Creating Light

[Anonymous]

I am a Senior in high school taking an architectural drafting class working with Autocad architecture 2014 and i have no idea how lighting works, i place lights but see no light, what do i have to do to get the light sources i place to actually show their light? 

[MarySeufert]

Play around with your Visual Style Controls (Default is 2D Wirframe which will not show lights by default). Try out the Realistic setting. You can find the controls on the View Tab of the ribbon or at the top left of the drawing window (Note using 2012, but I'm pretty sure 2014 hasn't changed that much).

[Victoria.Studley]

Hi Tyler,

There was a great class at Autodesk University about realistic rendering in AutoCAD (the concepts apply to Architecture as well). The class materials are now publicly available, and you might find them helpful to get you started.

You can find the class description and materials here: Photorealistic Rendering Techniques in AutoCAD

Feel free to post any more questions here, and maybe a sample file, and we'll do our best to help. Good luck with your project!