Lighting for low poly art rendering?

almighty_gir

hey guys... when your making a low poly render, and you want to use lighting, whats the best way to set it up? how do you position your backlights? how do you choose which lights should be more intense or less intense? which ones have shadowing enabled?

im pretty new to rendering, ive got an idea of how i want the model to be posed, but as for the lights? no idea...

Eric Chadwick

3-point is a common setup... key, fill, rim... though as this guy points out it has been overused a bit.
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light01.htm
Still, it's pretty. And anyhow this is a great primer on lighting.

James Haywood used to have a handy little script that setup lights for you automatically. Not on his site anymore, but I think you can find it here.
http://www.scriptspot.com/start.asp?p=ma...wood&Page=1

almighty_gir

thanks for the info ill take a nice long read at that, and hopefully my scenes will start looking a bit more lifelike =]

malcolm

If you are just starting out and find the page Eric posted a little overwelming, try this one as well.

http://www.3drender.com/light/3point.html

Eric, that link is really nice, there are some great diagrams of how bounce light works which I often find hard to describe to other artists.

Short_Fuse

I recently wrote a quick look at rendering Current/Nextgen materials. Pretty simple but check it out Here

almighty_gir

oh those two links are really good thanks, ill post a render shortly to show what ive learned =]

Eric Chadwick

Hey you're welcome. malcolm's and Short_Fuse's are also good links, though Birn seems to be ignoring color (probably for brevity). The power of color shouldn't be underestimated, like Short_Fuse shows in his bottom image. Like, the Fill doesn't always have to be blue.

Oh yeah, also it helps to see the various textures unlit, so people can see your source art in all its glory... or really its suckiness... that's one thing a potential employer is trying to get a sense of from your portfolio, what you suck at.

Looking forward to seeing your results.