3D Lighting Tutorial Part 1

If you are a 3D artist you should know that one of the hardest things to figure out is how to light your scene so it looks good. Well Amaan Akram is here to help you! He uses Lightwave 3D to show the work, so if you use that application your better off, but the ideas and such can be applied in any 3D application out there. Just may have a different procedure.

From the website:

Lighting adds to a Scene

"The goals of lighting in 3D computer graphics are more or less the same as those of real world lighting. Lighting serves a basic function of bringing out, or pushing back the shapes of objects visible from the camera's view. It gives a two-dimensional image on the monitor an illusion of the third dimension-depth. But it does not just stop there. It gives an image its personality, its character. A scene lit in different ways can give a feeling of happiness, of sorrow, of fear etc., and it can do so in dramatic or subtle ways. Along with personality and character, lighting fills a scene with emotion that is directly transmitted to the viewer.

Trying to simulate a real environment in an artificial one can be a daunting task. But even if you make your 3D rendering look absolutely photo-realistic, it doesn't guarantee that the image carries enough emotion to elicit a "wow" from the people viewing it. Making 3D renderings photo-realistic can be hard. Putting deep emotions in them can be even harder. However, if you plan out your lighting strategy for the mood and emotion that you want your rendering to express, you make the process easier for yourself.

The overall thrust of this writing is to produce photo-realistic images by applying good lighting techniques. I will use Lightwave 3D to demonstrate the lighting techniques used, but these techniques can be applied in any 3D software."

The author requests an email to let him know if you found his tutorial useful before he will release part 2 due to how busy he is.