What is the light preset you've bought and thank yourself you do so?
iSeeThis
Posts: 552
in The Commons
For me, BOSS Pro Light Set for Portraits & Promos. I've made so many masterpieces without being a light master.
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The DimensionTheory Iradiance series because the presets for brightness taught me how to adjust brightness in iRay in the Render Tab.
DimensionTheory's lights are the ones I use the most followed closely by Lyoness's lights.
BOSS Pro. I've probably used that more than any one light set I've got.
Laurie
Dimension Theory's iRadiance Light Dome Probes. I use them SOooo much.
Colm Jackson's HDR Pro series. I like them a lot.
The Iradiance sets, LI Incandenscent, Fabiana's Energy Flow and new favorites are Quick Lights by Paper Tiger at rendo :) Pretty much my go to lights everytime even though Ive purchased almost every set lol.
Fabiana also gets my vote. I use Energy Flow constantly
The iRadiance Light Probe sets and Painter's Lights, which I don't think are available any more. I found the BOSS Pro lights in my runtime last week when I was looking for something else, and can't even remember buying them
, so I will have to be giving them a try soon.
3DLight user here. My go-tos are Flipmode light sets from the easy environment series and Khory's Caressed by Light sets 1 & 2.
+1
I've searched for Energy Flow and found nothing. Can you please point me out giving the direct link? Thank you!
I feel like a noob. I'm around here for many years but just learnt that so many products can be gone normally. (I've known that some products are gone, but didn't realize that it's common to be so)
It seems people here are fond of iRadiance. I've got one, too. But I don't think it (they) can make things pop up and pop out. Don't get me wrong. I've used it more than anything else because it offers "like it or not" scheme to get things done easily. But I can just use it for general ones, not masterpieces.
My vote goes to Fabi's lights from Rendo as well. Perfect results every time. There's also some from Sveva over there that I haven't got yet, but looked good.
I picked up some iRadiance sets here recently and am eager to give those a try as well. I got the Painter's lights too because they looked fabulous, just haven't done a render with them yet.
elianeck lights were good as well, maybe for you ISeeThis, for pop, depending on what you mean.
I use Painter's Lights a lot. I'd recommend them but they do seem to have disappeared from the store.
I have others that I like but very happy with this set https://www.daz3d.com/li-incandescent--portrait-lighting-for-iray
This is my favorite set https://www.daz3d.com/winter-hdris I also like https://www.daz3d.com/prehistoric-hdris
I use the fall winter hdri a lot.
I haven’t had good luck with the iradiance light probes, although I like the HDRI sets, like the Hawaii and Outdoor ones.
...OK a little old school here but my all time favourite is Dreamlight's old LDP2. It was so much simpler to set up than the older version had better ambient lighting, different sun angles, and there was a very nice an add on, Azure Skies, which had some of the nicest skydomes at the time. The 4.x update I found a bit disappointing as it required multi pass rendering and compositing in Photoshop.
For Iray, my new go to outdoor light sets are the IBL Skies sets (I purchased the entire bundle).
Yeah. Somewhat agree. I've got two Elianeck myself. But I don't think the results are as pop as of BOSS.
I've got it before it was gone. Really don't know the result why something good like this should disaapear.
Yeah, I guess it really depends on our works, not absolutely good or bad by itself.
I've gotten to where I just use the iRay render's Sun & Sky mode. I no longer use HDRI at all. If it's indoors I mostly use Painter's Lights or BOSS Lights. I have bought others & I'm sure they are good but I've never used the other light products I've bought.
...I never bother with the time/date/location settings when working in Sun/Sky mode, I just the Sun Chain to position the sun where I need it.
The nice part about the IBL Skies sets is you can get different cloud conditions, instead of just a clear blue sky, that is suited to the time of day you want to set your scene.
