lighting?

#1

hey,

im trying to spruce up an animation i did about a year and a half ago. i completed the basic animation back then (ive just edited a few tiny bits though as im still learning animation and what i did back then isnt quite up to the standard of now) but due to me only having a crappy 733mhz pentium 3 back when i made it i never rendered it properly. now i have my core 2 duo PC ive decided to go back to it and render it at least decently.

thing is, im crap at lighting, i dont know what each light is for and how to use them. the animation is a nighttime scene so i need a light to act as the moon, but the moon is the only lightsource im using. what light(s) should i use, where should i place them in comparison to the scene and what settings should i use for it. i want the render time to be pretty short though (its a 4100 frame animation) so i dont want too much out of it. at the moment i have 4 distant lights, 1 in each corner and all at 50% so that it lights it enough to test the scene, but i want to change it to one single light. im guessing that global illumination will have to be on so that the light can reach most of the places in the scene and thats going to push up the render time, but its the selection and settings of the light i mainly need help with.

#2

all of them are usefull. I would open up an object with a good amount of detail, just 1 and test each light and it’s settings. turn of ambient light, although i find it usefull also. off the top of my head, all lights have intesity falloff except for distant lights. you should also practice using those settings. after testing each individually practice using them together. Then you should be able to figure out how you want to light your scene.

#3

thanks for the advice, but quick question: is there any other way to make a light affect more of the scene than global illumination? for example, you have a character and the light is shining on his face, his back would be in very dark shadow, is there anyway to make the light reach round to his back apart from global illumination? GI takes ages to render and i really want to keep the render time down as low as possible.

thanks.

#4

Other the GI or adding fill lights you could try increasing the ambient intensity, although I wouldn’t recommend it - be carefull when using it, it tends to flatten everything.

#5

what are fill lights? as you may have guessed im new to the world of lighting. before now ive only really done image renders where ive put a simple distant light in the scene at the right position to light my object how i want. radiosity is about the most technical thing ive done with lighting.

#6

In this case I strongly recommend that you read up some articles on lighting techniques, such as these:

http://www.martinkay-3d.com/mk_lighting_tut_p1.html
http://members.shaw.ca/LightWavetutorials/lighting.htm

GI is a godsend, but as you found out it takes forever to render and not always flexible. Veterans learn how to use them both together for best effect.

#7

Here you can see how fill lights are use:
http://www.3drender.com/light/3point.html
And here’s a very good tutorial on lighting (actually I got this from a sticky thread in the Lighting and Shaders forum here at cgtalk):
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/indoor-light.htm

Also search google, cgtalk… you’ll find a lot to explore. Good luck :slight_smile:

#8

thanks for all that, ill definately check it all out, and if i need any more help i know where to come :thumbsup:

#9

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