lighting-designlisted

# Lighting Design ## Purpose Lighting does two jobs at once: it tells the player where to go and what matters, and it sets the mood. When they conflict, readability wins — a beautiful scene the player cannot navigate is a failed scene. This skill covers the structure and the technical decisions. It is engine-neutral; the platform skills cover each engine's specific systems. ## When to use - Lighting a new level or area. - Players get lost, miss the path, or fail to notice interactive objects. - The scene looks flat, muddy, blown out, or uniformly lit. - Lighting cost is over budget, or bake times have become unworkable. - Moving between renderers or pipelines, where lighting must be reworked. ## When NOT to use - Fundamentals are not established. Fix colour space, scale and exposure first with `rendering-fundamentals`; lighting cannot be tuned around them. - The problem is material response rather than light. Use `materials-and-shaders`. - Colour grading and screen effects. Use `post-processing` — and grade after lighting, never instead of it. ## Required context | Fact | Why it matters | |---|---| | Renderer, pipeline and version | Determines which lighting systems exist | | Whether GI is baked, dynamic, or both | The central decision; changes the whole workflow | | Whether the scene or time of day changes | Rules out baking if geometry or lighting moves | | Target platform and budget | Mobile and console constrain light counts and shadows | | Intended mood an