3dtotal com ltd 3d environment lighting 3dsmax

Sunny Afternoon - Twilight - Moonlight - Electrical Candlelight - Underwater

3D environment

lighting

‘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

Chapter 01

Natural Exterior Lighting

Sunny Afternoon

Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon

Natural Exterior Lighting

Fig 01

Sunny Afternoon

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.

Fig 02

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

Fig 03

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).

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Environment Lighting

Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01 Fig 04

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).

Fig 05

5. If we render the scene now, we’ll see just the default lighting since there are currently no lights in the scene (Fig05).

Fig 06

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6. Create a Target Direct light and position it as shown in Fig06.

Environment Lighting

Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon 7. Enable Shadows and set its type to Ray

Fig 07

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

Fig 08

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.

Fig 09

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.

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Environment Lighting

Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01 Fig 10

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.

Fig 11

Fig 12

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).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon 13. Select all of the polygons (Ctrl + A) and flip

Fig 13

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

Fig 14

its Diffuse colour to something like R=255, G=245, B=203 (Fig14). Also, set its SelfIllumination value to 100 (Fig14).

15. Open the Rendering panel and switch to the Indirect Illumination tab and enable Final

Fig 15

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).

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Environment Lighting

Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01 Fig 16

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).

Fig 17

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).

Fig 18

18. Set the Diffuse Bounces to 20 and increase the Direct Target light’s Multiplier to 4. Render the scene again (Fig18).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon 19. Since we increased the light’s Multiplier,

Fig 19

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

Fig 20

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

Fig 21

and render the scene (Fig20).

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Environment Lighting

Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01 Fig 22

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 AntiAliasing 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.

Fig 23

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).

Fig 24

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.

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 01 Sunny Afternoon 25. Adjust the Levels until you get something

Fig 25

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

Fig 26

Blur (Fig26).

27. Set the top layer’s opacity to a lower value, and change the Hue & Saturation to something

Fig 27

warmer (Fig27).

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Environment Lighting

Sunny Afternoon Chapter 01 Fig 28

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.

Fig 29

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).

Fig 30

30. If you want, you can improve the exposure of the picture with the Exposure tool in Photoshop.

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Environment Lighting

3D Environment Lighting Chapter 01 Natural Exterior Lighting Sunny Afternoon Originally designed and modelled by:

Richard Tilbury Tutorial by:

Luciano Iurino For more from this artist visit: www.pmstudios.it Or contact them: iuri@pmstudios.it

Chapter 02 Twilight

Chapter 02

Natural Exterior Lighting

Twilight

Twilight Chapter 02 Natural Exterior Lighting

Fig 01

Twilight

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

Fig 02

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

Fig 03

hide everything else. This will help us achieve a better visualisation whilst we create the lights that we need for the scene (Fig03).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 02 Twilight Fig 04

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.

Fig 05

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.

Fig 06

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.

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Environment Lighting

Twilight Chapter 02 7. Select the mental ray Area Omni light and

Fig 07

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

Fig 08

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

Fig 09

Environment panel (use the <8> shortcut key) and change the Background Colour to R=247 B=176 G=98 (Fig09).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 02 Twilight Fig 10

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...

Fig 11

11. Open the Rendering panel once again and switch to the Indirect Illumination tab. Enable Final Gather and set the Preset to Draft (we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need high quality at the moment, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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).

Fig 12

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).

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Environment Lighting

Twilight Chapter 02 13. Now we have a nice lighting situation, with

Fig 13

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).

Fig 14

14. Render the scene again, and save the final picture to use it later in Photoshop for postproduction (Fig14).

15. Now we need to render an Ambient Occlusion pass to composite it with the rendered

Fig 15

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.

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 02 Twilight Fig 16

16. Render the scene to create the Ambient Occlusion pass that we need (Fig16). Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget to render the AO pass with the same size as the previously rendered picture.

Fig 17

17. Start Photoshop and import both the original rendering and the Ambient Occlusion pass (Fig17).

Fig 18

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).

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Environment Lighting

Twilight Chapter 02 19. Change the AO Pass blending mode to

Fig 19

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).

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Fig 20

Fig 21

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 02 Twilight Fig 22

22. Change the Levels until you expose the brightest areas of the image (Fig22).

Fig 23

23. Apply a fair amount of Gaussian Blur to this layer and colourise it (Hue & Saturation), as shown in Fig23.

Fig 24

24. Change the Blending Mode for this layer to Linear Dodge and set its Opacity value to 56% (Fig24).

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Environment Lighting

Twilight Chapter 02 25. Select both layers and flatten them together

Fig 25

(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

Fig 26

the desired effect (Fig26).