The Rim Lighting Rig has taken my work from zero to hero! https://www.daz3d.com/rim-light-rig
TL;DR version is if I had to go with a single can't-live-without favorite, it would probably be Ghost Light Kit 2 for its ability to make dark scenes less grainy, or Iray HDR Outdoor Environments for covering a huge variety of situations with just a handful of options. But lighting is something I've been pretty aggressive about buying in the past few years, so here are my thoughts.
I had some fun with the 3DL rim light rig, I think it was one of my last lighting purchases before I went to Iray. I also own the Iray version, and it works well too, just haven't had a need for it too often. Warhol Inspired Spot Lighting 2 is fun but often impractical; the situations where a spotlight with a distant light for rim lighting are a better option than anything else are not too common. Something else that's cool but kind of specialized, and very reasonably priced is Sickleyields Fast Flames. They are textured and transmapped planes, but they are pretty convincing from a variety of angles, at least in the situations where you are likely to need them (nighttime scenes in dark forests or premodern buildings), and like the name says, they're fast to load, setup and render.
I like the Painters' Lights, shame about them leaving the store. They could be a little glitchy to use, though, and I wonder if that's what led to them getting pulled. For supplemental interior lighting to reduce graininess in renders, I tend to go to KindredArts's Ghost Light Kit 2 and Light Probe Kits. Iradiance Light Probe 3 is nice for portraits, and has some options that seem to work well with Middle Eastern, South Asian and East Asian skins. (Couldn't tell you which ones, offhand; if you have it and need it for that, load up the character you have in mind and just keep clicking through the options until you see something that works). The Headlamp off option is nice when you're using Perspective View to explore the scene and lighting setup, and need the headlamp turned off to get a better feel for the final lighting, or for how a newly purchased character is supposed to look.
Skies of Iradiance Bundle was one of my first Iray Lighting purchases (Fastgrab, IIRC) and tends to be my go-to for situations where I need outdoor lighting for a set complex that hides the horizon successfully. Iray HDR Outdoor Environments gets a lot of use from me, especially the desert HDR for Bible-themed art. For sci-fi art, I've enjoyed Orestes's Starry Night and Cassini.
New purchases include FortNight and Day, which is a really clever concept I haven't fully explored yet, and Iradiance HDRI variety pack 3, which is also promising so far.
I still need to buy at least one winter-themed HDRI and one urban-skyline HDRI (if I can find one), and maybe Orestes's lightning and storm cloud HDRIs.
I do a lot of night stuff it seems and I always use one of the moonlight presets from IG Iray Dawn to Dusk 2 Atmospheric Lighting.
Next to material shaders, I tend to be a lighting hoarder. :) But I have a few go to sets
For basic portrait lighting, I always reach for Colm's PRO-Studio HDR Lighting System
Although I do have several of Dimension Theory's iRadiance Light Probes, I find those are more for specialized looks. I have used several of his outdoor HDRis though.
When doing interior scenes, I almost always have some combination of Kindred Art's Iray Ghost Light Kit and/or Iray Ghost Light Kit 2 sets somewhere in the scene helping Iray with more direct lighting.
Finally, I almost routinely replace light sources that come with my sets with one of these from InaneGlory...
Yes I am addicted to shaders and lighting. No it is not a "problem". :-P
I've been getting some good use out of DimensionTheory''s iRadiance products lately, but traditionally I get the most use out of KindredArt's Ghost Light Kit and Kit 2, as well as Colm Jackson's Render Studio Iray. That last one has presets for fill, key, and rim lights, making that three point lighting rig pretty easy to set up.
...I discovered they also work with 3DL. Used one of the High Clouds setttings for this.
BOSS Pro Light Set is one of my most used go to lights sets for portraits, but I also like almost anything Colm does. I often use Dimesnion Theory as well as Orestes for outdoor scenes. I'm currently fixing to learn Iray Ghost Kit 2 and put it to good use as well.
Thank you very much for your insightful information. I confess that I've bought a lot but tried too little. And just BOSS pro that inspires me to try creating my own set. I've traced what you mention and there are something interest me. I also learn that some sets are good at close up but very bad at distance. There are a lot to explore. Thanks again.