Greetings Lighting. Good lighting is what decides the feel and tone of the scene It can both make the scene much worse and a lot better That is why it is crucial to understand how to handle your scene lighting And that is what we are learning today For the tutorial - I will be using this scene with free environment assets, so you can even follow the tutorial It organizes all the lights and provides a fast and easy way to work with them and change their settings We will start with the environmental lighting Settings for it can be found in the Render Settings tab, Environment It is a type of lighting that surrounds your character, usually produced by the environment in real life So things like sun and sky By default, there is already an environment map applied to the scene This lighting is produced from the image, thus it is called an image-based lighting Images like this are called HDR images and you can check out our last video to learn a lot more about what they are, how they work, and how to set them up So I will not explain more about them in this video You can see that the lighting is not very good, everything is quite dark, bland and not interesting We can try to make it better by rotating, for example And it works a bit, but overall the problem is the default HDRI, it is just not good I would not recommend using it for anything except some quick or test renders So what alternatives are there? One of the things that we can try is a different Environment mode - a Sun-Sky Only The difference here is that instead of simulating light using the image - Daz Studio simulated the sun and the lighting that it should produce So by using this Mode, you can simulate a realistic sun lighting setting By changing both the Latitude and Longitude - you can set up the time of day and a hemisphere location Or instead of managing these values, you can create a Sun Object Yourself For this, we will use an SS Sun Node Firstly we need to create an object, that would be the sun It can be any object, but I recommend using Null because it is a nothing object that is not seen on the render and has no geometry, a perfect fit for this task The object is located in the middle of the scene and you can control it like any other object by using the Parameters menu, for example Now let’s plug it in the Sun Node and see what changed It looks as if the light comes from the direction of the object And it is true By changing the location of this Null, I control the angle of the sun Lowering it - makes everything darker, more of an evening scene And changing the X and Z values changes the direction of the sun and thus shadows Like this, you have control over the sun and can control the lighting And this is a good method, but being honest - HDRIs just propose a lot more They are a lot more diverse and even easier to control So I will use HDRI, just change it to something else On the HDRI Haven, this nice image that depicts a beautiful sunset on the beach The image is called “The sky is on fire” if you want to use it too Here is how it looks applied to the scene - everything becomes pinkish and feels a lot like a sunset I have decided to rotate the Dome a bit to better light the character Everything is still a bit dark, so added more intensity to the HDRI But I can’t say that the scene looks good Everything is very evenly lit and looks bland Nothing stands out and there are practically no shadows That is why usually using only an HDRI is simply not enough This depends on a scene and image, of course, because in some cases this can work But clearly not in this situation So we will add scene lighting to complement an HDRI and improve the render In the meantime, I have added a Camera About Cameras, their settings and positioning you can also learn on our channel, one of the newest videos In the Daz Studio, you can add a bunch of different lighting objects Such as Distant Lights, Point Lights, Linear Point Lights, and Spot Light We will use Spotlights because they are the best fit for this task Besides, they are overall the most used type of lighting in the Daz Studio After adding - the light appears in the center of the scene, below the character There are several ways to move it The most basic one is to change values in the Parameters tab Or you can use the Universal Moving Tool that adds a special gizmo to the object This allows us to click and drag arrows to move this object But it is not an ideal tool too, as sometimes it is hard to click on the exact arrow that you want, especially rotating can be difficult That is why my favorite way to change the light position is to change your view to the spotlight view And then use regular navigation buttons to point it at the right location
