Daz Lighting methods in these two examples

[CaramelCowboy]

Dear Daz Studio users,

I understand this is an annoying topic to see again and again but I still can't figure it out.
Can anyone point out the main differences in these two lighting styles and how to achieve them?

One is from AoA academy which has a very bright colorful feel and the other one is from Babysitter which is the lighting style I usually accomplish in scenes.
Does anyone know the key to getting the bright colorful setting? I've seen people say it could be post work but that would mean finetuning postwork on thousands of images which doesn't seem viable to me.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

warning, I don't use daz to render so I will be using general terms, idk the daz technical terms.

The shadows have a hard edge, that indicates that the light is 'physically small' aka making the lighting look 'hard' creating harsh shading/shadows. to fix that, make the light physically large, this will make the light 'soft' making the shadows or the shading smooth. you will need to greatly increase the brightness of the light with size. The light on the left side of the image is slightly infront of the character, acting as a 'key' light, with the light on the right being behind the character, acting as a 'rim' light (Ref). both lights looks to be slightly above to allow a dark side on the bottom side of things (breast, chin, brow). I'm guessing that you will need to decrease the shine or specularity (or vis versa increase roughness) to make the skin less likely to have those shiny highlight spots.

notice that the corners of the image looks to be shaded darker. this in a post effect known as a vinette. the point of a vinette is it make the focus of the image more towards the center, to highlight where the camera is pointed, where as without this effect the image on the other side looks quite flat, as you don't know where you need to be looking since everything is equally shown. also have it only slightly dimmer than the character/forground so that the character is easy to pick out from the background.

the background is more evenly lit, with some shiny stuff, but other than that it is made to be easy to read, no distracting details like lights or shadows, and to make the background less distracting and the character more interesting, the background is slightly blurred as if out of focus from the camera. if you want to render a 3D scene and have this effect. you can either render the background as it's own image and blur it (aka a post effect) or you can set up your camera with a DOF and adjust it to get something you like.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

First looks like any kinda bright HDRI. You may want to use your HDRI with additionals Iray planes or an

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. Second looks like a small spotlight.

You can postwork in batch with the right tool (but I don't think there is any imo outside the inexhaustible denoiser).

 

[Rich]

At least part of the lighting on the right-hand image is clearly done with a spotlight with relatively small diameter. Note the strong directional shadows, and how the shadow of the arm across the chest is quite sharp. There may be other lighting on the background - it's hard to tell.

As no__name says, the lighting on the left-hand image is almost certainly done with an HDRI. Note how there are no really strong directional shadows. This indicates that the light source is large and spread out. This also gives the very soft edges on the shadows on the back sides of the character's arms, and the very soft shadow of the arm across her chest, for example.

The larger the light source's area, the softer the shadows it's going to cast are going to be, because different parts of the light source "peek around" curved surfaces to different degrees.

Of course, the left-hand pic is outside, and the right-hand one is inside. Inside shots are harder to light. A few different approaches to getting HDRI-type light in there:

1. If you can "turn off" walls or the ceiling, this would allow "outside" light to get in. Any HDRI you have set up in the environment will then be illuminating the interior.
2. You can use an iRay Section Plane to "cut away" part of the walls/ceiling. An iRay Section Plane can be configured not to block lighting. no__name mentions the IRay Interior Camera - that's a camera that has an iRay Section Plane parented to it.
3. You can just make your light sources bigger. "Rectangular" plus, maybe, 100x100 instead of the default 10x10. (Those are in centimeters, so a 10cm light source isn't every big.)
4. Put in additional spotlights from different angles. I very commonly light characters using two spotlights, one on either side of the camera and somewhat above it. Again, having the second spotlight will tend to reduce the tendency for shadows to be very sharp.
5. Put a Ghost Light or a very large spotlight with wide spread angle above the scene, facing down. Can simulate overhead lighting, light reflecting off the ceiling, etc.

In the "real world," you have light coming from all sorts of different directions at all sorts of different intensities - multiple illumination sources, light bouncing off walls and objects, being refracted by dust in the air, etc. In CG, the materials don't always react the way "real world" materials do, so you don't get some of the same scattering. Thus, unless you fiddle, the lighting tends to look more artificial. HDRI's go a long way to solving that, when you can use them, because they present light from all sorts of different angles and at different intensities. So that's one of the reasons scenes using them sometimes tend to look more "naturally lit." It's more like... real nature. LOL

 

[CaramelCowboy]

Thank you all of you for your replies. I learnt a lot from literally all 3 posts so it's really appreciated

 

[79flavors]

I will freely admit, I know sod all about Daz lighting... which hasn't stopped me collecting F95 posts with links to various sources for some lighting background knowledge...

How to use lighting and other techniques to improve a very specific scene (the advice is transferable to other scenes).

https://f95zone.to/threads/create-a-realistic-portrait-in-daz-studio-videos.22733/​

A bit of background about 3-point and 4-point lighting (Already sort of explained within the previous post).

https://f95zone.to/threads/need-hel...-better-and-more-realistic.57254/post-3870401​

Some advice about lighting night scene (... and how you shouldn't be scared to light the foreground).

https://f95zone.to/threads/need-help-for-night-time-scenes-in-daz.57411/post-3872658​

I don't think any of these posts will give you explicit answers... but they will at least give you enough overall background knowledge to keep you on the right path.