Carrara 6 Pro Lighting Experiment

Hey Gang, whats shakin =) You guys know me, and I go through great lengths to improve render quality and my level of creative "flow". For the past 2 years or so I have been steadily working hard learning, practicing and experimenting w/ lighting and lighting techniques, and I believe as I am ready to evolve to Carrara as my main application for output, I have made awesome success in my study of lighting, but enuff practice, its time to apply =) This is not really a tutorial, its just a comparitive chart of the some of the different lighting options as rendered in C6Pro. Seeing and comparing the differences, the advantages and disadvantages of the various settings should help make decisions when scene building, and ultimately help in creating the best output using better lighting options...

For ALL these renders, NO lightsources were used. All lighting is from an image used in the MAP selection of the BACKGROUND of the scene. Admittedly, I was unaware of this as an option, I always prompted for HDRI, but I think youll find you have more control and better consistency when using the MAP option. While pretty much any gradient or image/map will work, I suggest the GIDome Pack sold at Daz3D. In the render settings, I used the "GOOD" render setting preset, and Skylight set at 150 intensity. This 1st render uses an infinite plane and Indirect Light is OFF.

For this example, I use an infinite plane, skylight at 150 intensity, and indirect light at 100 intensity. HUGE difference in amount of light, and HUGE difference in render time.

Now I swapped out the infinite plane for a plane at default size of 20x20 no height, skylight at 150 but the indirect light is now OFF. You can see just how much light gets trapped off from the infinite plane...

Here, I greatly increased the size of the plane to 500x500 no height, skylight at 150 and indirect is still OFF, but again see how much light is trapped from the floor surface?!?

Same 500x500 plane, skylight at 150, but indirect is now turned ON, and as you would expect, "almost" the same as the infinite plane w/ indirect light turned on but a bit better... Even at 500x500, some of that light still makes it way through to the figure in the dead center of the scene...

Here, I just took the ground planes totally away, letting all the light from the bottom marinate on our figure. Indirect light is OFF, skylight still at 150.

And in all fairness, indirect is now turned ON at 100 intensity and still no ground plane, skylight at 150 intensity... This would probably yield the best picturesque photo, but youll have to hide your characters feet and stick something huge behind them =)

I hope all this helps guys, I know it has helped me a great deal. Finally understanding how and what lighting options to set really takes away from the guesswork, and ultimately the fun, which does nothing but breaks one creative flow. Of course, this is only 1 minor method of lighting. Knowing what look you want to achieve and how to go about doing it makes creation that much better.

Questions, comments, snide remarks?!? MatCreator

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