From the Perspective view, we can see that it has changed its location Now for the main part - setting up the light For this, you need to select it and proceed to the Lights tab As with any other tab, it can be found in the Window > Panes There are three main sections here: Display with everything about how the light looks in the viewport and render So you can make it more visible or hide it here General with absolutely everything that was in the Parameters tab And Light - the tab about the lighting this object produces It is the main tab that we are going to talk about and will look into each and every setting here Let’s see how the scene looks with the light No changes seen What about when we turn off an HDRI? Everything turned black But if you take a really close look - you will see that there is a little, tiny bit of lighting there The Spotlight by default is very and very weak, so I will make it stronger We will return to this setting again later Now it is much better Let’s begin with the top setting - Illumination The default is On There is also a Diffuse And Specular options As I understood, while using Iray - these options do nothing They were designed to be used in another engine - 3Delight Also, you can turn Illumination off and it just gets rid of the lighting As I am using Iray, I will leave this at on and never touch it Next is Color This one is pretty understandable too - you can choose a color and the lighting will be tinted with it So you can make it pinker to maybe create an evening scene Color is usually only used to create artificial lighting, as for more natural ones - there is a better option The intensity of the light should be pretty obvious too Lower values make it weaker On the contrary, higher values make the lighting stronger It is not a very flexible feature, as you can only control the value between 0 and 200 percent We will look at a better way of controlling the light strength later Photometric Mode This is just a setting for revealing more advanced settings There is absolutely no reason to turn this off, as it hides the most important settings too If I zoom out a bit, we will see that the spotlight has a big outer circle This circle shows us everything that is going to be lighted So everything that is inside this circle will be influenced by the spotlight While everything outside will remain dark This is called the Spread Angle and can be controlled by changing the corresponding value here Meaning that we can make it smaller and it will light the smaller area but with more concentrated force Or we can increase the angle up to 180 degrees So everything in front of the light would be illuminated with a weaker strength The Beam Exponent is very similar. But it is about the inner circle of the gizmo When I increase the value - the gizmo does not change, but the lighting becomes more concentrated on this inner circle At the maximum value of 100 - it fully concentrates on the inner circle and almost illuminates only it On the contrary, the minimum value of 1 lights the whole spread angle up to the outer circle Increasing this a bit is useful to make the lighting a bit smoother and more natural That is why the default value is 4 and I am fine with it Further is Shadow Type Though sounds interesting - but sadly it is another option that was designed for the 3Delight and does not seem to work in any way with the Iray Light Geometry is both a very interesting and a very important setting It decides the geometry of the light source and by default, it is set to a Point If you look at the shadow that this light creates of the character - the shadow is very sharp, too sharp even And this refers to the whole shadow It is equally sharp even on the furthest point The sharpness of the shadow is decided by the size of the light that illuminates an object The smaller it is - the sharper is the shadow And right now our light source is literally the smallest possible shape - a point That is why the shadow is like that Look what happened when I changed the geometry to a rectangle Shadow is not as sharp anymore And it becomes smoother - further it goes Height and Width settings responsible for the size of light geometry So when I increase it a bunch - the shadow becomes a lot blurrier than it was Different shapes work differently and have diverse effects on a shadow You can also see the shape of the light physically change if you look at it Generally speaking, you usually want either a rectangle or a disk light And you rarely want a point light, because the shadows would be too sharp and unnatural Also changing the size of geometry, when it is set to Point Light - does absolutely nothing As we are on a theme of Light Geometry, I want to talk about another setting regarding this Notice that we have big rectangular lighting and we see it’s reflecting here on the floor Render Emitter is the setting that will help you to hide the light Now it is gone, but it still provides absolutely the same level of lighting And even the reflection is still there too This is very useful because some lights can be too noticeable on the render Or it can also abstract your view If something like this happens - you can just turn it off Returning on track - next is the Light Portal And it just turns off the lighting It is also a setting that does not seem to work I think that is supposed to work in Iray and was used for simulating lighting through the window, but it does nothing now Two-sided is the setting that should make this light illuminate both sides at the same time Yet again, it does not do that A lot of obsolete or old settings we have here in Daz Studio It is sad, but it is what it is So moving forward One of the most important settings here - Luminous Flux It is the strength of the light and it is pretty easy to understand You just increase this setting to have a brighter light Or decrease it to have a darker