Why buy it?

C-Light is not a state of the art program. You won't be able to create special effects with it that rival those you see on TV. However, compared to those state of the art programs, C-Light has some unique qualities. It has the advantage of simplicity. It can easily take you a year or more to learn to use one of the fancy 3D graphics tools while you can begin producing results with C-Light in minutes. You can play with it without knowing much about 3D and get interesting results. This makes it a great tool for creating 3D pictures for Web pages.

The pictures created by C-Light don't look real. They look like computer generated pictures. As 3D tools have become more sophisticated their output has become more difficult to distinguish from photographs. While this is great for creating special effects that look real there is an artistic value in creating pictures that look computer generated.

And that's what C-Light was designed to be. An easy to use, artistic tool for creating 3D, computer generated pictures that is also simple enough for children to have fun with.

It has limitations. It has some very strong limitations. This can be an advantage. It currently doesn't do shiny surfaces. Your color selection is limited to four colors (background plus three object colors that change shade depending on the lighting) which can be chosen from a palette of 4096 colors. There's a limit on the number of objects on the screen (since it was designed to run on a 512K system.) These limitations mean there are fewer decisions you have to make which makes the creative process easier. Instead of having to choose from 16,000,000 colors for each component of an object, you decide on your main colors and then make your choice from those. It's hard enough coming up with ideas without always having to make decisions from an infinite variety.

What this all means is that you can sit down and experiment with C-Light and within the hour have created the design for an entire scene. Which can also then be easily animated in simple ways (rotating it, shrinking it, moving objects). There are step by step tutorials that will show you how. Thus it's a fun tool that excels in creative exploration.

The cost to get started is very low. A used Amiga 1000 computer can be found on the Internet for $50-$90. Add your color tv and C-Light and you can be producing 3D graphics for under $100. Perhaps under $75. Total. Other programs have a starting price of $1500 and higher when you include the cost of the computer.

And even though C-Light's cost is low, the pictures still look cool!