How would you light this?

Steven-V

Hey there folks.

I've been working with DAZ for about a year now, and having a lot of fun. I'm currently working on developing a webcomic that will use DAZ and resources I bought here (I am NOT good enough to build my own clothing or characters nor, frankly, do I have much interest in doing so). The comic will feature two martial-arts based characters, and I have (for now) nailed down the models and clothing I will use (although those things can change, since I am still in the concept stage, still writing back story etc).

Anyway, I wanted to do a little test image of what could be something like a promo shot or a "first issue" cover shot or what have you, and I have both main characters sort-of facing the camera in heroic poses. My question is about the lighting.

Normally, I've been working with either one character or, if there are several, one character is the "main" one (the speaker in a dialogue scene, for example). But in this case, the two characters ought to be co-equal. So when it comes to lighting, what is a good way to light a two-person shot? It seems like doing the standard Key/Fill/Back/Ambient setup would not be ideal here, because if I put the key light off to one side, say right of camera, then one girl gets the main light aimed at her front, but the other one will have it aimed at her back and be in the shadows of the right-hand girl. And vice-versa on the other side. Is this perhaps a good situation to do a dome or sphere light using the uber-environment lighting objects? Or perhaps this is a good choice to do say the backlight as a main and then paired fill lights to either side?

I'm going to start trying various different lighting schemes later today, but I thought maybe a more experienced artist here would have some good advice about how to do a scene with two equally important focal characters rather than one. If there is a "standard" way to do this, at least I could use it as a starting point.

I've attached a shot to show what I am talking about. This was done with no lights (i.e. just the basic DAZ "lighting with no lights" lighting). Thanks for the help.

FirstBastion

Start with a standard three point light setup and the work from there. If it's good enough for Hollywood it'll work for your situation too.

https://www.google.ca/search?q=three-point+lighting

Steven-V

Well I know how to do a 3 Point light setup. But in this case if I put the strong Key on say the girl on the viewer's right, then she will cast shadows on the girl to the left. The left girl will get weaker lighting from the fill, which will be aiming directly at her.

I suppose one way would be to do a 3-point light setup per girl, and render them separately, and then composite in Photoshop. I may try that later.

My first cut was to try 2 distant lights as "fills" for the two girls, from off-camera, and then a bright spot as a back-light. It came out OK, I suppose. I ended up rendering each light separately and then doing screen-mode layers in PS, thinking I would have to cut down the intensity of the lights (I rendered each at 100%), but I don't know that I need to cut the intensity much. This looks OK, but not shockingly great...