🧵 THIS IS ABOUT LIGHTING NOT POLITICS
Anonymous at Fri, 27 Sep 2024 18:55:42 UTC No. 996611
I was just gonna post in a different lighting thread but I guess it's gone.
Now I have a problem often and other anons have complained about it too. That is you spent all this time sculpting the most gorgeous googoo eyed anime waifu in the world and when you put lights to her she turns into a gargoyle. In the previous thread I brought up using real life photography lighting to light your scenes. Light a living room animation like how theyd light a commercial filmed in a living room. I just saw this which is an absolutely amazing use a beauty lighting to turn a very ugly old woman 40 years younger. And you can see very clearly how they did it in the reflections in her eyes.
The problem with old women in the real world and the problem with your 3d models is the same. The human eye looks for shapes typically cast by shadows on the face to determine its attractiveness. Photographers defeat this effect by lighting from underneath. This blows out uglifying shadows. It's why your model looks great with the default lighting in the modelling software, but looks like shit under point lighting.
>To get to it
on either side we have 2 big rectangular diffuse lights. Light is scattered across a white filter. In software you might call that an area light. The light is cast from a wide area to eliminate sharp shadows. along the bottom is the biggest and brightest light. It's width extends to underneath the side lights too. This light is what fills in every nook and cranny on her face.
On the top is the smallest(but still cast from a diffuse filter), and dimmest light. It has to be the dimmest so that it does not overpower the other lights and cast ugly shadows. You still need it there because if you light only from the bottom you make a spooky ghost face.
Anonymous at Fri, 27 Sep 2024 18:58:30 UTC No. 996612
Here's an example of what that stuff looks like and the side angle of how far and close everything out to be. In real life photography they try their hardest to set models on fire with the lights and then compensate with close apertures and fast shutter speeds. In software we'd be playing with white balance and gamma.
Anonymous at Fri, 27 Sep 2024 21:03:12 UTC No. 996647
Every lighting tutorial is like hehe here's your key fill and rim bro
Here's your rembrandt bro
Here's your butterfly bro
Here's another useless portrait lighting instruction so you can take shitty pics at a mall bro
How do I get to pic-related levels nigga
I don't want to make corporate headshots
Anonymous at Fri, 27 Sep 2024 21:22:19 UTC No. 996648
>>996611
now THIS is the kind of thread you should be having in /3/
Anonymous at Fri, 27 Sep 2024 21:33:07 UTC No. 996650
>>996647
real pros will actually set up planes with solid color materials just out of view(or set to render invisibly) that will reflect light with GI turned up to max. Just like who a photographer will set up a big reflective board to bounce back light.
The secret is to just rip them off wholesale. Literally copy the lighting in this pic.
the chair nerd at Fri, 27 Sep 2024 21:43:10 UTC No. 996653
>>996611
Great now I have to see that bitch's face on the catalog. *hides thread*
Anonymous at Fri, 27 Sep 2024 23:49:32 UTC No. 996667
*types asterisk*
Anonymous at Sat, 28 Sep 2024 01:14:00 UTC No. 996676
>>996611
God she's so hot
>>996650
How do the reflective materials with high GI compare to multiple diffuse lights? Not a lighting pro, but I've been messing around in Blender
Anonymous at Sat, 28 Sep 2024 02:44:08 UTC No. 996684
>>996676
Same thing as in real life. You just litterally set up a big quad with a white material and stick it where there's not enough reflected light.
I saw an example of an indoor shoot. The photgrapher had this big white thing shaved super close to the model's face. You couldnt see it in frame but it was right next to her face. Just a plain white screen. pic related is an outdoor example to reflect sun light.
Now I dont know if this is "better" than just another area light. I suppose the biggest advantage is a new light requires its own set of links and ray casting. But if you want that light to be worth anything after it bounces then youre already setting up your GI to more bounces which is more expensive. You also dont have to futz with the intensity. The intensity is part of the GI calculation. My subjective expectation is it's pedantry. I would use another light.
Anonymous at Sat, 28 Sep 2024 02:48:32 UTC No. 996685
I'm just trying to google what the equipment looks like and im getting all kinds of cool examples and charts.
Pick a lighting you like, copy the physical layout.
But to make it more abstract. get away from just copying how photographers do it. What the fuck are they doing? If there's a dark spot, they add light. When you want a face to be visible and look nice you irradiate it with the sun's corona. When you want a face to be dramatic and foreboding you put a point light right off to the side.
Anonymous at Sun, 29 Sep 2024 02:06:39 UTC No. 996796
>>996650
There are slightly cheaper ways of doing this. In Redshift, I can throw an incandescent material on a mesh to act as a "GI" light source. It's emitting as though it's being hit with a light, but none of the initial calculations are needed at render time. Not a huge issue for single images, but when rendering animation it saves a significant amount of time.
Or just use area lights.
Anonymous at Sun, 29 Sep 2024 18:31:53 UTC No. 996831
good thread
Anonymous at Wed, 16 Oct 2024 08:16:53 UTC No. 998517
Yeah, lighting can be tricky.