February 2017 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Lighting

Shinji Ikari 9th

Edit - Accedently double posted things.

social_stigma

daybird said:

 

soc_stig said:

Yet another idea. (Did I mention I enjoy playing with lighting?) The entire background is emissive.

I did cut the render short because is see a collision issue with the right forearm that needs fixing.

Wow, you make really cool pictures and you do things with DAZ, of which I did not even know that they are possible.. I would like to know, how to do that.
The effect with the man from your first picture is awesome. Maybe you could show us a little tutorial, how you created the effect.

 

 

Thanks for the compliments, Daybird. When I have some time, I'll see if I can detail what I did to get the effects I used. Glad you like the results! 

social_stigma

Kismet2012 said:

soc_stig said:

Another idea.

Well done.  Nice posing, and lighting.  You have some great rim lights and very interesting shadows.  Did you apply DOF?  Her hands look slightly out of focus so I am guessing you did.

 

Thanks, Kismet. I almost always use DOF on my renders. This one also has a bloom filter applied, which may be adding to the slight haziness. Glad you like it!

yhzmurphy

 

 

Kismet2012 said:

Your perseverance is paying off @daybird.  This scene has a lot of potential.  The poses of your figures and toning down the background is telling a very compelling story.  The city is in ruins after some kind of horrific attack.  Your heroine is distraught.  Did she lose someone she loves?  Is she devastated to see her city in ruins?  Does she feel responsible for this destruction?  Could she have prevented it somehow?

For what's it's worth - I totally agree. It's fascinating to watch how your images are evolving so much between posts and starting to really tell a story.  Keep going!

yhzmurphy

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

Wow.  I really like this one. 

nekyo

Hello all, decided to do a second submission to get some more lighting practice!

This time I tried to pick a really simple environment so I could focus on lighting. Nonetheless I got a little carried away with the scene composition...but I like the way it turned out! At first I was going to place the camera in a dark room peering through the glass door into a lit room. However, after playing around I came on the idea of placing the camera on the ground and trying to get arms in the frame, like you were knocked down. That got me to thinking of bullying in a school environment, so I modified the hallway (which is actually a "confinement corridor") into a school hallway - adding some lockers and chairs. I still wanted to play with lighting, so I decided to have the lights in the background off, and pretend there is a light directly above / slightly behind the camera that is on. I also liked having a lit hallway in the background through the doorway. It was tricky getting enough light to light the characters, but still maintain the mood I wanted - I don't think it's quite there yet.

"High School Bullying"

 

nickashman68

Render i did recently, working on lighting, 100% Iray render, no post work.

Full size image . http://nickashman68.deviantart.com/art/coming-out-of-the-shadows-662955608

nickashman68

Rendered in Monochrome, Another experiment with lighting

100% Iray render, no post work

full size image available here..... http://nickashman68.deviantart.com/art/Harley-Quinn002-660065024

Linwelly

nekyo said:

Hello all, decided to do a second submission to get some more lighting practice!

This time I tried to pick a really simple environment so I could focus on lighting. Nonetheless I got a little carried away with the scene composition...but I like the way it turned out! At first I was going to place the camera in a dark room peering through the glass door into a lit room. However, after playing around I came on the idea of placing the camera on the ground and trying to get arms in the frame, like you were knocked down. That got me to thinking of bullying in a school environment, so I modified the hallway (which is actually a "confinement corridor") into a school hallway - adding some lockers and chairs. I still wanted to play with lighting, so I decided to have the lights in the background off, and pretend there is a light directly above / slightly behind the camera that is on. I also liked having a lit hallway in the background through the doorway. It was tricky getting enough light to light the characters, but still maintain the mood I wanted - I don't think it's quite there yet.

"High School Bullying"

 

Nice start on your second one and a well thought perspective, I can feel the urge to punch those two... ;). Personally I would maybe not take someone knocked out ( because then you don't look anymore, but probably someone knocked down trying to get back up, so hands flant to the ground or a fist to lean on ( makes the hands look less like from a puppet)

The light setting is a bit boring right now. I get you want a dark surrounding. You could try to ge the the two bullies more singled out by the light ( going for some kind of spot light) or you could try with a strong backlight (open that door and let the light come through the door, so that the bulies get to be mostly sihouettes ( there should be a bit light around to see some of their front).

There are plenty of possibilities, try to experiement a bit with that.

Linwelly

@nickashman68 those two protraits leave hardly anything to add to that. Are you using premade light sets ( nothing wrong with that) or are you setting this up yourself? If you are using light sets, I would suggest you try to understand what each light does and how you can alter that, so that you understand the way those work. If you do those all yourself I can only ask you to teach everybody else ;).

IceDragonArt

daybird said:

I keep fighting with the idea I have and turn back to Iray, but now I think ,I should try, to render the picture without the background and insert him later with Gimp.
Only problem...I do not know how this works.

 

 

I actually like this one a lot. 

I am not that great with lighting either, I too, tend to like my premade light sets which is why I haven't been able to be as helpful either. 

