thats partly what I was hinting at, by asking where the light was. I understand what you're saying about having the light all in one direction, I do this as well I either set it to a 45 or a 90 depending on how I want the shadows for the design. My thoughts about light in the enviroment have more to do with the strength of a bevel and more importantly the use of the gradation tool and textures. The tendancy is to use to much of the gradation and bevel making the one side to dark and forcing larger shadows. For me its not about getting photorealism but in being mindful of taming the shadowing so that it doesn't get the way by having to be to dark or extended covering text and other such things that you want to remain clear. Its been a hard lesson for me to learn and get a handle on.chuck death wrote:What I think is the problem here is not so much the direction of the lighting, more the strength!
But to get that extra touch of photorealism, if that is desired by the designer or dev, then the lights direction is even more important and you need to think like you're working a 3D env, but that is not what I was trying to get at it was much more along the lines of what you're talking about.
Edit:
thinking about it a bit more heres a good example of where thing go wrong when light is not considered properly, the image is something I did a few years ago. Heres the problem with what I did, the strength is far to high, the angle of light is not just on 45degree but confused about where it is in the room. So it look wrong and bad.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46724237@N08/4765306528/
Heres a few stomps where I was thinking seriously about the light, the direction and then enviroment, where it is coming from in a real space and how it works on an object, much better then my first image imho.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46724237@N08/4765306280/
the first example is more about shadowing but can apply the gradation as well, if it to heavy on one side the angle of light is percieved differently and changes they way all the other elements have to be created.
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get used to something after a time even when I know certain things are wrong I just accept it, its all a learn experience.
I've lost my mind. 
. I had a gif export from Knobman for it, but its not very HQ, so I just made stills. I didn't upload the file since its nothing serious. I thought it was funny having an virtual finger move the virtual knob as well, well its a good thing I'm not a comedian.
