Tips to improving lightning

[Kjølig Bris]

Any tips to improve the lightning. I love making artwork but I was wondering if there are any tips to improve the lightning

[Juggernaut]

Keep lights interesting and not too strong. Give background lights that reflect with the scenary. Practice 3 point lighting(light in the back, left, and right), and don't be afraid to make this different. But above all, just practice. Practice is the key to improving.

[Kjølig Bris]

Originally posted by Juggernaut:

Keep lights interesting and not too strong. Give background lights that reflect with the scenary. Practice 3 point lighting(light in the back, left, and right), and don't be afraid to make this different. But above all, just practice. Practice is the key to improving.

Thanks

[Fluid Script Studios]

Just a helpful tip i picked up from Argodeamon

You can "remap the slider ranges" on lights by right clicking on the slide bars, then clicking "remap slider ranges"

It turns out you can set some of these values to negative numbers. Try setting the value of the intensity slider to -100 and you got yourself.... a shadow light! (be sure to turn off shadows on your light to reduce artifacts!)

Another cool slider tip, is you can change the sliders of the FOV to 180. This creates a light with 180 degrees of light, meaning it lights everything in a plane! Useful for creating omnilights, or lighting entire environments with a single light source.

Last useful tip with lights : Use the Radius slider! i use it now on all my lights. What i do is just raise radius either 1/4 -1/2 the way up. Radius only applies its effect when your have post processing on.

What does Radius do exactly? It makes shadows on lights fade (almost like an intensity slider for shadows) and makes artifacts on shadows get blurred. Use radius on volumetric light for the best results!

[Kjølig Bris]

Originally posted by Justice Retro Hunter:

Just a helpful tip i picked up from Argodeamon

You can "remap the slider ranges" on lights by right clicking on the slide bars, then clicking "remap slider ranges"

It turns out you can set some of these values to negative numbers. Try setting the value of the intensity slider to -100 and you got yourself.... a shadow light! (be sure to turn off shadows on your light to reduce artifacts!)

Another cool slider tip, is you can change the sliders of the FOV to 180. This creates a light with 180 degrees of light, meaning it lights everything in a plane! Useful for creating omnilights, or lighting entire environments with a single light source.

Last useful tip with lights : Use the Radius slider! i use it now on all my lights. What i do is just raise radius either 1/4 -1/2 the way up. Radius only applies its effect when your have post processing on.

What does Radius do exactly? It makes shadows on lights fade (almost like an intensity slider for shadows) and makes artifacts on shadows get blurred. Use radius on volumetric light for the best results!

Thanks I'll give these a try

[dooragjockey]

Originally posted by Frosty:

Any tips to improve the lightning. I love making artwork but I was wondering if there are any tips to improve the lightning:LIS_butterfly:

you can right click on the object (or body parts) and go to "Dag utilties Menu" and hit create light it will create 4 lights at make the scene more better, i suggest playing with them untill you got something you like

[Marco Skoll]

Originally posted by Justice Retro Hunter:

a shadow light!

a light with 180 degrees of light

Bear in mind that these are both very buggy.

Negative lights in Source have a subtractive rather than multiplicative effect.
For example, if you have something that is colour R255 G128 B64 (a pale orangey colour), the "shadow light" will just take X off all these values, causing the object to become increasingly more saturated as the light becomes darker, with a hue tending towards the primary colours. In this case, it will go through R191 G64 B0 (a much more saturated orange) and R127 G0 B0 (a deep red).

It also means that an object originally coloured R0 G0 B127 (dark blue) will become completely and literally black while the orange object is still a deep red.

Basically, it messes up the colours and the relative brightness of objects. It's fine if you want to create an unnatural blackness, but it's not suitable for darkening a normal scene.

And 180 degree lights cannot use shadows, as Source's shadow mapping can't work on those scales.
A shadow map is a "depth texture" of what the light can see, but for an 180 degree light, that map covers an infinitely wide area, so the texture's finite resolution simple doesn't work.
With the default sfm_shadowmapres, shadow quality notably deteriorates past about 170 degrees.

What does Radius do exactly? It...

To be more precise, what Radius does is that it causes SFM to randomise the light's exact position between samples. (A good demonstration is to turn on the light frustum and then watch the progressive refinement kick in), you'll see the light's "cone" flit around the screen.

Basically, it helps the light represent a broader light source - like a large campfire (which will produce softer shadows*) rather than a point source like a small flashlight bulb (which will cast very hard shadows).

* See the concept of umbra, penumbra and antumbra. (Wikipedia link[en.wikipedia.org])

Use it as appropriate for the light you're trying to mimic (although, yes, it can be fairly good for generic scene lighting).

[Astute]

Juggernaut nailed it. 3 Point Lighting is the best thing you can study to get better at lighting your scene. The vast majority of bad posters I see fail simply because they only use 1 light, and it's aimed directly from the camera. Good lighting is a total game changer, it's almost transformative. Even poorly posed scenes or shoddy animation work can be vastly improved by a good light kit. Look up general photography/cinematography tutorials, they can have an amazing impact on the quality of your work.

Besides 3 Point, you could also invest in bounce lights. Bounce lights are lights that sit opposite of all your other lights(I usually put one directly under my model), and are usually very faint. They let you control the intensity of your character's shadow. A good bounce light can make your character pop in a scene.

Remember to apply sutble color tints to your lights. If you are going for an average sunlit scene, tint your Key light a warm color(like orange or red), and your fill something lighter(like yellow). Your Rim light is usually bright, and it's tint depends on your light source. Your bounce is usually an opposing color, like light blue or green. If you are having trouble figuring out how your lights should be tinted, take a look at your scene and imagine where all of the light is coming from(The sun, the moon, a flood light, a lamp, etc).

Remember to keep track of your shadows. I generally set up my lights, and then go through turning off shadowing on the minor/insignificant ones. Your Bounce and Fill, for example, generally don't need to cast a noticable shadow. Also, remember to tweak your shadow's softness. Sharp shadows imply a really close or strong light. Soft shadows imply a very far away or ambient light. Unless your actors have a flash light or flood light shining on them, they don't need a strong shadow.

I'd advise tweaking your AO before you print a poster. It's a pretty common mistake for people to print their posters with AO untouched, which generally creates that muddy shadow look all over their scene. When you are done setting up your poster, remember hit the render settings and turn on "Show Ambient Occlusion". Now that you can see what your ambient occlusion looks like, tweak the intensity of AO so it's not super overbearing. Usually a light touch is best, or no AO at all in some cases.

Not lighting, but I figure I should mention it. Experiment with pulling your camera back and choosing a lower FOV. The default FOV is usually unsuitable for anything cinematic.

Just my 2cents.