Gilles Proust

Let's stay simple, daylight in open space for me, too soon for a night scene or other complicated thing. 100% Iray renders without postwork.

Gilles Proust

Second and last one.

daybird

Shinji Ikari 9th said:

 

Was hit with these ideas the last two nights. In the second one I pulled most of the crew from last August out of retirement.

And speeking of last August I found a script in the freebies section of the forum that lets you reduce the size of your textures to reduce memory consumption in Iray, and was finaly able to render my first idea in one pass. Here's the result.

 

The first pic is definitely the eye catcher. Work on this and it will be a winner. Maybe you should intens the light, who comes by the ventilator, but it`s a great start and looks very cool to me.

Gilles Proust

soc_stig said:

I love playing with lighting - it can really bring an image to life. Here I've tried 2 variations on the same model. One is a single-source setup, the other using just emissives.

Beautiful ! I want to able to do the same concerning the last one. One day i will try.

Gilles Proust

nickashman68 said:

Rendered in Monochrome, Another experiment with lighting

100% Iray render, no post work

full size image available here..... http://nickashman68.deviantart.com/art/Harley-Quinn002-660065024

Another beautiful one. Not fan on the ground reflection.

 

daybird

nickashman68 said:

Render i did recently, working on lighting, 100% Iray render, no post work.

Full size image . http://nickashman68.deviantart.com/art/coming-out-of-the-shadows-662955608

You know, how to work with light and posing. I think your skill is to good for this thread, but it's nice that you, soc_stig and a few others post your pics here. So we newbies can learn a lot and see, what for cool results are possible with DAZ.

Gilles Proust

Ice Dragon Art said:

daybird said:

I keep fighting with the idea I have and turn back to Iray, but now I think ,I should try, to render the picture without the background and insert him later with Gimp.
Only problem...I do not know how this works.

 

I actually like this one a lot. 

I am not that great with lighting either, I too, tend to like my premade light sets which is why I haven't been able to be as helpful either. 

Beautiful. Would be perfect with less light in the red hair, they are more illuminated than steel.

barbult

nickashman68 said:

Render i did recently, working on lighting, 100% Iray render, no post work.

Full size image . http://nickashman68.deviantart.com/art/coming-out-of-the-shadows-662955608

Nice work on the dramatic lighting. It is very effective in this image.

deathbycanon

Thanks for the tips everyone, I'm off to learn about collision now 

daybird

yhzmurphy said:

 

I think @daybird's question was how to render without background and add that in later.

Assuming that is the case, start with a scene without a background, or any changes to background colour.

 

Big THX again yhzmurphy! 
You develop slowly to my personal help centre for problem solving. 
You should put this two minitutorials also in your DeviantArt account, because I think, I'm not the only one, who could use this advices.

 

nickashman68

daybird said:

nickashman68 said:

Render i did recently, working on lighting, 100% Iray render, no post work.

Full size image . http://nickashman68.deviantart.com/art/coming-out-of-the-shadows-662955608

You know, how to work with light and posing. I think your skill is to good for this thread, but it's nice that you, soc_stig and a few others post your pics here. So we newbies can learn a lot and see, what for cool results are possible with DAZ.

I am only learning myself, i have not had much experience in 3d rendering, its just that i am a prefectionist and only show what i think is my best.

 

Delirious

I haven't posted an update in awhile because the image hasn't seemed to change much. This is the latest--looks more like a furnace than a fireplace to me, but I learned some things doing it and I thought I would share the ideas.

After playing around with an opaque cutout in front of a light to create the illusion of flickering flame, I thought I might get a nice effect by making the cutout translucent. The idea was to take an image of flame and shine the light through it, like stained glass. It took a few tries to get the translucency right and the light intensity right (so the colors were dispeersed onto the hearth) but I got it to work. But then I wasn't satisfied with the overall light such a set up threw onto the figure or into the room.

At this point I suppose I could add another light to get the foreground where I want it independent of the fireplace, since that is where I want it and the background light feels cool to me (which is where I want that). That just seems to be getting too complicated.

Delirious

Here's another one. One light pane, just in front of and over the figure (If you look close you can see it reflected on the plane just behind the figure--I still have to decrease opacity). The explosion is a flat plane with a downloaded image of an explosion. It's a start, any suggestions to help make ot really "pop" would be appreciated.

Backstory: This is what she was doing that she needed a quiet night in front of the fireplace.

social_stigma

Delirious said:

I haven't posted an update in awhile because the image hasn't seemed to change much. This is the latest--looks more like a furnace than a fireplace to me, but I learned some things doing it and I thought I would share the ideas.

After playing around with an opaque cutout in front of a light to create the illusion of flickering flame, I thought I might get a nice effect by making the cutout translucent. The idea was to take an image of flame and shine the light through it, like stained glass. It took a few tries to get the translucency right and the light intensity right (so the colors were dispeersed onto the hearth) but I got it to work. But then I wasn't satisfied with the overall light such a set up threw onto the figure or into the room.

