Sunny Afternoon - Twilight - Moonlight - Electrical - Candlelight - Underwater
3D environment
‘3D Environment Lighting’ is a 6-part tutorial
series. Over the course of the six chapters, this
series will be detailing techniques on lighting
an environment under a number of different
conditions. Each chapter we will cover a
step-by-step guide to setting up lights, aimed
at portraying the scene in a specific manner.
The various chapters will be tailored to specific
software packages and each will aim to show
a comprehensive and effective way of lighting
an interior of a ship that includes both natural
and artificial light. These will include a sunny
afternoon, sunset, moonlight, electric light,
candle light, and finally a submerged submarine
light. The schedule is as follows:
Chapter 01
Natural Exterior Lighting Sunny Afternoon
Chapter 02
Natural Exterior Lighting
Twilight
Chapter 03
Natural Exterior Lighting Moonlight
Chapter 04
Artificial Interior Lighting Electrical
Chapter 05
Artificial Interior Lighting
Candlelight
Chapter 06
Artificial Interior Lighting Underwater
lighting
Chapter 01 Natural Exterior Lighting Sunny Afternoon
Page 4www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 01 Sunny AfternoonChapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
Fig 01
Fig 02
Fig 03
Welcome to the first part of this new set of
tutorials. This chapter, we’ll take a look at how
to set up “sunny afternoon” lighting for our 3D
environment. Before we start, I suggest we find
some good reference material for our project.
In Google, simply Search Images for “sunny
afternoon” to discover some pictures which will
give you an idea as to how light behaves at this
time of the day. Even better, why not just go
outside and examine how the light is behaving
in the real world? ...
1. Let’s start by taking a look at our scene.
Open the Ship Cabin_Part1_Starting.max
scene (download can be found at the end of
this tutorial; click on the Free Resources logo)
(Fig01).
2. Examining the 3D scene, we can see that
there are three main light sources (Fig02); the
large opening in the ceiling, the small circular
window, and the rectangular window on the
back wall. We won’t consider the artificial lights
in the scene for this part, as this will be covered
in following parts of the tutorial.
3. We will use the Mental Ray renderer for our
scene, so let’s start by activating it before we
get to work on the lighting in our scene. Open
the Rendering panel (use the F10 short-cut
key), scroll down into the Common tab, and click
on the button with the three dots in the Assign
Renderer roll-out menu. A browser window will
open; select Mental Ray Renderer and click the
OK button (Fig03).
Natural Exterior LightingSunny Afternoon
Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
Page 5www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01
Fig 04
Fig 05
Fig 06
4. Since we’ll be doing a lot of rendering tests
in this project, we can’t wait too long for each
render. We therefore need faster feedback to
make any adjustments and changes. So let’s
set the rendering size to 320 x 240 - this way it
will render faster. We’ll increase the resolution
only for the final renders. Open the Rendering
panel again and set the Output Size to 320 x
240 (Fig04).
5. If we render the scene now, we’ll see just the
default lighting since there are currently no lights
in the scene (Fig05).
6. Create a Target Direct light and position it as
shown in Fig06.
Page 6www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 01 Sunny AfternoonChapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
7. Enable Shadows and set its type to Ray
Traced Shadows. Set the light Multiplier to 2
and change the colour to something like R=255,
G=246, B=218. You will also need to copy the
parameters for Hotspot and Falloff from those
detailed in Fig07.
8. Render the scene again (Fig08). Now we
can see our main light source (the Sun) coming
from above and casting shadows into the ship’s
cabin. The scene is almost totally black, so we
need to create at least one other light source
coming in from the two windows on the back
wall.
9. Create an Omni light and position it as
shown in Fig09, right between the two windows.
Make sure that the light is inside the cabin, as
we need it to light that area slightly. Set the
Multiplier to a low value, like 0.15, and its colour
to R=255, G=242, R=208. Make it cast Ray
Traced shadows and enable the Use and Show
options for the Far Attenuation. Also, set the
Start to 1,92 and the End to 9,44.
Fig 07
Fig 08
Fig 09
Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
Page 7www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01
10. Render the scene again (Fig10). Now there
is much more light, especially at the back of
the cabin, but the scene is still way too dark.
We need some bounces of light over the entire
scene.
11. Create a sphere that surrounds the whole
scene (Fig11).
12. Make the sphere an Editable Poly object,
and then select the lower half’s polygons and
delete them (Fig.12).
Fig 10
Fig 11
Fig 12
Page 8www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 01 Sunny AfternoonChapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
13. Select all of the polygons (Ctrl + A) and flip
them using the Flip command in the Command
Panel (Fig13). We’ll assign a self-illuminated
material to the sphere, so we need its polygon
to point inwards.
14. Open the Material Editor and create a new
Standard material. Name it “Dome” and change
its Diffuse colour to something like R=255,
G=245, B=203 (Fig14). Also, set its Self-
Illumination value to 100 (Fig14).
15. Open the Rendering panel and switch to
the Indirect Illumination tab and enable Final
Gather. Set the Preset to Draft and render the
scene. This time the render will take a little
longer, since we enabled the Final Gather
feature of Mental Ray. This option takes care
of the secondary bounces of light, or indirect
illumination. We have some more bounces of
light in the scene, but it’s still too dark (Fig15).