27. Finally, you can adjust the exposure to slightly change the overall feel of the image

Fig 27

(Fig27).

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Page 25

Environment Lighting

Originally designed & modelled by:

Richard Tilbury Tutorial by:

Luciano Iurino For more from this artist visit: www.pmstudios.it Or contact them: iuri@pmstudios.it

Chapter 03

Chapter 03

Natural Exterior Lighting

Moonlight

Moonlight

Moonlight Chapter 03 Natural Exterior Lighting

Fig 01

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

Fig 02

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

Fig 03

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).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 03 Fig 04

Moonlight

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).

Fig 05

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).

Fig 06

6. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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.

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Environment Lighting

Moonlight Chapter 03 7. Go back to the mental ray Area Omni

Fig 07

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

Fig 08

Fig 09

colour that we just gave to the Omni light, and let’s render the scene again (Fig09).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 03 Fig 10

Moonlight

10. Now we need some bounces of light all around the scene. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enable Final Gather in the Indirect Illumination tab of the Rendering panel. Set the Preset to Draft and render the scene again (Fig10).

Fig 11

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.

Fig 12

12. Now thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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).

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Environment Lighting

Moonlight Chapter 03 13. The Key light seems to be OK. We now

Fig 13

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

Fig 14

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

Fig 15

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).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 03 Fig 16

Moonlight

16. Render the scene and save this picture, too (Fig16).

Fig 17

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).

Fig 18

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18. Change the blending mode for the AO pass to Overlay (Fig18).

Environment Lighting

Moonlight Chapter 03 19. Use the Levels tool to adjust the levels until

Fig 19

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

Fig 20

Fig 21

(Fig21).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 03 Fig 22

Moonlight

22. Adjust the Levels to expose the brightest areas (Fig22).

Fig 23

23. Use the Gaussian Blur filter to blur this layer, and then change its colour to something blueish (Fig23).

Fig 24

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24. Change the blending mode to Screen and the Opacity value to about 47% (Fig24).

Environment Lighting

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).

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Page 37

Environment Lighting

Originally designed & modelled by:

Richard Tilbury Tutorial by:

Luciano Iurino For more from this artist visit: www.pmstudios.it Or contact them: iuri@pmstudios.it

Chapter 04 Electrical

Chapter 04

Artificial Interior Lighting

Electrical

Electrical Chapter 04 Artificial Interior Lighting

Fig 01

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).

Fig 02

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

Fig 03

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).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 04 Electrical Fig 04

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.

Fig 05

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).

Fig 06

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06. Now simply clone the Omni light and position it right in the second light bulb (Fig06).

Environment Lighting

Electrical Chapter 04 07. Open the Rendering panel and assign

Fig 07

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,

Fig 08

Fig 09

but the back of the room is completely dark. We therefore need to create another Omni light over there (Fig09).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 04 Electrical Fig 10

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).

Fig 11

Fig 12

11. Render the scene again. Now thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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 weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll increase the quality later) (Fig12).

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Environment Lighting

Electrical Chapter 04 13. Render the scene again. Now thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much

Fig 13

more light in the scene (Fig13).

14. Now we can increase the Rays to 500 to have a better quality for the FinalGather solution

Fig 14

(Fig14).

15. Open the Rendering panel again and switch to the Renderer tab. Set the Minimum/Maximum

Fig 15

values to 16/64 and the Filter type to Mitchell.

Also set the values for Spatial Contrast to 0,02 (Fig15).

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 04 Electrical Fig 16

16. Now we can render the scene with full quality and save it as a picture (Fig16).

Fig 17

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.

Fig 18

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18. Render the AO scene and save it as a picture, too (Fig18).

Environment Lighting

Electrical Chapter 04 19. Open both pictures (the original render and

Fig 19

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 layerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blending mode to Overlay (Fig21).

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Fig 20

Fig 21

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 04 Electrical Fig 22

22. Use the Levels tool to adjust the contrast of the AO pass over the original image (Fig22).

Fig 23

23. Flatten all the layers together, then create a copy of the Background layer and desaturate it (Fig23).

Fig 24

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Page 48

24. Adjust the Levels to expose the areas with more light (Fig24).

Environment Lighting

Electrical Chapter 04 25. Change the blending mode to Linear Dodge

Fig 25

and set the Opacity to 38% (Fig25).

