How to Shine Light Through Windows in Illustrator
You can transform an ordinary illustration into something dazzling with lighting effects. Adobe Illustrator offers a number of different approaches to create the illusion of light. One simple trick is to make light appear to shine through windows.
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Instructions
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Open the finished illustration. The ideal illustration would be a room interior. You can make the light show from a an off-scene window, or capture light from one window onto another wall.
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Create new layer and name it "Window Light." With the layer active, draw a series of white rectangles (with no stroke) to form a grid in the shape of windowpanes. The rectangles should represent the glass; empty spaces should represent your imagined window frames. If the window is visible in your scene, you can draw rectangles over the windowpane shapes (make sure to flip the grid horizontally if the window shape isn't perfectly symmetrical).
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3
Select all of the windowpanes and group them into a single object ("Command" and "G"). Choose "Free Distort" from the Effects menu's Distort and Transform submenu. Follow the angles of the wall to add realistic perspective.
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Go to the Transparency palette and change the blend mode to "Overlay" (you can also use "Soft Light" if you want a more diffuse, muted light). This will cause the white to mix with the colors underneath. Reduce the opacity to 70 percent or more.
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Choose "Gaussian Blur" from the Effects menu/Blur submenu. Set the radius between 6 and 10 pixels.
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Tips & Warnings
To add realism, bend the window frame shadow shapes where they need to curve around objects between the window and the wall. You can use the "Convert Anchor" and "Direct Select" tools to change path shapes.