Fig 13
Fig 14
Fig 15
Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
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Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01
16. Set the Final Gather Multiplier to 3 and
render again. Now we have some more light,
but we need to tweak the FG parameters a little
(Fig16).
17. Set the Diffuse Bounces to 10 and render
again. Now there’s a fair amount of light in the
cabin, and we start to see objects that were
much too dark before, like the seat on the left
(Fig17).
18. Set the Diffuse Bounces to 20 and increase
the Direct Target light’s Multiplier to 4. Render
the scene again (Fig18).
Fig 16
Fig 17
Fig 18
Page 10www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 01 Sunny AfternoonChapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
19. Since we increased the light’s Multiplier,
it is now “over-burning” the areas where it
directly hits the surfaces. So let’s change the
light’s colour to something warmer and more
saturated, like R=255, G=231, B=159. Also,
make sure that H=32, S=96, and V=255. Render
the scene again. Now it looks better (Fig19).
20. To add another little bit of light, we can
add some value to the Ambient light. Open the
Rendering/Environment tab and set the Ambient
value to a very dark colour, as shown in Fig20.
The brighter this value, the more over-exposed
the rendering will be, so do not exaggerate the
effect.
21. Now we can start making some test renders
with a higher resolution. Set it back to 640 x 480
and render the scene (Fig20).
Fig 19
Fig 20
Fig 21
Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
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Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01
22. Since we are getting close to our final
render, we now need to increase the level of
detail and quality. Let’s start from the Anti-
Aliasing filter. Open the Rendering panel and
go to the Renderer tab. Set the Filter to Mitchell
and the Min/Max to 16/64. Also, lower the
Threshold values as shown in Fig.22. This time
it will take a little longer to render the scene, but
you will see a lot of details that were lacking in
previous renders.
23. Now let’s raise the quality of the Final
Gather. Set the Preset to High and render again.
It will take even longer to render than before, but
the final image will be much better in terms of its
quality and detail (Fig23).
24. Now that we have a pretty good lighting
setup for our scene, we can start to tweak the
final render with 2D software, like Photoshop.
Open the rendered image in Photoshop,
duplicate the original layer and Desaturate it, as
shown in Fig24.
Fig 22
Fig 23
Fig 24
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Chapter 01 Sunny AfternoonChapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
25. Adjust the Levels until you get something
similar to Fig25. We just need to extract the
areas of the image with more light.
26. Change the Blending mode for the top layer
to Screen and apply a fair amount of Gaussian
Blur (Fig26).
27. Set the top layer’s opacity to a lower value,
and change the Hue & Saturation to something
warmer (Fig27).
Fig 25
Fig 26
Fig 27
Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon
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Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01
28. Go back to 3DS Max now and reset the
Renderer to the Default Scanline. Create a new
Standard material in the Material Editor and
set its Diffuse colour to pure black. Assign this
material to every object in the scene. Select the
main Spot light, go to the Environment menu
and add a Volume effect. Pick the Spot light and
render the scene. You should get something
similar to Fig28.
29. Import this new render into Photoshop and
put it right between the top and bottom layer.
Also, set its Blending mode to Soft Light and its
Opacity to 69 (Fig29).
30. If you want, you can improve the exposure
of the picture with the Exposure tool in
Photoshop.
Fig 28
Fig 29
Fig 30
3D Environment Lighting Chapter 01Natural Exterior Lighting Sunny Afternoon
Originally designed and modelled by:
Richard Tilbury
Tutorial by:
Luciano IurinoFor more from this artist visit:
www.pmstudios.it
Or contact them:
Chapter 02 Twilight
Chapter 02 Natural Exterior Lighting Twilight
Page 17www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 02 Twilight Twilight Chapter 02
Fig 01
Fig 02
Fig 03
Natural Exterior LightingTwilight
1. This chapter, we’ll set up our lighting scene
to make it resemble a moody sunset. As usual,
we’ll use Mental Ray renderer to accomplish this
task. Open the Ship Cabin_Sunset_Start.max
scene included with this tutorial (download can
be found at the end of this tutorial; click on the
Free Resources logo) (Fig01)
2. First of all, let’s assign Mental Ray as our
renderer. Open the Rendering panel (you
can use the F10 shortcut key), switch to the
Common tab and go to the Assign Renderer
rollout (Fig02). Click on the button with the three
dots and select mental ray Renderer from the
list. Click OK to close the browser window.
3. Select the Walls and Ceiling objects and
hide everything else. This will help us achieve
a better visualisation whilst we create the lights
that we need for the scene (Fig03).
Page 18www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 02 TwilightChapter 02 Twilight
Fig 04
Fig 05
Fig 06
4. Create a simple Omni light and position it
as shown in Fig04, just above the opening in
the ceiling. This Omni light will simulate light
entering from the ceiling. It is not our key light,
so its intensity will be quite low.
5. Select the Omni light and change its
parameters, as shown in Fig05. Activate the
Shadows option, and set it to Ray Traced
Shadows. Set the Multiplier to something like
0,5 and it’s colour to R=254 G=190 B=146. Also,
enable the Use and Show options for the Far
Attenuation, and set them respectively to 0,0m
and 3,213m.
