Lights

Space bar ... add spotlight this way:

You can make either the camera and/or the light look at your object:

right click to select the Camera,

hold down Shift while you

right click to select the Sphere

Ctrl T
select TrackTo Constraint

The camera will be looking at the center of the sphere...

Move the camera back on local ...

 

If I right click on the cube and move it, the light will follow it.

Make a plane to cast a shadow in teh top view ... scale up ...

Object transform properties to change size and placement

This toggles a flyout of the transforms

Ctrl Spacebar

 

Render from the camera view:

Align with the plane

From the side viewport, put the camera on local and zoom in
Watch the effect from the camera viewport.

Select the box

Hit this button:

 

Render ... very nice, we didn’t even have to raise the subdivisions:

Tip --- Viewports by Numbers pad:

0 = camera

1 = front

3 = side

7 = top

Go to shading on the light
(Select the light = right click)

Distance = 10

 

 

Energy = brightness

Color = color

Make a very light color

 

Buf. Shadow means shadows are on ... good!

This can make a wider or narrow spotlight:

 

This manages the falloff, or smoothness of the spotlight effect of the light as it casts on the floor:

See how there are now 2 circles?

 

Finally, this is the target distance, beyond which shadows will not be cast by the light ... shown here shortened just so you can see it.

It should extend a bit beyond the floor.

Tip – this is to access selections:

When you select a light or a camera you can’t go into edit mode

 

Here you can se the background color of the scene

Ctrl W = Save

Save Image is where you can save your render