Lighting is essential in 3D-animated films for a few reasons: It tells the time of day, makes objects appear more lifelike, and can even convey the mood of a given moment. You can see this in Netflix's "Over the Moon." Animators start with colorscripts, which portray the entire emotional story arc of a film and guide the lighting decisions. For "Over the Moon," Clara Chan and the CG team were tasked with the lighting on both Earth and Lunaria. When adding light to scenes, human skin begins to look more real, while a shiny jacket will begin to look like a real puffer. Then, through ray and path tracing, features like shadows and reflections are naturally added in the rendering process. And while a lot of 3D lighting is calculated by a computer, lighting artists still have a great amount of control. For instance, the computer created really heavy shadows cast off Fei Fei's bangs, which Clara then lightened and eliminated. In general, lighting artists control the intensity of light, the placement, and the color. Lighting decisions also intentionally create mood. Like for a scene in "Incredibles 2," using fluorescent lights had an emotional purpose, while in "Over the Moon," focusing on intense lantern light rather than moonlight created a desired warmth.