The Hemisphere Light in Canvas Studio simulates the way a bright sky and a darker ground work together to create soft, ambient illumination. Instead of shining from a point, it adds a gradient of light that fades from one color above the scene to another color below, giving surfaces gentle up-lighting and down-lighting without casting shadows. It’s an easy, inexpensive way to fill a scene with believable ambient tones before you add more focused lights.
color – the “sky” tint that lights upward-facing surfaces.
groundColor – the “ground” tint that lights downward-facing surfaces; use warm browns or greens to mimic ground bounce, cool grays for indoor floors, or any stylized hue.
intensity – overall brightness multiplier for both tints.
helper – toggles a viewport gizmo showing the light’s orientation; handy for visualizing the sky/ground split.
position – moves the gizmo for clarity, but does not affect the lighting itself (Hemisphere light is directionless and center-less).
Because a hemisphere light has no shadows to calculate and no fall-off with distance, it’s extremely fast. Use it as a base layer to keep shadows from going pure black, to add subtle color contrast between sky and ground, or to stylize a scene with bold complementary hues, all without impacting performance.