How do I brighten up a scene?

[georgschmidt1980b]

Hello!

I have assigned appropriate colors / materials that represent the actual colors of the real-world object.

However, I find it hard to work this way. 

I would like to know if there is a way to "brighten up" the scene / view without having to change the material against one that is brighter.

Thank you!

too dark

[wmhazzard]

As far as I know, you can not change the lighting in the Design space, you will have to choose a lighter color to see better. You can always change the color back for rendering. 

[Phil.E · Accepted solution]

There are a few options when your colors are naturally dark on the model.

Turn on Display Component Colors. This puts temporary artificial coloring on the components for the reason you are asking. 

• Shift + N (hotkey combo)
• Or go to the Inspect menu > Display Component Colors

Turn off the effects: Object Shadow and Ambient Occlusion. 

• Go to the navigation bar (toolbar located in the center, at the bottom)
• Find these items on the Display Settings menu, under Effects.

Try the different environments, from the same navigation bar menu, Display Settings > Environment.

Or, temporarily apply a different material appearance. There is a trick to help you manage this.

1. If you apply a lighter shaded color, say grey instead of black, there will be a grey and black swatch hosted in the "In this design" portion of Appearances.
2. When you are done modeling, and need to do a rendering or see the design in the intended color scheme, drag the darker swatch onto the lighter swatch, in the dialog.
3. This will replace all instances of the lighter shade with the darker shade.

Please let me know if this helps.

[jhackney1972]

I think you are out of luck when it comes to changing the lighting environment in the Design Workspace.  Here is a section from a webpage discussing this fact.