Create panel > Lights > Standard > Free Direct button
Create menu > Standard Lights > Directional Light
Directional lights cast parallel light rays in a single direction, as the sun does (for all practical purposes) at the surface of the earth. Directional lights are primarily used to simulate sunlight. You can adjust the color of the light and position and rotate the light in 3D space.
Unlike a targeted directional light, a Free Direct light has no target object. You can move and rotate the light object to aim it in any direction.
A Free Direct light is used when you select a Standard sun in your Daylight system.
Because directional rays are parallel, directional lights have a beam in the shape of a circular or rectangular prism instead of a "cone."
Note: Direct lights are supported in a radiosity solution only if they are pointed downwards, outside the boundary box of the scene geometry.
Note: The mental ray renderer assumes that all directional lights come from infinity, so objects that are behind the direct light object in the Autodesk VIZ scene will also be illuminated. In addition, with the mental ray renderer, directional lights cannot generate area shadows, and do not work with the Beam shader (in the lume library).
To create a free direct light:
To change a viewport to a Light view:
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The name of each spotlight or directional light appears in the Views list.
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Choose the name of the light you want.
The viewport now shows the light's point of view. You can use the Light Viewport Controls to adjust the light.
The default keyboard shortcut for switching to a Light viewport is $.
When you create a Free Direct light, the Targeted parameter is adjustable on the General Parameters rollout. This is a fixed value for target lights.
Targeted—When on, Autodesk VIZ sets a point to use as an invisible target about which the Free Direct light can orbit. The spinner adjusts the distance to the target.
This parameter also affects the length of the light's cone display.