The great Cripeman does it again. Good lighting doesn’t happen by accident, and usually, it happens with more than one light. In some of my 3D scenes, I’ve used up to 20.
Cripeman is quite unpretentious, and you’ll enjoy him especially if you’re new to 3D. He never talks over your head and approached things in a common sense manner. In this video, he uses Carrara, but what is learned here can be applied to almost any 3D package. The 3 Light setup, just like one would do in photography, is a very common technique. But just because it’s commn doesn’t mean it’s not good.
If you’ve ever wondered why you’ ve gotten that nasty dark shadow rimming your models’ faces and why the skin tone looks “off”, a likely scenario is that you’re using only a default light at 100% white. If your initial assessment is that the scene is a little to dark, then you’re right, but adding a second default light will only result in blowing out the skin tones. By using multiple lights and varying their angle, strength, falloff, and color, you can create fill and highlights, and maybe even balance some of those fakey 3D looking skin tones.
Once you hit on a light setup that you really like, save it as a Lights Preset if your software is capable of doing that, or just make a copy of the file, ditch the objects, and save the lights only as a base work file. That way you’ll be ready the next time around.
