Open this
palette by selecting "Shadow Options" in the Window menu.
Use this
palette to customise the shadow and set the lighting
conditions. For more control over lighting and shadows you need to use
a 3D rendering package.
Click this
button to calibrate the shadow intensity using a picture.
When adding a
tree picture to another picture, it can be quite
difficult to manually set the darkness of the shadow. Little Stick can
do this job for you.
1.
In your image editing application select an area of the
picture that has no shadow and save that area as a new picture.
2.
Select an area of the picture that is only shadow and
save that area as a new picture.
3.
Generate your chosen tree in Little Stick and open the
Shadow palette.
4.
Click on the calibrate button and open the two files
created in steps 1 and 2.
5.
Little Stick then sets the trees shadow so that is is
the same intensity as shadows in the picture.
Shadow intensity slider
Move this slider
to set the darkness of the shadow.
The default
shadow may be too dark or too light for you. Use this
slider to change the shadows intensity. If you have a picture with
shadows and you want the correct intensity, you can use the Calibrate
button above.
Sun direction compass
Move the needle
to set the direction that the Sun shines towards.
You can set the
horizontal direction that the Sun shines towards by
moving the compass needle to point that way.
For example, if
the red point of the compass points East, then the Sun
is shining from the West to the East.
Sun height slider
Move the slider
to set the height of the Sun in the sky.
You can set the
vertical direction that the Sun shines from. At midday
the Sun is high. At dawn and dusk the Sun is low.
Ambient brightness slider
Move this slider
to make the tree darker or lighter.
The light in
Little Stick is split into two parts. They are ambient
light and Sun light. The Sun light comes from the direction of the Sun
and causes the shadow. This is also the reason one side of a tree trunk
is darker than the other. The ambient light represents light that is
reflected from other objects in the world. This light comes from all
direction and contributes to the overall brightness of the tree. On a
sunny day the ambient light from a snowy winter landscape is brighter
than that from a green field.