At this point I suppose I could add another light to get the foreground where I want it independent of the fireplace, since that is where I want it and the background light feels cool to me (which is where I want that). That just seems to be getting too complicated.

The effect from the fire looks great. Nice work!

My only suggestion would be to dial back the brightness of the fire overall (just slightly) and/or add a small warm light that focuses just on the character's face to try to get that as the primary focus. Right now my eyes are drawn a little too much to the shirt and chair. 

Another easier option is too just go into the surface settings for the shirt and chair and change the Base Color to a darker shade (it's usually set at pure white by default). I often do that to de-emphasize background elements.

The image as a whole looks wonderful. The pose is very natural and the cool background contrasts nicely with the warmth of the fire. Well done!

social_stigma

nickashman68 said:

Render i did recently, working on lighting, 100% Iray render, no post work.

Full size image . http://nickashman68.deviantart.com/art/coming-out-of-the-shadows-662955608

You have some great shadows and highlights in both images. My only critique would be that the eyes of both characters are entirely lost in shadow. You might try adding a soft light aimed roughly in the direstion of the faces and eyes to get some highlights in there (without brightening everything up entirely).

You'd have to play around with the angle of the light's Arm, as well as the Tilt and Rotation of the light itself, to get it right. It can be frustrating, but worth the effort when you see the eyes adding life to the character.

Otherwise these are very dramatic images. Nicely done.

social_stigma

Okay, here's my attempt at a tutorial regarding certain effects I used.

EMISSIVE BACKGROUND

First import a simple background (I have a "Paper roll" prop for simple portrait backgrounds that came with a light set I purchased).

Then select the background and go into the Surfaces tab.

I have a shader that allows me to change the surface to "Emissive."

Back in the Surface Editor tab, I set the Temperature to 6500 for white light, and play with other settings for Luminance (brightness) and, after setting the Lumnance Units to Watts (like a common lightnulb), I adjust the Luminous Efficacy (basically how far the light spreads ... think a 20Watt bulb vs. a 75Watt bulb).

With no other lighting, you will need to turn down (or turn off) the environment lighting. This is in the Render settings.

You will also need to turn off the camera's headlamp. Once you create a camera, select it and select the Headlamp setting. Then just turn it off.

With the envirnoment and headlamp off, the only light will be from your emissive surface(s).

REFLECTION

For the image with the reflection, I also used a reflective floor surface along with the emissive background. This was achieved with the same paperroll prop, changing the floor surface to Silver with a metal shader.

EMISSIVE ARMBANDS

The blue-colored image was achieved by simply making the clothing (armbands) emissive ... same process as for the emissive background with the added step of making the Emission color blue.

RIM LIGHTS

For rime lights you want to set your light(s) behind the model at about a 45 degree angle (more or less ... depending on how much of the edge you want highlighted). If all the lights are behind the model, her entire front side will be mostly in shadow (but if you put the camera behind her, her backside will be lit up bright as day). You can move one or more lights around toward the front to offset those shadows.

I know this isn't the best tutorial, but I don't know how to explain it any better than that. I hope it helps at least a little.

 

FaxMisher

Hey Soc_Stig, thanks for the quick tutorial. I've been wondering about how to create emissive objects for awhile. Here's something I threw together in about 5 minutes using the instructions above. Thanks again!

yhzmurphy

@Soc_Stig - thank-you.  Very cool, and very detailed.  I personally have spent many hours not understanding why the scene was not lit by an emissive only to find the environment light in render settings.  I've never thought of a whole wall being emissive...very SciFi.

 

Delirious

soc_stig said:

Delirious said:

I haven't posted an update in awhile because the image hasn't seemed to change much. This is the latest--looks more like a furnace than a fireplace to me, but I learned some things doing it and I thought I would share the ideas.

After playing around with an opaque cutout in front of a light to create the illusion of flickering flame, I thought I might get a nice effect by making the cutout translucent. The idea was to take an image of flame and shine the light through it, like stained glass. It took a few tries to get the translucency right and the light intensity right (so the colors were dispeersed onto the hearth) but I got it to work. But then I wasn't satisfied with the overall light such a set up threw onto the figure or into the room.

At this point I suppose I could add another light to get the foreground where I want it independent of the fireplace, since that is where I want it and the background light feels cool to me (which is where I want that). That just seems to be getting too complicated.

 

The effect from the fire looks great. Nice work!

My only suggestion would be to dial back the brightness of the fire overall (just slightly) and/or add a small warm light that focuses just on the character's face to try to get that as the primary focus. Right now my eyes are drawn a little too much to the shirt and chair. 

Another easier option is too just go into the surface settings for the shirt and chair and change the Base Color to a darker shade (it's usually set at pure white by default). I often do that to de-emphasize background elements.

The image as a whole looks wonderful. The pose is very natural and the cool background contrasts nicely with the warmth of the fire. Well done!

Thanks for the feedback. I didn't even think about changing the base colors of the shirt or chair, probably because I was only thinking of light in terms of lights instead of in terms of the interplay of all the surfaces. That realization helps a lot..Thanks again.