Lights and Shadows
Long-tail route · visual intuition
Use this when projection and occlusion should feel obvious on sight.
Physically-based light transport explainer covering radiance, angle and distance falloff, reflection models, shadows, and multiple bounces.
At a glance
Live interactive
The maintained version lives at the route linked here, with this garden note keeping the embed and editorial framing.
Best companion
Pair it with [[Alpha-Compositing]] for the image-layer follow-up, or [[Earth-and-Sun]] when you want light and shadow at orbital scale.
Time and level
About 10 to 15 minutes. Beginner friendly. It works well if you want rendering intuition before deeper graphics math.
Reading path
- Open the live interactive: https://kohnnn.github.io/interactive-explanation/lights-and-shadows/
- Continue through Alpha-Compositing or Earth-and-Sun when you want neighboring rendering and lighting routes
- Move through the local archive via Interactive or Visual Notes