Lighting professionals in the CG field are called on to find the most efficient way to light a scene and bring it to the peak of its beauty. Again, this only comes from experience. The best way to learn about lighting is to light some scenes. The best way to become a crackerjack lighting artist is to spend months and years honing your eye and practicing the latest procedures, such as HDR lighting.
The file still_life_v01.mb in the Lighting project on the CD contains the scene of the still life with no lights so you can play with lighting and shadow methods as well as light linking to create some extra focus on some parts of the frame. The file still_life_v02.mb contains the same scene, but with three-point lighting already set up.
Notice in the still_life_v02.mb file that two lights make up the key light (spotLight1 and spotLight2). One light makes up the fill light (directionalLight1), and two lights (spotLight3 and spotLight4) make up the back light.
For practice, download some models from the Internet, and arrange them into your own still-life scenes to gain more lighting experience. Set up scenes, time the rendering process, and try to achieve the same lighting look using faster lighting setups that may not be as taxing on the renderer. Also, try taking pictures of situations and trying to match the lighting in the photo, as you’re doing with the decorative box.
Try setting up simple scenes. Start with an indoor location that is lit by a single light bulb. Then, try the same scene in the following locations to expand your lighting repertoire:
1. A photography studio
2. Outside in the morning on a bright summer day
3. Outside at dusk in the fall
4. Outside at night under a street lamp
5. Inside on a window ledge
6. At the bottom of a closet lit by a nearby hallway light