Providing a visible light source in an interactive three-dimensional compositing application

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program that when executed by at least one processing unit provides a graphical user interface (“GUI”) for creating media presentations, the GUI comprising:

• a composite display area for compositing a three-dimensional scene that is defined by three axes;
• and
• a set of lighting tools for:
• incorporating, into the three-dimensional scene, at least one visible source of light representing an artificial light source by allowing a user to specify a position of the visible source of light in the three-dimensional scene and move the visible source of light along each of the three axes independent of the other two of the three axes, wherein the visible source of light is a rendered object in the composited three-dimensional scene,
• wherein a lighting tool in the set of lighting tools is for enabling or disabling an emission of light produced by the visible source of light into the scene, wherein the emission of light tracks the position of the visible source of light within the three-dimensional scene;
• and
• changing properties of the visible source of light, wherein a subset of lighting tools is for changing sizes of the source of light and a halo surrounding the source of light independent of each other.

A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program that when executed by at least one processing unit creates media presentations, the computer program comprising sets of instructions for:

• compositing, in a composite display area, a three-dimensional scene that is defined by three axes in the composite display area;
• defining a set of lighting tools for:
• interactively incorporating at least one visible source of light into the three-dimensional scene as a rendered object of the composited three-dimensional scene, wherein a lighting tool in the set of lighting tools is for enabling or disabling an emission of light produced by the visible source of light into the scene;
• and
• changing properties of the visible source of light, wherein a first subset of lighting tools for changing properties of a first type of source of light is displayed when the first type is selected and a second subset of lighting tools for changing properties of a second type of source of light is displayed when the second type is selected;
• and
• modifying, based on a set of user inputs, a position of the visible source of light along any one of the three axes independent of the other two of the three axes, wherein the emission of light tracks the position of the visible source of light within the three-dimensional scene.