6. Now create another Omni light. This time,
it has to be a mental ray Area Omni, since we
need soft area shadows for our sunset. Position
this new light as shown in Fig06, on the back
wall area close to the windows. This Omni light
will be our main light, since it will simulate the
sun. Its intensity will be greater than the other
light, and together with the shadows it will give
our scene the mood we desire.
Chapter 02 Twilight
Page 19www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 02 Twilight Twilight Chapter 02
7. Select the mental ray Area Omni light and
change its parameters, as shown in Fig07.
Enable the Shadows and set them to Ray
Traced. Set the Multiplier to 1,2 and its colour to
R=255 G=199 B=150 (Fig07).
8. Open the Area Light Parameters rollout. Make
sure that On is checked and set the Type to
Sphere. Change the Radius value to something
like 0,54m and the Samples to U=10 V=10
(Fig08).
9. Before we start rendering the scene, we
need to change another small thing. Open the
Environment panel (use the <8> shortcut key)
and change the Background Colour to R=247
B=176 G=98 (Fig09).
Fig 07
Fig 08
Fig 09
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Chapter 02 TwilightChapter 02 Twilight
10. Now we can do a quick test render (Fig10).
As you can see, the two lights are not enough
to create our moody sunset lighting. We need
some light bounces all over the scene to
improve the general quality of the lighting...
11. Open the Rendering panel once again and
switch to the Indirect Illumination tab. Enable
Final Gather and set the Preset to Draft (we
don’t need high quality at the moment, it’s just
for testing). Set the Multiplier to 1 and its colour
to R=1,0 G=0,71 B=0,494. Also, set the Diffuse
Bounces value to 20 (Fig11).
12. Render the scene again. This time it will take
longer, which is because of the Final Gather
calculation that mental ray needs in order to
create the bounces of light (Fig12).
Fig 10
Fig 11
Fig 12
Chapter 02 Twilight
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Chapter 02 Twilight Twilight Chapter 02
13. Now we have a nice lighting situation, with
a key-light, a fill-light and some light bounces.
We can now set up our final render with higher
values. Open the Rendering panel and set
the Preset to High. Change the Rays per FG
Point value to 350 (the default for ‘High’ is 500,
but we don’t need such a high value; you can
always try other values if you wish). Switch to
the Renderer tab and set the Minimum and
Maximum values for Samples per Pixel to
16 and 64 (Fig13). Change the Filter type to
Mitchell and the Spatial Contrast R, G, B and
A to 0,02. Also, switch to the Common tab and
set a higher resolution for the rendering, for
example 640x480 (or even higher if you wish
- just keep an eye on the rendering times; the
bigger the resolution, the longer it will take to
render the final image).
14. Render the scene again, and save the final
picture to use it later in Photoshop for post-
production (Fig14).
15. Now we need to render an Ambient
Occlusion pass to composite it with the rendered
image. Open the Ship Cabin_AO.max scene
file, included with this tutorial. A new material
was created (AO_Shader) and assigned to
every object in the scene. This material has
an Ambient/Reflective Occlusion shader in the
Surface slot. You can take a look at Fig15 to see
the shader’s parameters.
Fig 13
Fig 14
Fig 15
Page 22www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 02 TwilightChapter 02 Twilight
16. Render the scene to create the Ambient
Occlusion pass that we need (Fig16). Don’t
forget to render the AO pass with the same size
as the previously rendered picture.
17. Start Photoshop and import both the original
rendering and the Ambient Occlusion pass
(Fig17).
18. Switch to the Ambient Occlusion image.
Select all (Ctrl + A) and Copy (Ctrl + C). Switch
to the Original rendering and Paste the AO pass
above it (Ctrl + V) (Fig18).
Fig 16
Fig 17
Fig 18
Chapter 02 Twilight
Page 23www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 02 Twilight Twilight Chapter 02
19. Change the AO Pass blending mode to
Colour Dodge and its Opacity to about 58%
(Fig19).
20. Now select both layers and use Ctrl + E to
flatten them together (Fig20).
21. Duplicate the background layer and
desaturate the newly created layer (Fig21).
Fig 19
Fig 20
Fig 21
Page 24www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 02 TwilightChapter 02 Twilight
22. Change the Levels until you expose the
brightest areas of the image (Fig22).
23. Apply a fair amount of Gaussian Blur to this
layer and colourise it (Hue & Saturation), as
shown in Fig23.
24. Change the Blending Mode for this layer to
Linear Dodge and set its Opacity value to 56%
(Fig24).
Fig 22
Fig 23
Fig 24
Chapter 02 Twilight
Page 25www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 02 Twilight Twilight Chapter 02
25. Select both layers and flatten them together
(Ctrl + E). Create a new, empty layer and fill it
with a pure black colour. Use the Filter / Render
/ Lens Flare effect to create something similar
to Fig25.
26. Set the blending mode of the top layer to
Linear Dodge and adjust the Levels until you get
the desired effect (Fig26).
27. Finally, you can adjust the exposure to
slightly change the overall feel of the image
(Fig27).
