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Need advise with lighting please
Hi all. I’m using Cinema4D v10.5 with just the basic package (no extra modules) & am having a hard time with my lighting settings.
I have a scene that I really need sunlit on the south side of the image. When I add the “Sun” lighting element, it turns my scene all black and I can’t move the light.
So to work around that problem, I thought I’d just put in an omni light where I need the sun to be, but again, it put the areas I need lit in shadow.
So what I ended up having to do is put in 4 omni lights in my scene, all at different levels to counteract each other & light the scene. The worst part is – it’s still not right!
There’s GOT to be a better/easier way. Any & all advise is much appreciated.
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4 Replies
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You have a couple of options.
1. Use lights: in this case you *will* need multiple lights to simulate the diffuse light from the sky. These should all be infinite lights, and for best results the sun light should use area shadows. At minimum there should be one other light, opposite the sun light to fill in shadows. for best results use a hemisphere of low-intensity lights to represent sky light;
2. In place of, or in addition to the sky lights, you can use an environment object with environment strength turned on, or a light with “Ambient” turned on. That provides uniform lighting throughout the scene so it tends to look flat if you don’t have additional lights.
You might also use the Ambient Occlusion effect to create the appearance of (i.e., fake) shadows from your diffuse lighting.
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Adam, Thank you for the advise. This looks better, but it’s still not 100% (small section cause my machine takes forever & a year to render) I added another light to the back of the scene to balance the one in the front.
I tried changing the lights to Infinite, but it turned the scene black again, so maybe there’s a setting I didn’t change? The Environment blew everything out so maybe I’ll play with the settings there.
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Infinite lights are directional so make sure the light’s Z axis is pointing in the direction you intend the light to come from.
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Ohhhh… That would be the setting. =) Thank you
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