DAZ Studio Lighting Solutions : Indoor and Outdoor Scenes

Lighting your indoor or outdoor set in DAZ Studio can be one of the most time consuming activities when setting up a scene for render. Most artists will have lighting as a pain point during their workflow and it is not always easy to get to the root cause of why lighting may not work on a set.

In this two part webinar series, Drew Spence shows you how to set up lights from scratch for both indoor and outdoor environments. He also picks his top ten recommended resources from the DAZ store and demonstrates how these work, saving you time in your workflow.

Drew has designed lighting for hundreds of sets for the production of his “Force Six, The Annihilators” comic series and he is pleased to share his lighting experience and adventures in creativity.

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Part 1 : Indoor Lighting for Iray

(already broadcast)

Date : Saturday 30th of January

Time : 21:00 GMT (London) / 13:00 EDT (New York) / 16:00 PDT (Los Angeles)

Section 1 : Creating lights from scratch

Case study used : Medieval chamber set with fireplace and candle lights; designing lighting for a fantasy set.

• Why monitor calibration can be essential for your art
  Composition focus : ensuring the main subject(s) are well lit and highlighted
• Point lights
  • How point lights work
  • Types of paint light
  • The advantage of linear point lights
  • Point light geometry
  • Recommended Luminous Flux Settings
• Spotlights
  • Lighting a specific area
  • Positioning
  • Beam length
  • Applying to the main subject
  • Using a spot light to creating leading lines
• Emissive Lighting
  • Adding an emissive.
  • Flame props

Section 2 : Product Recommendations

Case study used : Dramatic medieval keep set with three characters

• Consistency in lighting for sequential art
• How to use IRay light probes
  • Selecting colours and intensities
  • Keeping light levels low for light probes
• Demonstration of flaming torch products
• How to use a Ghost Light Kit
  • Selecting light colours
  • Placing ghost lights underneath characters.
  • Test of an Iray ghost light kit 3 (God Rays) through a window
• Epic props : Godrays and volumetric light for Iray
  • Particle spread in god rays
  • Volumetric light through a window – great for dramatic atmospheres.
• Recommended Learning Task Included

Part 2 : Outdoor Lighting for Iray

Date : Saturday 20th of February

Time : 21:00 GMT (London) / 13:00 EDT (New York) / 16:00 PDT (Los Angeles)

Section 1 : Using DAZ Studio’s Built in Lighting

Case study used : Using an island beach set with a single character

• Picking the render frame size
• The Sun
• Default HDRI background : The default lighting conditions for a set.
• Sky dome mode options
• Dome rotation
• Using Iray Sky 36
• The headlamp off
• Iray settings : About tone Mapping
• Iray settings : Camera properties
• Checking the sun in an environment
• Duplicating the sun and using this as an additional lighting source
• Blend renders in postwork (same scene lit differently) for final lighting options.
• Using instances of DAZ Studio in your workflow for rendering

Case study used : Medieval Melee action fight scene

• Solving blown out lighting problems
• Tone mapping
• Fix lighting in the scene rather than in postwork
• Environment mode, lighting resolution,
• Turning off the HDRI default dome: lighting from scratch
• Environment Sun node (special effect)
• Latitude and longitude
• Environment sun settings
• Altering the sky backgrounds
• Rendering night scenes

Section 2 : Recommended Resources Demonstrated

• Longitude and Latitude Lighting and Render presetsfor DS Iray
• Dreamlight : Quick Iray Outdoor presets

About the Presenter Drew Spence