Fig 25
Fig 26
Fig 27
Originally designed & modelled by:
Richard TilburyTutorial by:
Luciano IurinoFor more from this artist visit:
www.pmstudios.it
Or contact them:
Chapter 03 Moonlight
Chapter 03 Natural Exterior Lighting Moonlight
Page 29www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Moonlight Chapter 03
Fig 01
Fig 02
Fig 03
Natural Exterior Lighting Moonlight
This time we’ll create a typical moonlight setup
for the ship cabin scene, for which we’ll use the
Mental Ray renderer...
1. Open the Ship Cabin_Moon_Start.max scene
included with this tutorial (download can be
found at the end of this tutorial; click on the Free
Resources logo) (Fig01).
2. If you try to render the scene, you will get
something similar to Fig02, as there are still no
lights in the scene (Fig02).
3. First of all, let’s assign Mental Ray as the
renderer. Open the Rendering panel (F10) and
click on the button with the three dots in the
Assign Renderer roll-out. Select “mental ray
Renderer” in the window that appears, and click
OK (Fig03).
Page 30www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Chapter 03 Moonlight
Fig 04
Fig 05
Fig 06
4. Create a mental ray Area Omni light and
position it as shown in Fig04, just above the
opening in the ceiling (Fig04). This will be our
Key light (the moon).
5. Enable the Shadows option (Ray Traced
Shadows) and leave the other parameters
as they are for the moment. In the Area Light
Parameters, make sure that the On option is
checked; set the Type to Sphere, the Radius
value to 0.1m, and the Samples to 10/10
(Fig05).
6. Let’s make a quick test render (Fig06). The
amount of lighting seems to be OK, and the
shadows too, but the colour is not right as it
should be something more blueish.
Chapter 03 Moonlight
Page 31www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Moonlight Chapter 03
7. Go back to the mental ray Area Omni
parameters and change its colour to something
like that shown in Fig07.
8. Render the scene again (Fig08). It looks
better, now.
9. Let’s change the Environment Background
colour (using the ‘8’ shortcut key) to the same
colour that we just gave to the Omni light, and
let’s render the scene again (Fig09).
Fig 07
Fig 08
Fig 09
Page 32www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Chapter 03 Moonlight
10. Now we need some bounces of light all
around the scene. Let’s enable Final Gather in
the Indirect Illumination tab of the Rendering
panel. Set the Preset to Draft and render the
scene again (Fig10).
11. Since we need more light and bounces, we
have to increase the FG Mutliplier value to 2.
Also change the Mutliplier colour to something
blueish, as shown in Fig11. Increase the Diffuse
Bounces value to 20, or even more if needed.
12. Now there’s much more light. Select the
mental ray Area Omni and lower the Multiplier to
a value of about 0,85. Also enable the Use and
Show options for Far Attenuation and set their
parameters to respectively 1.41m and 11.032m
(Fig12).
Fig 10
Fig 11
Fig 12
Chapter 03 Moonlight
Page 33www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Moonlight Chapter 03
13. The Key light seems to be OK. We now
need some more light in the back of the room,
near the windows. Create a simple Omni light
and position as shown in Fig13. Also enable
Shadows (Ray Traced); set the multiplier to
0,09 and its colour to a bright blue. Enable Far
Attenuation Use and Show, and set their values
to 1.41m and 7,.392m. Render the scene again.
14. Now we have to set up a higher quality
render... Go back to the Indirect Illumination tab
and set the Preset to High. Set the Rays per
FG Point value to 350. Switch to the Renderer
tab and copy the parameters shown in Fig14.
Increase the image resolution (for example, to
640x480 or even more) and render the scene.
Save the picture to use it later on in Photoshop
for post-production work.
15. We also need an Ambient Occlusion pass
for compositing. Open the Ship Cabin_AO.max
scene and render it. The AO_Shader material
was assigned to every object in the scene, and
its parameters were set up to achieve a nice AO
solution (Fig15).
Fig 13
Fig 14
Fig 15
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Chapter 03 Moonlight Chapter 03 Moonlight
16. Render the scene and save this picture, too
(Fig16).
17. Start Photoshop and import both the original
render and the AO pass. Select the AO pass,
copy it, and paste it on the original rendered
picture (Fig17).
18. Change the blending mode for the AO pass
to Overlay (Fig18).
Fig 16
Fig 17
Fig 18
Chapter 03 Moonlight
Page 35www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Moonlight Chapter 03
19. Use the Levels tool to adjust the levels until
you are happy with overall look (Fig19).
20. Lower the Fill value to 52% (Fig20).
21. Collapse the two layers together and create
a copy of the Background layer. Desaturate it
(Fig21).
Fig 19
Fig 20
Fig 21
Page 36www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Chapter 03 Moonlight
22. Adjust the Levels to expose the brightest
areas (Fig22).
23. Use the Gaussian Blur filter to blur this layer,
and then change its colour to something blueish
(Fig23).
24. Change the blending mode to Screen and
the Opacity value to about 47% (Fig24).
Fig 22
Fig 23
Fig 24
Chapter 03 Moonlight
Page 37www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 03 Moonlight Moonlight Chapter 03
25. Flatten the two layers together and use the
Shadow/Highlight tool to improve the mood of
the picture (Fig25). 26. Also use the Exposure tool as a final touch
(Fig26).
