Notice that our highlight is very small and that our shadows have become harsher.
I've adjusted the exposure so it's not blown out, and here is a light that's very far. When we're talking about lights we can also talk about how near or far they are. The lighting across our scene is very even and almost gray. The only shadow that we see is at the very base of the object, and it's also very diffuse. Its got very crisp shadows, there's a clear delineation of form on the surface of our object. This light source has sort of a medium hardness, whereas this is a very hard light. We can also talk about the hardness or the softness of a light source.
We now see a light coming from the upper right-hand side. We can also talk about a light's direction or its angle. We can talk about a light's intensity or its brightness. It's a pretty simple setup, but it's going to allow us to describe a lot of different light properties. This is an image of a semi-reflective sphere on a seamless white backdrop.
#Cinema 4d studio lighting how to
But also, so that you can look at light in the real world, and know how to recreate it. Partly so that you can work with other artists. But how do we do that? It's important to have a vocabulary to describe the way that light looks. Learning how to describe light is an excellent place to begin. Lighting is one of the least understood and most ignored elements I see in the work of beginning 3D artists.