Scene Lighting

christophercrockford_ca15800a

Can anyone help me please, I am new to using Daz and having trouble lighting scenes I have looked on Youtube to see if I can find anything to help but still having issues where models dont look that good with the lighting I've added.

Richard Haseltine

What lighting are you using? What is in the scene? What kind of lighting do you want?

christophercrockford_ca15800a

Richard Haseltine said:

What lighting are you using? What is in the scene? What kind of lighting do you want?

I am doing an indoor scene with a model in it, I was going to use a plane (I think that what its called) as someone on Youtube were saying that can light a scene. But my renders dont look that good & havent got the hang of using the Skydome yet, I just want some normal lighting that will look good in renders.

margrave

Create a spotlight, change the geometry to "Rectangle" and the size to 25cm x 25cm, then increase the lumens in increments of 10,000 until it looks good.

That's your key light. Use it to illuminate your figure.

Depending on the mood, you can add another spotlight to fill in the shadows on the other side of their face, or you can just use one to make it dramatic.

Next, add a point light, change the geometry to "Sphere" and the size to 25cm, and position it around your scene so the background is lit up. Duplicate it a few times if you need to.

Then adjust the lumens until the scene is lit according to the mood.

Richard Haseltine

margrave said:

Create a spotlight, change the geometry to "Rectangle" and the size to 25cm x 25cm, then increase the lumens in increments of 10,000 until it looks good.

I would prefer, rather than ramping up the lumens, to set the Tone mapping to reasonable values for an image of an interior - if you have a camera or smart phone with auto-exposure you can take a photo of a similar environment and see what values it assigns, then take those as your starting pioint.

That's your key light. Use it to illuminate your figure.

Depending on the mood, you can add another spotlight to fill in the shadows on the other side of their face, or you can just use one to make it dramatic.

Next, add a point light, change the geometry to "Sphere" and the size to 25cm, and position it around your scene so the background is lit up. Duplicate it a few times if you need to.

Bear in mind that areas thata re not receiving direct light, that rely on light from elsewhere bouncing in, will take longer to converge (lose the noise) so if you are aiming for a dramatic look it can be better to over-light and adjust the tone-mapping.

Then adjust the lumens until the scene is lit according to the mood.

The gamma and Burn highlights/crush blacks can be used to balance the light and dark areas too.

Ascania

christophercrockford_ca15800a said:

Richard Haseltine said:

What lighting are you using? What is in the scene? What kind of lighting do you want?

I am doing an indoor scene with a model in it, I was going to use a plane (I think that what its called) as someone on Youtube were saying that can light a scene. But my renders dont look that good & havent got the hang of using the Skydome yet, I just want some normal lighting that will look good in renders.

Just because it can light a scene doesn't mean it will automatically look good. Especially when you don't know how to use it effectively.

Lighting is scene and motif specific. That's why REAL filmmakers and photographers us all their various lighting setups. Or did you think those were just for shits and giggles?

 

You want something that looks good out-of-the-box? Buy a render-in-a-box or any scene fully set-up with lighting presets, or lighting preset products for a scene that doesn't have them.

Or spend more time learning and experimenting with lighting setups to make your own. Even a quick five-second use of the YouTube search function for "Daz Studio Lighting" brings up far FAR more and far more variety than a single person saying "Uh, a plane can light a scene."

margrave

Richard Haseltine said:

margrave said:

Create a spotlight, change the geometry to "Rectangle" and the size to 25cm x 25cm, then increase the lumens in increments of 10,000 until it looks good.

I would prefer, rather than ramping up the lumens, to set the Tone mapping to reasonable values for an image of an interior - if you have a camera or smart phone with auto-exposure you can take a photo of a similar environment and see what values it assigns, then take those as your starting pioint.

That's your key light. Use it to illuminate your figure.

Depending on the mood, you can add another spotlight to fill in the shadows on the other side of their face, or you can just use one to make it dramatic.

Next, add a point light, change the geometry to "Sphere" and the size to 25cm, and position it around your scene so the background is lit up. Duplicate it a few times if you need to.

Bear in mind that areas thata re not receiving direct light, that rely on light from elsewhere bouncing in, will take longer to converge (lose the noise) so if you are aiming for a dramatic look it can be better to over-light and adjust the tone-mapping.

Then adjust the lumens until the scene is lit according to the mood.

The gamma and Burn highlights/crush blacks can be used to balance the light and dark areas too.

I already know all that, but OP only has two posts. I didn't want to overwhelm them with lighting and tonemapping.

christophercrockford_ca15800a

Thanks for your help I will have a play around with the lighting and see if I can get something that looks good.