Originally designed & modelled by:
Richard Tilbury
Tutorial by:
Luciano IurinoFor more from this artist visit:
www.pmstudios.it
Or contact them:
Chapter 04 Electrical
Chapter 04 Artificial Interior Lighting Electrical
Page 41www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 Electrical Electrical Chapter 04
Fig 01
Fig 02
Fig 03
Artificial Interior Lighting Electrical
This Chapter we’ll see how to create an artificial
lighting situation for our ship cabin scene. As
usual, we’ll use 3ds Max and Mental Ray.
Before we can start, we need a little information
about how artificial light works. I suggest you do
a quick search in Google for reference images;
you’ll notice that large spaces are lit by a fair
number of light bulbs, which usually give general
lighting a strong, greenish component.
01. Open the ShipCabin_Part4_Start.max
scene file (download can be found at the end of
this tutorial; click on the Free Resources logo)
(Fig01).
02. The two main light sources will be the light
bulbs on the ceiling (Fig02).
03. Since we’ll be placing the lights right in the
bulbs, we need them not to cast any shadows.
Select the three objects (the light bulb, the guard
and the base) and right click on them. In the
menu that appears, click on Object Properties.
Then disable the Cast Shadow option in the
Rendering Control area (Fig03).
Page 42www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 ElectricalChapter 04 Electrical
Fig 04
Fig 05
Fig 06
04. Now we can create the first Omni light which
will act as a light bulb. Create a mental ray Area
Omni light and position it as shown in Fig04.
05. Leave the colour of the light as pure white
and its Multiplier at 1,0. Enable Shadows and
change the type to Ray Traced Shadows. In the
Decay section, set the type to Inverse and the
Start value to 0,8. Also enable the Show option
to have a visual aid in your scene. In the Far
Attenuation section, enable both Use and Show
and set the Start/End values to 1 and 8. Open
the Area Light Parameters roll-out and make
sure that On is selected. In the Type roll-out,
pick Sphere and set its radius to 0,14. Finally set
the Samples values to 5 (Fig05).
06. Now simply clone the Omni light and
position it right in the second light bulb (Fig06).
Chapter 04 Electrical
Page 43www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 Electrical Electrical Chapter 04
07. Open the Rendering panel and assign
mental ray Renderer in the Production slot
(Fig07).
08. Render the scene to see how the two Omni
lights are behaving (Fig08).
09. The amount of light in the front is quite good,
but the back of the room is completely dark. We
therefore need to create another Omni light over
there (Fig09).
Fig 07
Fig 08
Fig 09
Page 44www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 ElectricalChapter 04 Electrical
10. Modify the light parameters as shown in
Fig10. The important thing here is to lower the
intensity of the light (to about 0,25), and give it a
darker colour (Fig10).
11. Render the scene again. Now there’s some
light in the back, too (Fig11).
12. Open the Rendering panel and switch to
the Indirect Illumination tab. Enable Final Gather
and set its Multiplier to 5. Also change its colour
to a fairly dark green. Set the Bounces to 10 and
leave the Rays to 50 (this is just a test rendering
and we’ll increase the quality later) (Fig12).
Fig 10
Fig 11
Fig 12
Chapter 04 Electrical
Page 45www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 Electrical Electrical Chapter 04
13. Render the scene again. Now there’s much
more light in the scene (Fig13).
14. Now we can increase the Rays to 500 to
have a better quality for the FinalGather solution
(Fig14).
15. Open the Rendering panel again and switch
to the Renderer tab. Set the Minimum/Maximum
values to 16/64 and the Filter type to Mitchell.
Also set the values for Spatial Contrast to 0,02
(Fig15).
Fig 13
Fig 14
Fig 15
Page 46www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 ElectricalChapter 04 Electrical
16. Now we can render the scene with full
quality and save it as a picture (Fig16).
17. As usual, we also need an Ambient
Occlusion pass to composite it over the original
render in Photoshop. Open the ShipCabin_
Part4_AO.max scene file. In Fig17, you can see
the AO shader that was created and assigned to
every object in the scene.
18. Render the AO scene and save it as a
picture, too (Fig18).
Fig 16
Fig 17
Fig 18
Chapter 04 Electrical
Page 47www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 Electrical Electrical Chapter 04
19. Open both pictures (the original render and
the AO pass) with Photoshop (Fig19).
20. Select the AO pass, copy it and paste it over
the original rendered image (Fig20).
21. Change the AO pass layer’s blending mode
to Overlay (Fig21).
Fig 19
Fig 20
Fig 21
Page 48www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 ElectricalChapter 04 Electrical
22. Use the Levels tool to adjust the contrast of
the AO pass over the original image (Fig22).
23. Flatten all the layers together, then create a
copy of the Background layer and desaturate it
(Fig23).
24. Adjust the Levels to expose the areas with
more light (Fig24).
Fig 22
Fig 23
Fig 24
Chapter 04 Electrical
Page 49www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 04 Electrical Electrical Chapter 04
25. Change the blending mode to Linear Dodge
and set the Opacity to 38% (Fig25).
26. Flatten all the layers together. Create
another blank layer and fill it with pure black.
Apply a Lens Flare filter, as shown in Fig26.
Move the flare over the light bulb on the furthest
left (Fig26).
27. Change the Blending mode for the Flare
layer to Screen and set its Opacity to about 90%
(Fig27).
