Is there a way to make a dark/low light SceneKit scene?

Question

I've searched and there doesn't appear to be a way to make a dark SceneKit scene... As in a scene with low lighting. I've removed all lights from my scene, set my autoenablesDefaultLighting to false, made sure it's unchecked in the storyboard, I even tried adding a black ambient light but that didn't do anything. Is there a way to make a SceneKit Scene with low/dark lighting??

Answer 1

Had to try this for myself, as it didn't sound right. Removing all lights from the default SceneKit game template does indeed result in a model lit with an ambient light. I expect it's some kind of default that kicks into action when SceneKit identifies you have no lights in your scene.

Adding a black ambient light doesn't seem to change this, however adding a single dark non-ambient (omni, directional, spot) does result in a dark scene. The following image is with a dark gray omni light, and no ambient light.

I don't think this matters too much in real use, you'd be unlikely to have a scene with no non-ambient lights. Certainly understand the confusion in this instance however.

Answer 2

SCNLightingModelConstant is worth a look.

The SceneKit demos (code provided at apple.com) from 2014 and 2013 are quite dark. There's plenty to learn from there.