Lightning Questions

Nala

Hello everyone! I have been doing 3D art for a while now and continue to improve, but lightning the scenes has been a nightmare for me since I began this journey, I don't know if it is me or my PC not being "expensive" enough. Anyways, I keep running into these beautiful pictures in the Daz Gallery that have such an awesome lighting and great quality. I have two questions:

1. How does one manage to do lighting and coloring this way? (apart from post work)

https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/user/4915403973197824#gallery=popular&page=1&sort=trending&image=1271128

https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/user/6401392226861056#gallery=album7577996&page=1&sort=trending&image=1229856

Have tried Rim Lights, HDRI, Sun-Sky , adding my own spotlights/point lights and tone mapping but somehow I still don't manage, so clearly I'm doing something wrong. Any tips/tricks related to lightning in general are also deeply appreciated. 

2. What about lighting rays? What products/ techniques do you guys recommend? I have tried the volumetric cube but somehow they don't show up 
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery#image=1335091
https://www.daz3d.com/gallery#image=1333720

 

Thank you so much everyone!! 

frank0314

Every month Daz CV's (Community Volunteers) run a New Users contest that teach you how to use Daz Studio and it's various functions. This link has some links for info on the lighting. If you read through the thread you will also get some info on lighting. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/8572156/#Comment_8572156

There are a couple products that utalize Rays but I'd have to do some digging cause I can't rememebr their names and who did them.

Nala

frank0314 said:

Every month Daz CV's (Community Volunteers) run a New Users contest that teach you how to use Daz Studio and it's various functions. This link has some links for info on the lighting. If you read through the thread you will also get some info on lighting. https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/8572156/#Comment_8572156

There are a couple products that utalize Rays but I'd have to do some digging cause I can't rememebr their names and who did them.

Ohhh very interesting!! I will definetly read everything! Thank you soooo much!

jjoyner

I've bought several lighting products and tutorials in the Daz3D store over the past few years since lighting is the most crucial element of a scene after the content in the scene.  I'm learning more as I go.  I've also watched YouTube videos some of which are by DAZ3D published artists.  Some of the YouTube videos on God rays can be found at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=daz+studio+god+rays .