Fig 25
Fig 26
Fig 27
Originally designed & modelled by:
Richard TilburyTutorial by:
Luciano IurinoFor more from this artist visit::
www.pmstudios.it
Or contact them:
Fig 28
Fig 29
28. Duplicate the Flare pass and position it over
the second light bulb (Fig28).
29. Finally, you can use the Exposure tool and
the Shadow/Highlight tool to enhance the image
as you wish (Fig29).
Chapter 05 Candlelight
Chapter 05 Artificial Interior Lighting Candlelight
Page 53www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 Candlelight Candlelight Chapter 05
Fig 01
Fig 02
Fig 03
Artificial Interior Lighting Candlelight
This time we’ll see how to light the ship cabin
with some candles. Only one candle will be
visibile, on the left of the room; the other two will
just light the scene and cast shadows, but will
be out of view (one on the right, and one in the
back of the room).
01. Open the 3DENV_Part5_Candle_Start.max
scene file. (Fig01)
02. First of all, we need to create a soft, ambient
lighting for our scene, which will resemble a
night time situation. Create a polygonal sphere
which surrounds all the scene. Select the lowe
half of the sphere and delete it. Select all the
remaining polygons and flip them to make them
point inward. (Fig02)
03. Open the Mat. Editor and create a new,
self-illuminated blueish material. Assign it to the
sphere. (Fig03)
Page 54www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 CandlelightChapter 05 Candlelight
Fig 04
Fig 05
Fig 06
04. Set Mental Ray as main renderer, and open
the Rendering panel. Switch to the Indirect
Illumination tab, enable Final Gather and set the
Multiplier to 5. Also, set the Multiplier color to a
dark blue and the Bounces to 10. (Fig4)
05. Render the scene. Now we have a basic
night lighting. (Fig05)
06. Let’s create the first candle light. Create a
mr Area Omni light and position it just above the
candle, on the left of the scene. (Fig06)
Chapter 05 Candlelight
Page 55www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 Candlelight Candlelight Chapter 05
Fig 08
Fig 09
07 .Modify the light’s parameters as shown in
Fig07. Enable Shadows and make sure that
it’s set to Ray Traced. Set the Multiplier to 0,8
and the color to a bright yellow/orange. Set
the Decay type to Inverse and the Start value
to about 1,4. Also, copy the parameters for
Attenuation from Fig07.
08. In the Area Light Parameters rollout, enable
area shadows , set the type to Sphere, the
radius to 0,1 and U/V samples to 10/10. (Fig08)
09. Render the scene. The candle lighting now
looks pretty good. Now we need to add the other
two candle lights. (Fig09)
Page 56www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 CandlelightChapter 05 Candlelight
Fig 10
Fig 11
Fig 12
10.Create another mr Area Omni and position
it near the seat on the right of the scene. Make
sure that it’s just out of the view. (Fig10)
11.Modify its parameters as shown in Fig11.
The important thing here is the color (a darker
orange) and the Multiplier (0,75). Make it cast
shadows (Ray Traced), enable area shadows
and copy the parameters for the Attenuation
from Fig11.
12. Render the scene again to check this new
light, too. (Fig12)
Chapter 05 Candlelight
Page 57www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 Candlelight Candlelight Chapter 05
Fig 13
Fig 14
Fig 15
13. Now create a third mr Area Omni and
position it in the back of the room, just behind
the stairs. (Fig13)
14. Copy the parameters for this light from
Fig14.
15. Render the scene again. (Fig15)
Page 58www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 CandlelightChapter 05 Candlelight
Fig 16
Fig 17
Fig 18
16. The back light is too low, so we need to
increase its multiplier and set a brighter color.
(Fig16)
17. Render the scene. Now the back light seems
to be ok. (Fig17)
18. The room is still too dark, so we need to
increase the general ambient light. Open the
Environment panel and set the Env. Color as
shown in Fig18. Render the scene again.
Chapter 05 Candlelight
Page 59www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 Candlelight Candlelight Chapter 05
Fig 19
Fig 20
Fig 21
19. Now we can set the parameters for the final
rendering. Open the Rendering panel and switch
to the Indirect Illumination tab. Set the Rays
value to 350. Switch to the Renderer tab and
copy the parameters for the sampling quality
from Fig19.
20. In Fig20 you can see the final rendererd
image. Save it as a picture.
21. We also need an Ambient Occlusion pass
to composite it over the original rendering. This
will help to enhance the details of the rendering.
Open the 3DENV_Part5_Candle_AO.max scene
file. In Fig21 you can see the parameters of the
AO shader that was created and assigned to
every object in the scene.
Page 60www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 CandlelightChapter 05 Candlelight
Fig 22
Fig 23
Fig 24
22. Render the AO pass and save it as a
picture, too. (Fig22)
23. Now open both the original rendering and
the AO pass with Adobe Photoshop. (Fig23)
24. Select the AO pass, copy it, and paste it
over the original rendering. (Fig24) Change its
blending mode to Multiply and use the Levels
tool to adjust its contrast.
