Lighting help

robograaf2

Hey guys. I started Daz3d not to long ago but find myself having a bit of trouble with lighting. 

For example, the scene in the attached files. I just made two spotlights to imitate the streetlights, and a distant light to provide a bit of "moonlight". Now obviously with where my character is placed it's going to be very poorly lit. I tried to fix it by pointing a spotlight at her but it just looks a bit odd imo. I also had to point the spotlight upwards and have it point outside of the scene so no conflicting shadows would show.

So my question: how would I go about creating a soft light which will light up the character without weird shadows appearing somewhere which wouldn't make sense when the rest of the scene is revealed?

And a second question, what is in your opinion the best lighting tutorial? There are a awful lot of them..

Richard Haseltine

A big plane, with the emissive shader preset applied and the Cutoiut Opacity set to a very small but non-zero value would give a soft light with weak shadows, and wouldn't show in reflections. What can't you move the lamppost forward or the figure back?

You could also add a spot lightin the dsitance with some objects partially blocking it, to suggest the headlamp of a passing vehicle breaking through the environment.

robograaf2

Even if I'd move the character back it'd still be very poorly lit. Thanks for the suggestion, i'll give it a try.

Richard Haseltine said:

A big plane, with the emissive shader preset applied and the Cutoiut Opacity set to a very small but non-zero value would give a soft light with weak shadows, and wouldn't show in reflections. What can't you move the lamppost forward or the figure back?

You could also add a spot lightin the dsitance with some objects partially blocking it, to suggest the headlamp of a passing vehicle breaking through the environment.