Lighting presets

Control AI render lighting with the named preset library in the Lighting tab. One click swaps mood without changing composition or style.

The Lighting tab in Visualize mode has a picker with a wide named preset library. Pick one and the model receives detailed lighting prose without you writing it. The way to push mood per render without leaving Visualize.

Watch

Visualize mode with the Lighting tab active in the right Visualizer panel, the Lighting preset picker visible, and a guided-prompt explaining what to describe (time of day, light sources, mood)

What it does

Cinematographers describe lighting in shorthand: "golden hour", "blue hour", "stormy", "overcast", "backlit". Each phrase pulls a chain of associations: time of day, color temperature, contrast, weather, the presence of haze or mist. Lighting presets bundle that prose into one-click selections.

The Lighting block is separable from Style. The same composition can swap atmospheres without changing surface treatment.

How to use it

1. Click the Lighting tab in the right-hand Visualizer panel.

2. Click the preset picker. The Select Lighting Preset modal opens with a grid of named preset thumbnails.

3. Filter if you need to, using the row across the top: Suggested (default view), Search, Any time of day, Any environment, Any location, plus a Reset action.

4. Pick a preset. The Lighting tab populates with the preset's prose. The next generate uses that atmosphere.

5. Iterate. Try different presets to feel out the right mood. Composition and style stay put; lighting changes.

Select Lighting Preset modal open with the Suggested filter active. Filter row at top has Search and three category dropdowns (time of day, environment, location). Grid shows named preset thumbnails like Sunset Cane Glow, City Jewelry by Night, Retro Arcade Neon, Moody Glass, Polaroid Hologram Twilight, Twilight Forest Depths, Concrete Sunset, Vibrant Wet Atrium

What's in the working set

The picker carries a wide named library covering golden hour and twilight, neon and urban night, overcast and stormy weather, low-key and high-contrast moods, and more. Rather than enumerate the full set in docs (the library evolves), use the in-product picker as the source of truth. The filter row at the top of the modal is the right place to land on something that fits the brief without scrolling the whole grid.

Lighting plus the scene's environment

Build mode's environment controls (sun position, fog, terrain) set the spatial truth for the scene – where the sun is, whether there's fog at all. Lighting presets in Visualize override the atmospheric description fed to the model for a specific render.

In practice: set the broad mood in Build (it's an evening scene), then push specific lighting per shot in Visualize (this shot is misty, the next is stormy). The model honors both, with the visualizer's preset taking precedence on stylistic descriptors.

When to reach for it

• Iterating mood quickly. Cycle through presets to find the right atmosphere without rewriting prose each time.

• Multi-shot consistency. Pin one preset across the shots in a sequence so the lighting reads as one coherent set.

• Client variations. Show two renders of the same shot with different lighting presets to surface preference quickly.

When not to reach for it:

• You already know what you want. Edit the Lighting tab text directly. Once you have a custom phrase, save it as a custom style so the next project can reuse it.

• You need lighting that contradicts the scene's sun position. A tropical-sunset preset on a midnight scene is a fight. Either change the sun position in Build mode to match, or accept the visual inconsistency. The visualizer favors the prompt over the geometry but doesn't rewrite the underlying scene.

Limits and known issues

• Lighting and Style can fight each other. A stylized Style preset combined with a heavily atmospheric Lighting preset asks the model for two different things at once. The result is unpredictable; pick presets that share a register.

• Some lighting presets don't apply to video models cleanly. Photoreal presets generally translate; stylized lighting can degrade in motion. Test both before committing.

Related

• Style presets

• Custom styles

• Environment

• Scene context

• Generate image