Lights

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a_bertrand
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Lights

Post by a_bertrand »

So this is the second part of my explanation of why light and textures should count more than a base model.

I took the crate textured in the previous post, and used it in a new scene which didn't took me really long to create (maybe 10 min?).

The first shot is with one point light somewhat in the middle... with no shadows:
Image

No shadow means you don't get really a good idea of where things are one against the other, and... a point light is not something you should start with if you want realistic renders.

Let's see the model of this scene:
Image

As you can see, there isn't much to it, a couple of our crate placed in a corner of a room, with a tube. Again I played a bit with the textures to make it interesting, that why the first shot is not totally dull.

Let's try to switch on the shadow (ray traced, I basically do not work anymore with any other kind of shadows):
Image

Hard edges, and shadows are WAY too dark. It's not good, but at least you now know where things are in 3D space.

A good replacement of the point light is to add area lights which emit lights in square / rectangle shapes instead of a single point.:

Image

However a single area light makes only the shadow a bit smoother, and the light a tiny bit more natural, still far from what you would like to have. Trying to duplicate and tweak them, as well as add red spot, and some volumetric lights (to add some sort of green fog) could lead to this result:

Image

Interesting, but somehow the fog removes interest more than adding to it, in my opinion. And the light is still not great.

To finish my light setup, I made the top area light stronger, added a point light in the corner (with a yellow hue):

Image

This is for me a good enough result for this tutorial, of course you could continue to tweak and play with different light scenario but as you could see the render changed completely since the first setup and this last one, and this only by playing with the lights.

To show how my scene is setup, I made a screenshot of the scene:
Image

The rectangular white box with an arrow are the area lights, then there is the camera and a spot light on the right (red spot), and in the corner you see the point light.

Keep in mind the more lights or complex lights (like the area lights I used) the longer your render time will be. My last render took 55 sec to render, while the first one took 14 sec.
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a_bertrand
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Re: Lights

Post by a_bertrand »

BTW If you have questions, suggestions or want more details about what lights can do, please ask.
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Epiales
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Re: Lights

Post by Epiales »

Very nice indeed. I'm very new to this, so, good job. I probably need to just make a square and then practice some different lighting.
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Jackolantern
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Re: Lights

Post by Jackolantern »

Do pretty much all 3D games use dynamic lighting these days? Back in the day, the last time I was working with 3D (probably about 2003), almost all lighting was pre-baked since dynamic lighting was just showing up and was very expensive resource-wise.
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a_bertrand
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Re: Lights

Post by a_bertrand »

Depends on the kind of lights and ambient. They tend to mix between per-calculated for global illumination solutions and dynamic lights for directional lights like spots and other moving lights.
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