Basic Environment and Lighting Setup in Godot

Kay introduces a video covering basic 3D scene setup in Godot, including lighting settings and world environment configuration to improve the visual look of a game.

• Set up a daytime outdoor scene and light it • Turn that scene into a nighttime scene • Cover tips and tricks • Look at a dungeon scene for indoor lighting differences

This is not a fully in-depth video explaining every setting; it dips into lighting and post-processing basics, mostly intended for stylized cartoony scenes.

Free 3D models are available on Kay's website if viewers need assets to follow along.

When a scene is played, it looks different from the editor because no directional light or world environment has been added.

By default, Godot replaces missing lighting with two preview nodes, represented by blue icons, for directional light and world environment.

Toggling off these preview nodes makes the editor view match the actual game view.

The creator will add a custom directional light and world environment instead of relying on the default preview nodes.

Add a new node, search for "light", and choose Directional Light 3D, which mimics sunlight.

• Simply adding the light blasts the scene from the front and looks bad • Position the sun higher up and angle it downward • Rotate the Y-axis to see different lighting effects

Enabling shadows in the Light 3D node reveals how rotating the sun changes shadow positions, allowing fine-tuning for a good look.

The light's energy controls brightness (increase or decrease), and color can be adjusted to set atmosphere; for now a bright solid white is used.

Model edges appear crispy and jagged under the new lighting.

Go to Project Settings, then the Rendering tab, and search for anti-aliasing.

Turn on both FXAA and TAA anti-aliasing solutions.

Enabling both removes the jagged edges and makes the overall scene look nicer.

Add a World Environment node with a new Environment resource, which controls both lighting and post-processing.

• Two key modes: Sky and Custom Color • Sky mode allows a procedural sky or skybox • A custom pale blue color is chosen to represent the sky for this tutorial

The background color affects more than the sky; an obvious color like red creates a red sheen over all assets.

By default ambient light sources from the background color; switching it to its own bright solid white color, then lowering energy to around 8 or 0.75, gives full control over the look.

After adding lighting and background/ambient settings, the scene still looks flat due to low contrast.

• Screen Space Ambient Occlusion increases shadow value in crevices and where objects meet • Creates outlines under objects like tree trunks, fences, bushes, and bricks • Adds separation and contrast between objects, e.g., house vs. floor • Radius left at default; intensity raised to 3 for a stronger effect

Screen Space Indirect Lighting adds indirect light bounces; default settings are kept and it generally looks better when turned on, especially for outdoor scenes.

Both SSAO and SSIL add a noticeable level of contrast when compared on and off.

A global illumination solution favoring realistic lighting; considered too fiddly to set up for a stylized cartoony vibe, so it is not used in this tutorial.

Used later for emissive materials to make windows glow; values will need to be normalized for that purpose.

A very small amount of bloom is added to highlight bright things on screen.

Ambient occlusion darkens dark areas while bloom brightens bright areas, together increasing overall visual contrast.

Turning on fog creates a thick gray layer over everything, which is too dense and not the desired subtle effect.

Copying the sky color for the fog color helps blend the horizon and distant elements with the sky.

• Density reduced to half the original value • Reduced by half again for an even subtler effect

Offscreen tweaks to background color, fog color, and fog light energy create a subtle blend of sky and landscape in the distance, improving the distinction between foreground and background.

Add a new Camera Attributes Practical resource to the camera to access depth of field and exposure options.

Enabling depth of field blurs the background; adjusting amount and distance sliders initially creates a harsh, distinct cutoff line.

Distance is set far away and amount is reset to make the blur effect subtle rather than harsh.

Settings depend on camera type and player view; a third-person camera benefits from a blurry background that accentuates the foreground as more important.

Basic image editing controls like brightness, contrast, and saturation; contrast is raised to about 1.15–1.2 since stylized cartoony environments thrive on contrasty colors.

Deleting the World Environment node reveals the original look, showing a big overall difference despite each individual change being subtle.

Many settings, like fog, are a matter of personal preference and the desired vibe (e.g., a dark spooky game would avoid bright colors).

Settings like background color, fog color, and ambient light were tailored specifically to this green grasslands scene.

The current blue sky and sand-colored environment resembles a beach scene.

Changing the fog color (which affects the sky) to a yellowy or tan color gives the scene a desert feeling.

Slightly warming the ambient light color enhances the feeling of a sweltering hot desert.

Even small changes in ambient light can have a big effect, showing the value of tailoring world environment settings to the exact scene.

Turn off the directional light, set ambient light to zero, change sky color to black, and remove the fog's sky effect, resulting in a completely dark scene.

Increasing ambient light alone makes the scene look too much like daytime again.

• Change ambient light color to a dark blue to keep a nighttime feel while staying visible • Match the sky color to a very dark blue • Adjust the fog color accordingly

Re-enabling the directional light (now acting as a moon rather than a sun) requires turning its energy way down, to around 0.1–0.2.

Glowing windows are created using an emissive material plus a set of Omni lights placed near each window.

Emission is enabled in the material slot of the window asset; color and energy of the emission can be adjusted.

If an asset isn't set up with an emissive material slot, create a new plane with Mesh Instance 3D, assign a material with glow enabled, and place it over the window (a sphere can be used similarly for light bulbs or candles).

Using emission and Omni lights together creates a believable cozy glow; using only one of the two effects looks noticeably worse.

An indoor dungeon scene was built using the KayKit Dungeon Pack, starting from a default Node3D with preview nodes enabled.

• No large sunlight source available indoors, so localized lighting is used instead • Omni lights placed at candles and a torch, colored orange with shadows enabled • Omni lights used to paint in light for aesthetic purposes or to highlight areas

An Area Light is used in one room, emitting an even distribution of light based on the shape and size of a white square, ideal for sources like a large window or skylight.

Mixing torch-lit rooms and area-lit rooms creates a more interesting experience for the player.

No sky or background is used indoors; it's simply set to black, reducing visual clutter, especially effective for isometric or top-down views.

A black mesh shaped like the dungeon is added at the edge of the walls to hide wall sides and further isolate the interior.

Default ambient light energy of 1 is too bright and loses shadow effects; energy is lowered enough to keep nice shadows while remaining visible.

Height-based fog is used instead of distance fog to create a ground fog effect; increasing it further can create a spookier atmosphere by limiting player visibility.

The video covered basic lighting and world environment settings for daytime, nighttime, and indoor scenes in Godot.

• Tone mapping • Volumetric fog • Camera and FOV settings • Glow • Reflection probes

Viewers are encouraged to experiment with these additional settings themselves to further improve visuals.

Kay hopes viewers learned things applicable to their own projects and invites topic suggestions for future videos in the comments.