26. Flatten all the layers together. Create another blank layer and fill it with pure black.

Fig 26

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%

Fig 27

(Fig27).

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Page 49

Environment Lighting

Originally designed & modelled by:

Richard Tilbury Tutorial by:

Luciano Iurino For more from this artist visit:: www.pmstudios.it Or contact them: iuri@pmstudios.it

Fig 28

28. Duplicate the Flare pass and position it over the second light bulb (Fig28).

29. Finally, you can use the Exposure tool and Fig 29

the Shadow/Highlight tool to enhance the image as you wish (Fig29).

Chapter 05 Candlelight

Chapter 05

Artificial Interior Lighting

Candlelight

Candlelight Chapter 05 Artificial Interior Lighting

Fig 01

Candlelight

This time weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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

Fig 02

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,

Fig 03

self-illuminated blueish material. Assign it to the sphere. (Fig03)

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 05 Candlelight Fig 04

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)

Fig 05

Fig 06

05. Render the scene. Now we have a basic night lighting. (Fig05)

06. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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)

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Environment Lighting

Candlelight Chapter 05 07 .Modify the lightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parameters as shown in Fig07. Enable Shadows and make sure that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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

Fig 08

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

Fig 09

two candle lights. (Fig09)

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 05 Candlelight Fig 10

10.Create another mr Area Omni and position it near the seat on the right of the scene. Make sure that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just out of the view. (Fig10)

Fig 11

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.

Fig 12

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Page 56

12. Render the scene again to check this new light, too. (Fig12)

Environment Lighting

Candlelight Chapter 05 13. Now create a third mr Area Omni and

Fig 13

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)

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Fig 14

Fig 15

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 05 Candlelight Fig 16

16. The back light is too low, so we need to increase its multiplier and set a brighter color.

(Fig16)

Fig 17

Fig 18

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.

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Environment Lighting

Candlelight Chapter 05 19. Now we can set the parameters for the final

Fig 19

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

Fig 20

Fig 21

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.

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 05 Candlelight Fig 22

22. Render the AO pass and save it as a picture, too. (Fig22)

Fig 23

Fig 24

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.

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Environment Lighting

Candlelight Chapter 05 25.Select the Background (original rendering)

Fig 25

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

Fig 26

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

Fig 27

exposure of the final image. (Fig27)

Originally designed & modelled by:

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Page 61

Environment Lighting

Richard Tilbury Tutorial by:

Luciano Iurino For more from this artist visit:: www.pmstudios.it Or contact them: iuri@pmstudios.it

Chapter 06 Underwater

Chapter 06

Artificial Interior Lighting

Underwater

Underwater Chapter 06 Artificial Interior Lighting

Fig 01

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

Fig 02

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.

Fig 03 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.

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 06 Underwater Fig 04

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)

Fig 05

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).

Fig 06

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.

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Environment Lighting

Underwater Chapter 06 7. Create a mr Omni Light and position it

Fig 07

anywhere in the scene. Make sure that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s disabled (uncheck the On option).

8. Render the scene again. As you can see, now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s much too dark. We can now start working

Fig 08

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

Fig 09

in Fig09) and copy the parameters from the picture in the middle of Fig09.

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 06 Underwater Fig 10

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.

Fig 11

11. Reach for the Area Light Parameter rollout in the Light properties, make sure that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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.

Fig 12

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.

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Environment Lighting

Underwater Chapter 06 13. Now weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re ready to set the parameters for

Fig 13

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.

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Fig 14

Fig 15

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 06 Underwater Fig 16

16. This scene was created to render the Volume Light effect. There are different ways to get this task done; we could use Mental Rayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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.

Fig 17

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.

Fig 18

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.

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Page 70

Environment Lighting

Underwater Chapter 06 19. We also need an Ambient Occlusion (AO)

Fig 19

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. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll composite it later in

Fig 20

Photoshop over the original rendering.

21. Lastly, we need one more pass to composite the final image. We need some particles and

Fig 21

bubbles all over the scene, otherwise it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;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.

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 06 Underwater Fig 22

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 weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing a static rendering and not an animation.

Fig 23

Fig 24

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 weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re ready to composite all the passes together in Photoshop or similar 2D applications.

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Environment Lighting

Underwater Chapter 06 25. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s start with the AO Pass. Open the

Fig 25

original rendering and the AO Pass.

