D3DLight9 structure has an ambient color member. Now, to my understanding, ambient light is the light in the scene that has nothing to do with proximity or direction relative to a light source. It's the light that just always "exists". So then, why would you specify it in a light source? It certainly makes sense to have an ambient member in the materials structure, but why have it in the light source? Does the ambient value from the light source affect the ambient value in the material at all? Do they cancel out/add/limit one another? Thanks for any help with my latest conundrum. Mike

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Check the documentation page: DirectX Graphics -> Programming Guide -> Getting Started -> Lights and Materials -> Mathematics of Lighting -> Ambient Lighting.

Ambient Lighting = Ca*[Ga + sum(Atti*Spoti*Lai)]

Parameter Default value Type Description Ca (0,0,0,0) D3DCOLORVALUE Material ambient color Ga (0,0,0,0) D3DCOLORVALUE Global ambient color Atteni (0,0,0,0) D3DCOLORVALUE Light attenuation of the ith light. See Attenuation and Spotlight Factor. Spoti (0,0,0,0) D3DVECTOR Spotlight factor of the ith light. See Attenuation and Spotlight Factor. sum N/A N/A Sum of the ambient light Lai (0,0,0,0) D3DVECTOR Light ambient color of the ith light

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They put it on a light so you can turn it on and off if you want and change its color -- just like any other type of light.

The ambient color in a material is different than an ambient light. Just like the diffuse and specular colors, it is combined with the color of the corresponding light component to get the displayed color. Generally, the ambient and diffuse material colors are the same, and specular material color is white, but it doesn't have to be that way.

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Which documentation page are you referring to?

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Quote:
 Now, to my understanding, ambient light is the light in the scene that has nothing to do with proximity or direction relative to a light source. It's the light that just always "exists". So then, why would you specify it in a light source?

Ambient light simulates light that bounces around your scene, so it can come from any direction when it hits a surface, but its always originating from your lightsource. To understand why this is so just imagine a room with two colored lightsources with different intensities - Say a very bright yellow light and a dim blue light. The yellow light will have a higher ambient property and make more of a contribution to the lighting in the room.

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Nevermind, I found it. Didn't know you meant MSDN.

So I read through their terms and that formula. Here's what I don't get though:
"It lights all object vertices the same because it is not dependent on any other lighting factors such as vertex normals, light direction, light position, range, or attenuation. "

That's what they say about ambient light in the scene. Yet, the ambient light color value is getting multiplied by the attenuation factor and the spotlight factor. It sure sounds like being dependent on light range and attenuation to me. I understand that the global and material ambient coefficients are NOT affected by these parameters however.

Perhaps a better definition is: ambient light from a light source is like diffuse, but not dependent on the normal of the surface you are lighting. Would that be right?

Mike

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1. "The documentation" typically refers to the MSDN documentation, and you should have it as a CHM if you choose so during the SDK installation [smile]

2. I've never tried to use the ambient factor of D3DLIGHT9, but my guess is that the attenuation and spotlight factor part is a documentation bug.

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You know what, I bet it's not an error. I bet the error is lumping all ambient light in a "not dependent on range/attenuation" bucket.

Ambient light used in this way could give a really nice, eery effect. Say your scene has a pretty low global coefficient for ambient light. You're stumbling around in the dark, then you find this room with a weak, dangling light bulb. As a light source, this might have a very low diffuse component, a nonexistant specular component, but a medium ambient component in some gross color, painting everything near it.

I'm almost POSITIVE that exceeding the range of a light will still kill the ambient coefficient, otherwise it would effectively just add to the global ambient value. As for attenuation and spotlight, I'm GUESSING that they factor in as specified. You might be right, but I'll have to play around with it to be sure =)

Mike

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Quote:
 Original post by Michael KronI'm almost POSITIVE that exceeding the range of a light will still kill the ambient coefficient, otherwise it would effectively just add to the global ambient value. As for attenuation and spotlight, I'm GUESSING that they factor in as specified. You might be right, but I'll have to play around with it to be sure =)

Cool, post your results when you do, eh? [smile]

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