Help with lighting and light manipulation!

DeadTabzYT · June 9, 2025, 2:36am

I’m looking for some help from anyone experienced with lighting and environment design. I’m trying to recreate a very specific visual style! warm, sunny, dry, and dusty. example, shown below.

One of the challenges I’m running into is the lack of ambient occlusion, which is making it tough to get that natural look. I’ve been considering faking the lighting entirely using meshes and parts with lights attached, but I’m not sure if that’s the best route.

If anyone has tips, tricks, or suggestions on how to achieve this kind of atmosphere, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks!

Images bellow for refrence / help.

Here is one of the rooms im working on currently.

Heres a few examples of the lighting im aiming for.

MADE THIS WITH AI… sorry i was not about to do this in photoshop. obviously i know it wont look this good cause its roblox studio

jellolemo · June 14, 2025, 9:18am

There are mainly 3 types of this effect (its called volumetric lighting):
Beams:

: Great for volumetric lighting from the sun, has shadows

: doenst support pointlight, surfacelight, etc.

Mesh:

: Works for both sun and pointlight, etc., has shadows

: looks weird on different angles, performance expensive

Billboards:

: Works for both sun and pointlight, etc., has shadows( but only in future lighting), looks the best in my opinion

: Can be performance expensive

Links:

Plugin with all types so you can expirement with it and find out what suits you best:

DeadTabzYT · June 14, 2025, 7:00pm

Thanks you! I did end up going with the volumetric route using meshes.