Artist TUTORIALs...

Photography by Ron Weed

Basic Light

Light Deflection Part 1

This is the basics of light deflection of two basic shapes: curved and flat. The diagram is broken down into individually colored ray tracing lines (colored dashed lines). The black dashed lines are ones that strike a shape perpendicularly. In this case the light deflects back into itself. This is the center of the specular highlight (sometimes referred to as the hot spot) on an object.
On curved surfaces the ray strike reflect in the mirrored direction. To find the angle of the strike, the center of the radius of the curve can be found and a line struck from the center to the surface strike area. That line is the center line used to mirror the light ray deflection.
On flat surfaces one need only strike a line perpendicular to the surface. Then reflect the ray trace line to create the deflection.

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