one As I said earlier, it is similar to the Intensity setting, but just a lot better as it has far more control over the strength The default value for some reason is 1500 lumens, which is incredibly low Increasing this 10 times makes it a little bit better, but it is still far too dark So you need to increase the default value hundreds of times I have used the value of 400000 Lumens Last but not least - Temperature When introducing the Color setting, I said that there is a better way to control the natural color of the light - this is it It allows changing the color of the light based on the temperature in Kelvins Lower value - makes the light warmer First a bit yellowy Next, it becomes orange And finally even bright red On the other hand - higher values give us colder temperature lighting They are whitish And blue Colors that associate with cold and winter The default value is a nice middle ground, a very neutral color We are finally finished with the introduction of the settings, now let’s use this knowledge to practice and light this scene using a three-point lighting technique Three-point lighting is an astounding lighting setup that is used in basically every media, such as photography or film It is very flexible and can be adapted for basically any situation As the name suggests, this setup utilizes three light sources We already have one - the main light that is called a Key Light Now for where to place this light Let’s look from above It should illuminate the character from the front This line in the middle represents the middle You should have your light either somewhere on the right of this line or the left But not on the line itself, because we want to have a bit of an angle As I am using an HDRI, I need to look at it and see where to point my source, so it would work together with environmental lighting I want it to compliment sun lighting, so it should be from the same direction as the sun is on the image Something like this, maybe a bit further Small corrections Now for the settings I like the rectangle shape and size of 50 suits me because I want a rather soft lighting and shadow As it is the main light - Luminous Flux should be quite high, but maybe not as high We have a very warm sunset scene To add to that, I want this light to have very warm lighting too Will turn off Environmental Lighting, so we can see only what the Key Light produces I like this, it is bright and warm, shadows are quite soft The overall scene is too dark now, shadows are very dark Also, parts of the character are dark too, so we don’t see some details To fix all this - I will add another light, a Fill Light This one also should be in front of the character, but always on the other side of the key light As it is supposed to complement the key light and make everything more prominent and less dark Also, a good idea is to have a different angle from the Key Light Mine is pointing from the top So I would want this Fill Light to have a different angle Something like this By the way, it is another way of moving your lights - is to copy the current location of your viewport Using the Top View to better see how this looks The Fill Light is a lot further than the Key Light, so I have fixed that From the side view, I can see that the angle of the Fill Light is not as different So I want to change it even more This is better Time to set it up It needs to be similar to the Key Light, so also a rectangle But I will make it quite bigger, so it would not mess with the main shadow from the key light and will be much softer For the strength - usually Fill Light is around two times weaker than the Key So I have done exactly that And about temperature - I want it to be even warmer than the key light As it is weaker and bigger, it will not dictate the feel of the scene, but instead will supplement it It looks much better now There are fewer dark spots, more of the character is visible and lit Shadows are not as dark anymore A reminder of how it looked without the Fill Light Now for the last of the lights Looking from the top - we have two lights that illuminate character from the front, but nothing in the back So if we will look - the back is very dark You may think that why would you care? It is not visible on the render anyway But even though we are rendering from the front, the illuminated back of the character will add dimension to the character and the scene Make it pop out more Besides, we will use it also to make a little highlight on the character’s hair Such light is called a Back Light or sometimes a Rim Light And usually placed opposite to the Key Light to compensate for the darker and deeper shadows that it creates Here is a good place Adjusting the location and pointing it higher, closer to the key light and character’s hair Back Light should be the smallest of three main lights on the scene and the weakest Made it twice as small as the Key Light And made it twice less intense than the Fill Light Regarding the temperature - to create a highlight and a contrast on the scene - it should have a colder tone So a value of 7000 it is A Rim Light is also a nice opportunity to mess with the Spread Angle and Beam Exponent settings As we don’t need it to light everything around, it may be more concentrated on the character itself On the rendered view, I