Chapter 05 Candlelight
Page 61www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 05 Candlelight Candlelight Chapter 05
Fig 25
Fig 26
Fig 27
25.Select the Background (original rendering)
layer and duplicate it. Desaturate it and adjust
its Levels to expose the brightest areas. (Fig25)
26.Apply a fair amount of Gaussian blur to this
new layer; use the Hue & Saturation tool to
colorize it with a yellow/orange color and change
its blending mode to Overlay. Also, decrease its
Opacity value to about 69%. (Fig26)
27.Flatten all the layers together. If you wish
you can use the Exposure tool to improve the
exposure of the final image. (Fig27)
Originally designed & modelled by:
Richard TilburyTutorial by:
Luciano IurinoFor more from this artist visit::
www.pmstudios.it
Or contact them:
Chapter 06 Underwater
Chapter 06 Artificial Interior Lighting Underwater
Page 65www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 Underwater Underwater Chapter 06
Fig 01
Fig 02
Fig 03
Artificial Interior Lighting Underwater
In this last 3D Environment tutorial we’ll set up
a nice underwater scene for the ship cabin. Just
imagine it sunk and laying on the ocean bed.
You can find a lot of references all around the
web (for example, the “Titanic” movie) to see
how light behaves underwater, and most of all
the colours that you will need to use to give your
scene more realism.
1. First of all, let’s open the 3DENV_Part6_
Underwater.max scene file (Fig01).
2. We need to set up a basic lighting, and
then we can concentrate on obtaining a nice
underwater scene. Open the Rendering panel
(F10) and in the Common tab scroll down to the
Assign Renderer rollout and assign mental ray
Renderer as shown in Fig02.
3. Create a polygonal sphere, select its lower
half and delete it. Select all the remaining
polygons and flip them to make them point
inward.
Page 66www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 UnderwaterChapter 06 Underwater
Fig 04
Fig 05
Fig 06
4. Open the Material Editor (M) and create a
new Standard material of a blueish color. Also,
set its Self-Illumination parameter to 100%.
(Fig04)
5. Open the Rendering panel again and switch
to the Indirect Illumination tab. Enable Final
Gather and set its Mutliplier to 10. Also change
its color to a nice green. Set the Rays per FG
Point to 100 for now (we’ll increase it later for
the final rendering).
6. If we render the scene now (Fig06), you’ll
notice that it’s way too bright and greenish. It’s
because we don’t have any “real” light source
in the scene, so all the lighting is up to the Final
Gather solution we just created.
Chapter 06 Underwater
Page 67www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 Underwater Underwater Chapter 06
7. Create a mr Omni Light and position it
anywhere in the scene. Make sure that it’s
disabled (uncheck the On option).
8. Render the scene again. As you can see, now
it’s much too dark. We can now start working
on this solution to create our desired lighting
situation.
9. Move the mr Omni Light in the right position
(just above the opening in the ceiling, as shown
in Fig09) and copy the parameters from the
picture in the middle of Fig09.
Fig 07
Fig 08
Fig 09
Page 68www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 UnderwaterChapter 06 Underwater
10. Render the scene. Now it looks much better,
and the colors start to look fine. The shadows
are just too sharp, we need to blur them a little
with the Area Light feature.
11. Reach for the Area Light Parameter rollout
in the Light properties, make sure that it’s set
to On. Also check if the Type is set to Sphere.
Increase the Radius value up to 0,25m and the
Samples values (both U and V) to 10.
12. Render the scene again. This time we can
increase the rendering resolution to 640x480 to
have a better feedback on the overall quality of
the picture.
Fig 10
Fig 11
Fig 12
Chapter 06 Underwater
Page 69www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 Underwater Underwater Chapter 06
13. Now we’re ready to set the parameters for
the final rendering. Open the Rendering panel
and pump up the Rays per FG Point value to
500. Switch to the Renderer tab and copy the
parameters from the right picture in Fig13.
14. Here is our final rendering pass. We can
save it for later use in Photoshop.
15. Now open the 3DEnv_Underwater_Volume.
max scene file.
Fig 13
Fig 14
Fig 15
Page 70www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 UnderwaterChapter 06 Underwater
16. This scene was created to render the
Volume Light effect. There are different ways
to get this task done; we could use Mental
Ray’s own volume effect, but it would require
longer rendering times. So I choose to use the
standard volume light effect of 3dsmax. In this
scene a pure black material was assigned to
every object in the scene.
17. Open the Environment panel (8 shortcut
key). As you can see, a new Volume Light
effect was created and both the Directional
lights present in the scene were assigned to it.
(Fig17). Have a look at all the other parameters
marked in red in Fig17 and copy them in your
scene.
18. Render the scene. Everything is pure
black and here is our Volume effect. Save
this rendering as a picture for later use in
Photoshop.
Fig 16
Fig 17
Fig 18
Chapter 06 Underwater
Page 71www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 Underwater Underwater Chapter 06
19. We also need an Ambient Occlusion (AO)
pass to enhance the details in the rendering.
Open the 3DEnv_Underwater_AO.max scene
file and refer to Fig19 to see the AO shader
that was created assigned to every object in the
scene.
20. Here is the AO Pass rendering. Save
this picture, too. We’ll composite it later in
Photoshop over the original rendering.
