Learning Blender: A Hands-On Guide to Creating 3D Animated Characters

Lights Options in Cycles

When you access the same Lamp tab in Cycles, the options for light properties are different. You may need to click the Use Nodes button to activate all the options. You can also control the type of light; the Size parameter adjusts the softness of the shadows and, under the Nodes panel, you can set the light’s Color and Strength.

Light options in Cycles may look rather simplistic; this is because Cycles is a physically realistic render engine and there are no “artificial” settings such as shadow quality.