Digital Art Zone

Three in a row.

Sorry about that, Szark; it’s not like you weren’t clear and precise enough.

I caught up with the answer to my first question. Just had to reread your tutorial over again from the beginning. Second question answer is probably in there, too…

nowefg - 04 January 2013 01:35 PM

Forgot question two:

Where are you getting those color-maps shown in post 2?

Thanks, again.

Post 2? If you mean post 3 then I made them in Photoshop Elements using the Gadient Tool. GIMP can do the same. I don’t have my computer now so I can’t take you through the process of making your own Gradient and applying it.. But Google will help there.

sedor - 04 January 2013 01:51 PM

Thanks a lot Pete! This reminds me that I wanted again to start playing with the AreaLights - very good written!!!

Thanks Sedor. I have been held back for too long with the old computer so in a way I am quite thankful and a great motivator. Anyways if I had my way I would only use Area Lighting, Shader Mixer Lights, Cams and Surfaces,,,but something to look forward to.

nowefg - 04 January 2013 01:52 PM

Three in a row.

Sorry about that, Szark; it’s not like you weren’t clear and precise enough.

I caught up with the answer to my first question. Just had to reread your tutorial over again from the beginning. Second question answer is probably in there, too…

Hey don’t be sorry ask away. If I go silent then you know my Wife has reclaimed her laptop.

Great work Pete. I’m a big fan of Uber lights and I would never have thought of using a camera to position my lights. That tip alone was worth gold. I’ll cross post a very recent Uber light render here as well.

Harry Dresden thx and nice soft lighting there too. How many area lights in that image Harry, 2 or 3?

Only 1 area light believe it or not. I also used Uber environment with an HDR map for global lighting.

Arr the old UE2 big Fill light…..yes I would believe it now.

I have been using Uber Area lights more and more, sometimes mixed with linear point lights or distant lights. It occurred to me I could use a camera parented to the Uber Area light to point the light a few weeks ago. I’m going to read this carefully to look for more ideas.

Here is an example portrait with a 3 light setup in which all 3 lights are Uber Area lights.  The setup is shown in the second iamage.

The Key light is elevated, because light coming from above looks more natural to the human eye.  The key light is set to be twice as bright as the fill light.

The fill light is a circular Uber Area light around the camera used to render the image. There really is no reason for it being circular. Some photographers use ring flash around their lens to provide on axis fill. I was sort of thinking of ring flash fill when I chose a circular Uber Area light, but this light is much bigger and therefore softer, than a ring flash.

The accent light behind the model just creates highlights along the edge away from the key light to improve the separation of the model from the background.

The background is just a primitive plane. The surface has been made grey with grey ambient light emission. You cannot get very much light emitted this way, but that is ok. I’m just doing this so I don’t have to light the background. I want it rather dark. There is a spot light just in front of the background pointing at the background. This light is light blue to create the blue highlight around the models head.

There is no Uber Environment light used. The thing at the models feet is the Uber Area Headlamp Blocker, which is a fake light added every time you add a Uber Area light to turn off the default DAZ Studio lighting. (Youn only need one.)

Thanks Mark

I didn’t mention the blocker as that is explaned in the Help Preset Icon but thanks anyway.

Accent light we call Back Lighting or Rim lighting just so people don’t get too confused.

Nice Setup too and a great help showing how you used it, thank you for chipping in there.

Thanks so much for putting this together, Szark! I haven’t had time to study it yet, but I’m sure it will be helpful.

thank U Szark & Mark for this tutorial, very informative for new bee’s

gupta

hai Mark,

if possible can U post screen shot for the ‘UberAreaLights’  lights setting for the rendered image you have posted above.

thanks

gupta

thayi - 07 January 2013 10:34 AM

hai Mark,

if possible can U post screen shot for the ‘UberAreaLights’  lights setting for the rendered image you have posted above.

thanks

gupta

I’m at work now, but I will try to post those tonight.

I have been adjusting the lighting intensities a little so I am not sure exactly what settings I used for the image posted above.  I have re-rendered the image below along with the current light settings and the render advanced settings. This image looks like it has a bit more fill light so that the shadows are not as deep as the first one i posted. I have circled the most important settings which are not default.

I use ‘Samples’ of 32. Szark suggested 32 as the value he usually uses and I also found this value a good compromise. The default is 8.

On the advanced render tab, I always use ‘shading rate’ of 0.2 on recommendation of many people here.

I also changed the color of the light slightly, although I don’t think this is very important.

I turned on the ‘Falloff’ feature. I am did this to keep the Key and fill light from illuminating the background. The fall off is set to start after the light has passed the subject, but well before it reaches the background.  Real lights in a photo studio of course don’t have this feature. Photographers frequently have to use lights to light the background. I’m just using the rather weak ambient light from the background plane, so I want to keep the key and fill lights off it.