21. Lastly, we need one more pass to composite
the final image. We need some particles and
bubbles all over the scene, otherwise it won’t
look like an underwater scene. Open the
3DEnv_Underwater_Particles.max file. In this
scene a pure black color material was assigned
to everything (just like before with the Volume
pass), and some particle systems were created
and put here and there in the scene.
Fig 19
Fig 20
Fig 21
Page 72www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 UnderwaterChapter 06 Underwater
22. If you select the particle systems and open
their Object Properties, you will notice that the
Motion Blur effect is enabled; this was done
to give the bubbles and particles some motion
effect, since we’re doing a static rendering and
not an animation.
23. You can also check the material that was
created and assigned to the particles.
24. Render this last pass and save it as a
picture. (Fig24) Now we’re ready to composite
all the passes together in Photoshop or similar
2D applications.
Fig 22
Fig 23
Fig 24
Chapter 06 Underwater
Page 73www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 Underwater Underwater Chapter 06
25. Let’s start with the AO Pass. Open the
original rendering and the AO Pass.
26. Copy the AO Pass and paste it over the
original rendering. Change the Blending Mode
for the AO Pass to Multiply and set its Opacity
value to 70. (Fig26)
27. Flatten the two layers together. Import the
Volume pass and paste it over the Background
layer. (Fig27). Change the Blending Mode to
Linear Dodge and set the Opacity value to 79%.
Fig 25
Fig 26
Fig 27
Page 74www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 UnderwaterChapter 06 Underwater
28. Flatten the layers again. Import the Particles
pass and paste it over the Background layer.
Change the Blending mode to Linear Dodge and
change its opacity until you’re happy with the
result. You can make the bubbles and particles
more or less evident; it’s really up to you.
29. Flatten everything once again, and create
a copy of the Background layer. Desaturate it
and use the Levels tools to adjust its levels like
shown in Fig29.
30 .Apply a fair amount of Gaussian Blur to the
top layer and change the Blending Mode to
Linear Dodge. Also change the Opacity value
to 83%.
Fig 28
Fig 29
Fig 30
Chapter 06 Underwater
Page 75www.3dcreativemag.com Environment Lighting
Chapter 06 Underwater Underwater Chapter 06
Fig 31
Fig 32
31. You can also colorize the top layer with a
blue colour.
32. Finally, use the Exposure tool to enhance
the exposure of the picture (Fig 32).
This concludes our environmental lighting
series. I hope you found it of some use.
3D Environment Lighting Part 6 - Underwater
Originally Designed & Modelled by
Richard Tilbury
Tutorial by:
Luciano IurinoFor more from this artist visit:
www.pmstudios.it
Or contact them:
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- Section 1: The Basics - Using the Interface.- Section 2: Modelling - Head, Nose, Horns & the Eyes.- Section 3: Mapping & Unwrapping. - Section 4: Texturing - Painting Skin, Eyes & the Horns. - Training by in-house 3D Artist Richard Tilbury.- Over 3hrs 30mins of comprehensive training.- Printable step by step PDF.- Suitable for all levels of artist.
- Section 1: The Basics - Using the Interface.- Section 2: Modelling - Head, Nose, Horns & the Eyes.- Section 3: Mapping & Unwrapping. - Section 4: Texturing - Painting Skin, Eyes & the Horns.- Training by Julian Sarmineto - Sony Picture Imageworks.- Over 3hrs 30mins of comprehensive training.- Printable step by step PDF.- Suitable for all levels of artist.
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Introduction:The ‘Eva Wild Series’ – Our aim in this series is to pro-vide comprehensive lessons to produce a complete fully rigged, textured and anatomically correct female char-acter. This series fits well into 3 DVDs with 3 separate professional 3ds Max instructors taking you through each if their specialties in very detailed step by step processes making this training suitable for artists of all levels.
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Introduction: Michel Roger’s famous ‘Joan of Arc’ tutorial re-written for Maya by Taylor Kingston, Cinema 4D by Giuseppe
Guglielmucci & Nikki Bartucci, Lightwave by Vojislav Milanovich and
Softimage by Luciano Iurino and 3DCreative Magazine.com.
If there has been one single tutorial that has educated and inspired more
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These 120 plus page, Downloadable PDF’s are designed for ease of use to help beginners and intermediate level of artist alike in the creation of a female character. The tutorial takes you through the process of modelling, texturing and mapping to finally adding bones.Chapter 1: Modeling of the Body - BodyChapter 2: Modeling of the Head - Head, Ear & AssemblyChapter 3: Modeling of the Accessories - The Sword & Armour Legs Chapter 4: Modeling of the Accessories - Armour Bust, Hair & Glove Chapter 5: Modeling of the Accessories - Accessories & UVW MappingChapter 6: UVW Mapping - Sword, Clothing, Armour & Body Chapter 7: Texturing & Hair - Eyes, Skin & Hair Chapter 8: Bones & Skinning - Bases, Hierarchy & Skinning
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Chapter 1: Modelling the HeadChapter 2: Modelling the Torso Chapter 3: Modelling the Arms & Legs Chapter 4: Modelling the Clothing & Hair Chapter 5: Modelling the Armour Chapter 6: Mapping & Unwrapping Chapter 7: Texturing the Skin & Body Chapter 8: Texturing the Armour & Clothing
image by Seong-wha Jeong
Downloadable Tutorial EBook
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