Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 10.1
An overlit still life
Figure 10.2
An underlit still life
Finding a good middle ground to lighting your
scene is key. Like a photographer, you want your image
to have the full range of exposure. You want the richest
blacks to the brightest whites in your frame to create a
deep sense of detail. Even though you may not have an
absolute black to white in the rendered image, the con-
cept is appealing. As in Figure 10.3, light and shadow
complement each other and work to show the features
of your surface.
Three-Point Lighting
Because your scene needs to be rendered, and lighting
can be a fairly heavy computational process when it
comes to rendering, your lighting needs to be efficient. That means not using dozens of
lights for every part of the scene.
The traditional approach to lighting an object efficiently, culled from filmmaking and
television, starts with
three-point lighting
. In this setup, three distinct roles are used to
light the subject of a shot. More than one light can be used for each of the three roles, but
the scene should, in effect, seem to have only one primary, or
key,
light, a softer light to
fill the scene, and a back light to pop the subject out from the background.
Three-point lighting ensures that the primary subject's features aren't just illuminated,
but featured with highlights and shadow. Using three directions and qualities of light cre-
ates the best level of depth. Figure 10.4 shows a schematic of a basic three-point setup.
Figure 10.3
Balanced lighting
creates a more inter-
esting picture.