26. Copy the AO Pass and paste it over the original rendering. Change the Blending Mode

Fig 26

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

Fig 27

layer. (Fig27). Change the Blending Mode to Linear Dodge and set the Opacity value to 79%.

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Environment Lighting

Chapter 06 Underwater Fig 28

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 youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re happy with the result. You can make the bubbles and particles more or less evident; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really up to you.

Fig 29

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.

Fig 30

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%.

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Page 74

Environment Lighting

Underwater Chapter 06 31. You can also colorize the top layer with a

Fig 31

blue colour.

32. Finally, use the Exposure tool to enhance the exposure of the picture (Fig 32).

Fig 32

This concludes our environmental lighting series. I hope you found it of some use.

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Page 75

Environment Lighting

3D Environment Lighting Part 6 - Underwater Originally Designed & Modelled by

Richard Tilbury Tutorial by:

Luciano Iurino For more from this artist visit: www.pmstudios.it Or contact them: iuri@pmstudios.it

Introduction:

The aim of our training DVD’s is to provide the artist with the most comprehensive set of lessons available. This is achieved by presenting the training material in the form of: - step-by-step tuition.

- on-screen visual and audio instructions.

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- full-screen resolution flash movies.

All aspects of creating the finished projects are taught in a way that artist of all levels will be able to learn at their own pace. Once these techniques have been learnt , they can be equally applied to all your future modelling and texturing projects.

- 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.

- Section 1: Modelling.

- Section 3: Mapping & Unwrapping.

- Section 4: Texturing.

- 8hrs 30mins of comprehensive training.

- Suitable for all levels of artist.

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Buy the book to see just how they create their incredible imagery! for more products in our range visit http://www.3dtotal.com/shop

Hardback 21.6cm x 27.9cm in size 288 Full Colour premium paper pages

Introduction:

The ‘Eva Wild Series’ – Our aim in this series is to provide comprehensive lessons to produce a complete fully rigged, textured and anatomically correct female character. 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.

Part 1 - Modelling:

- Complete step by step modelling of the Eva Wild character.

- Teaches the importance of studying human anatomy.

- Provides clear diagrams showing muscle flow and bone structure.

- 14 hours of comprehensive training.

- Suitable for artist of all levels.

Part 2 - Texturing, Mapping & Clothing:

- Complete step by step texturing process of the Eva Wild character.

- Modelling and Texturing of Eva Wild garments.

- Lighting the character.

- 4 hours and 47 mins of comprehensive training.

- Suitable for artist of all levels.

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- Complete step by step of setting up a fully animatable rig for the Eva Wild character.

- Creating a walk Cycle.

- Creating a simple face morph.

- 7 hours and 43 mins of comprehensive training.

- Suitable for artist 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 budding 3d artists than anything else, this complete step by step project by Michel’s must be it. The community is in debt to him.

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.

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Image by Michel Roger

Chapter 1: Modeling of the Body - Body Chapter 2: Modeling of the Head - Head, Ear & Assembly Chapter 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 Mapping Chapter 6: UVW Mapping - Sword, Clothing, Armour & Body Chapter 7: Texturing & Hair - Eyes, Skin & Hair Chapter 8: Bones & Skinning - Bases, Hierarchy & Skinning

Introduction:

A Collection of the ďŹ nest independent animated movies and commercial trailers. The DVD includes work from a whole number or different sources, such as students, independents animators and commercial studios. We want people to be able to view this wealth of elite animation in one convenient high resolution package whilst generating much exposure for these talented artists at the same time.

- Running Time: 3hrs 8 mins - 27 Shorts movies - 6 Clips & Trailers - Region Free, NTSC & PAL versions - Shorts & trailers from artist and studio like: Blur Studios Brian Taylor Marco Spitoni Patrick Beaulieu & Alex Mateo

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Downloadable Tutorial EBook

Introduction:

The original character of the Swordmaster was created by Seong-wha Jeong and we had 3DTotalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in-house 3d artist Richard Tilbury, re-create the character in 3dsmax as well as create the textures in Photoshop, in our new precise, step-by-step tutorial for highly polished, low polygon game character with detailed texturing for real-time rendering. We have also converted the tutorials into Cinema 4D, Maya, Lightwave and Softimage platforms. Even if you are not a user of one of them, the principles should be easily followed in nearly all other 3D applications.

The Swordmaster tutorials is spread over 8 Chapters which outline, in detail, the process for creating the Swordmaster below are the details.

image by Seong-wha Jeong

Chapter 1: Modelling the Head Chapter 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

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