right away see a couple of problems First of all, is that we can see the light itself I forgot to turn off the Render Emitter But we can also see that the light provides a really strong illumination Hair is highlighted, but everything is too much The back of the character looks very bright and white So I turn off the Render Emitter and decrease Luminous Flux ten times The same problems persist The character still lights a bit too much And even though we don’t see an emitter itself anymore, but there is a black rectangle in its place If we look closer at this rectangle - we will see that it is the shadow of the spotlight Despite we don’t see an emitter on render - it is still there and we can see its shadow on the wall One of the solutions is either to make this emitter much smaller, so there would be no visible shadow Or to change geometry to the Point Light But these are not good solutions, as then the light becomes too small So the only and the easiest solution that comes to mind - is simply to move the light a bit to the side, out of the rendered image It is still there and provides the same light, but we can’t see it on the render Lowered the Luminous Flux even more It still provides some dimension to the character and highlights the hair, but it is not overwhelming and does not take away from other lights Now it is time to turn on the HDRI and look at the final results Here are the resulted renders with and without the three-point lighting It is seen how the image on the right is inferior It has a very even, bland, and not interesting lighting Basically no shadows too, nothing sticks out While on the left character just attracts more attention to itself They are the center of the scene and it is seen clearly One of the things that you should understand is that Three-Point Lighting is not some mantra that you should blindly follow The greatest thing is that it is very flexible and you are free to do whatever you want Like here this part of the scene is still a bit dark I can easily go and add another light to compensate for that We are still utilizing the three-point lighting, as we are using the main techniques from it or at the least are based on it Or also to create dramatic lighting, you can just use two main lights - the Key and Back Like this, you will have part of the character in a shadow, which can have a very dramatic effect Also, this technique can be used in the indoor lighting The one thing that you should keep in mind in such a situation is that it may be a good idea to place indoor lights in a way, how they would be in a real room Such things as that artificial lights are very often located on the ceiling And that natural lighting usually comes from the windows, in my situation, it could be this part of the scene Or somewhere like that But this is definitely not an indoor scene, so not a very good example Also, I want to recommend you some extra add-ons that can help you with the Iray lighting All of them and more can be found on the Daz3D.com/shop One of the main aspects of this and many other scenes was an HDRI Although there are free options, you may consider getting something like "Studio Light PRO Iray HDRI - Soft Light", as it provides a specific kind of lighting - Soft Studio Lights Or its sibling - a "Studio Light PRO HDRI Iray Wow Lights". Both are bundles of a lot of different HDRIs that are themed about Studio Lights And if you really want a big collection - the "Studio Light PRO Iray HDRI - 180 Maps", as comes from its name - has a big collection of astounding 180 maps All these examples are fit more for the indoor lighting, what about outdoors? Iray "HDRI Hazy Sunsets and Desert"- a collection of perfect outside environment maps Similar to the one that was used in this video For something more - you may want to look at "iRadiance - Light Probe HDR Lighting for Iray" As it proposes not only a pack of HDR images, but also full ready-made sets with lights that you can plug in your scene and render The same goes for the "Iray HDR Magix Fashion Lights" - it is not only an HDRI bundle but also a light set If you want something more than regular spotlights - then an "Iray Ghost Light Kit 3" is exactly for you This kit adds invisible volumetric lights without any mesh They mimic atmospheric lighting effects by using mesh volumes with cutout shaders The "Iray Light Probe Kit" is similar in a way But it adds Omni-directional, invisible, ambient lighting solution for Iray in a way of spherical probes To help you manage all the lights of your scene - an Iray Light Manager PRO is the savior you need It is the solution for easy, fast, efficient, and clear light management It organizes all the lights and provides a fast and easy way to work with them and change their settings Hope that now you understand how to use spotlights in the Daz Studio and create a properly lighted scene using them together with the environmental lighting If you want to learn more - you can always visit the RenderGuide.com website, where we have tutorials for everyone from the total beginners to more advanced users This video was made using one of the articles there - a Daz3d Iray Lighting Tutorial that has even more information on the topic that you may find interesting Don't forget to subscribe to our channel to get more inspiration
